The Girl in the Love Song (Lost Boys #1)(18)

“Ah, a carny, eh?” Chet chuckled.

“He works at one of the biggest arcades down there,” Mom said, managing a smile for me. “Just promoted to assistant manager.”

I opened the fridge, my trembling hands reaching for an orange juice. My meal plan required I keep a stockpile of certain foods and drinks at all times, and we had to do it on a threadbare budget. I wasn’t as good as Vi about keeping my shit in order, but there were five bottles of juice this morning before work and now there were only three.

I plucked one from the shelf and shut the door. “What the hell?”

Mom frowned. “What the hell, what?”

I held up the juice “I’m short two.”

“I might’ve had a couple today,” Chet said, his eyes never leaving mine. “Didn’t know you were keeping count.”

I gave Mom a What the fuck? glare.

“Miller has to count everything,” she explained. “He has diabetes.”

“Yeah, I do. I’d have thought she might’ve mentioned that to you, Chet.”

Like, immediately, so you don’t eat and drink all the shit I need to live.

“My bad, buddy. Won’t happen again.”

He smiled at Mom, and she smiled back. It’d been a long time since I’d seen that smile—almost happy. The kind of happy that comes from not being alone anymore and no other reason.

I swigged my juice, one hand planted on the fridge door to keep me steady.

“Feeling okay? Your CGM went off a while ago.” Mom tapped her fingers on a smartphone—an old model, several generations behind the newest—from amid the crap on the coffee table.

“I’m aware,” I said, trying—and failing—to take the bite out of my words.

Before I had the CGM, I needed to fingerstick every two hours, twenty-four hours a day. Mom being my mom was supposed to set her alarm and check on me at night. Two trips to the ER in three months, I learned to set my own alarm. Mom was sleeping through hers and shutting them off in a half-sleep.

I couldn’t blame her. She worked two jobs to keep us afloat, and my diagnosis required more time and energy than she had to spare since my pancreas had decided to close up shop: Out of insulin. Come back never.

I’d learned pretty damn quick that when it came to taking care of my diabetes, I was on my own.

Except for Violet. The hospital could’ve sent her to me…

But they didn’t and that’s life.

I drank half of the juice and tucked the bottle in my backpack and slung it and my guitar case over my shoulder.

“Where are you going?” Mom called as I headed for the door.

“Out.”

“It’s late, and you have school tomorrow.”

“Does he give you trouble?” Chet asked Mom in a low, warning voice.

“No, he—”

“Hey. Boy.”

I froze with my hand on the doorknob. My head turned on a stiff neck to meet Chet’s dark, hard gaze.

“You give your mom a hard time, son?”

His words, casually threatening, slid icily down my spine. I tilted my chin and somehow managed not to blink. “I’m not your son.”

A short silence fell where I could only hear the beat of my heart crashing against my chest.

Mom waved the smoke away as if she could dissipate the tension between us. “Nah, he’s good. He’s a good kid.”

Chet’s eyes never moved from mine as he said to me and only me, “He’d better be.”





“Fucking hell,” I muttered, hands jammed in my pockets as I walked down the silent, darkened streets that wound down toward the beach. Over the last four years, Mom had guys come and go in various shades of loser-ness, but Chet felt like King Loser and permanently fixed to our couch.

That day was a shit day, and I wanted nothing more but to sleep. But now that Mom was having a sleepover with Chet fucking Hyland, I took a walk instead.

Even after Mom and I moved out of the car and to the apartment, I didn’t stop roaming at night. Walking to be alone. To escape. Sometimes I had the urge to walk all night and not stop. But without my meds, I’d wind up dead somewhere, and they wouldn’t find me until the seagulls had picked my bones clean.

“Cheery thought,” I muttered, the wind whipping my words away.

That night, I wandered the remote stretch of rocky beach fronted by high cliffs. I hunched deeper into my jacket. It was technically summer, but the Northern California coast didn’t get the memo.

Black waves, bearded in white foam, crashed against the rocky sand, clawing at it and then retreating, over and over. To the west, the glittering colored lights of the Boardwalk looked garish and wild. Even a mile away, I could hear the last roller coaster of the night rattle up the track, followed by the happy screams of the riders as it plummeted. The Ferris Wheel turned silently and slowly behind it.

I turned my back on the color and light and trudged deeper amid the craggy, porous rocks that were black and jagged under the meager moonlight. The high tide forced me to stay close to the boulders, and soon enough, I was climbing more than walking. To my right, the cliffs loomed. On my left, the ocean reached for me in angry grabs, spraying me with cold water with every attempt. I’d never come this far before.

Only when I stumbled, scraping my palm on a rough, salt-beaten rock to catch my balance, did I surrender. The water was starting to squelch around my boots, and if this stupid foray damaged my guitar, I’d never forgive myself.