Powerless (Chestnut Springs, #3)(14)

“Hey! Wait up!” I hear Beau call, but I don’t look back. Humiliation drives me forward, and within minutes I’m leaned up against the white hunk of metal trying to catch my breath. It’s a shit place to live. But it’s dry, and it’s close to the hockey rink. And that’s all I care about.

“Are you really living here?”

I groan. Of course, he had to follow me. “Yeah.”

A hush expands between us. I’m too embarrassed to turn around and face him.

“Come to my house.” That’s what he breaks the tense silence with. That’s what has me spinning around to look at this bright, shiny golden boy of a teenager.

“Your house?”

“Yeah.” He nods surely, arms crossing over his chest as he tries to look at me and not the squalor I’ve been living in. “Lots of rooms. Lots of food.”

“I—”

“I’m not taking no for an answer. Grab . . .” He looks behind me now, features pinched. “Whatever you need. My brother Cade will drive us once Rhett is out of detention.”

“You sure?” A small, fragile flame of hope flickers inside of me. “What if your family doesn’t want me there?”

He just scoffs. “I guarantee my family doesn’t want you living here.”

And just like that Beau Eaton cements himself as one of the very best things in my life . . .

“Hi.” Sloane’s voice is quiet and tentative behind me.

“How’d you know I was here?” I don’t turn to look at her head poked out of the window. I’m still frozen, and it has nothing to do with how cold it is out right now.

“Hard to forget our nights out here, to be honest.”

She’s not wrong. Our nights spent out on the roof were some of the best of my life. They usually started out as the worst nights, but then she’d come join me and they were instantly better.

“I could also feel the cold air from the hallway.”

I grunt, not really in the mood for talking. In fact, I feel completely hollowed out.

“You cold, Jas?”

I shrug, not caring if I’m cold. I’m too busy imagining all the awful things that could have happened to my brother.

He told me he would leave the army soon. Of course, he always said that. And every time I wanted to believe him.

We all hated him deploying—it felt like the statistics weren’t stacked in his favor anymore. Like he’d gotten off scot-free too many times. Like he was too sunny and goofy, and the universe would take that away from him at some point.

I hear Sloane clambering out the window of her guest room. The room right beside the one I spent my teenage years in.

I’m about to tell her I want to be alone, but when she wraps a blanket around my shoulders and plops down beside me, tucking herself in against me, my body releases a breath I didn’t even know I’d been holding. She presses close beside me, all downy and comforting. Her sweet scent wafts to my nostrils. Smells like coconut and icing on a cupcake.

Forcing myself to stay staring at the dark fields, I ignore her presence. Until I see an ugly cartoon basset hound pushed up to my face.

“Drink.” It’s not a question. It’s a command.

I shake my head, feeling more like my traumatized teenage self than I have in years.

“Come on. I’m dehydrated from crying in the shower. Please don’t make me drink alone. Beau wouldn’t approve.”

I snort a laugh, but it’s followed by a wounded, keening noise. The sound of Sloane sniffing is the only response. We don’t look at each other.

“WWBD,” she says with a sure nod.

“Pardon?”

“What would Beau do? We both know he’d drink the beer.”

I’m sure if I even glance at her, I’ll break down, so I crack open the stupid Buddyz Best Beer and take a long pull.

“This tastes like shit.”

She drinks, and from my periphery, I see her nod. “Matches the day. Shit is the theme.”

I grunt my agreement. “You’re not wrong.”

Her shoulder bumps into mine but she doesn’t move away. She tucks in closer, pulling the same patchwork quilt we used as kids around us. And just like when we were younger, she doesn’t poke and prod. Or try to get me to talk about my feelings like a therapist I never asked for.

She’s just there.

“Do you think he’s dead?” I blurt, trying to cover my fear by chugging more beer. It’s the question that’s been dancing around in my head for the last couple of hours. The one I didn’t want to give voice to, but it leapt from me all the same.

I chance a look at Sloane now to see how she might react to my dark question. But as usual, she doesn’t shy away from my darkness—after all, she’s my Sunny. She chases away the dark just by being herself.

“I think . . .” She rolls the can between her hands, creating a loud crinkling sound in the quiet night. “I think that’s not the type of energy I want to put out into the universe for him right now.”

A strangled chuckle rumbles in my chest, and she jabs an elbow into my ribs. “I’m serious! Do you go into a game thinking you’re going to lose it? Or do you envision yourself winning? I obsessively run through a dance in my head before a performance, but I don’t let myself see a miss or a trip. And I’m going to treat this the same way.”