Nowhere But Here (Thunder Road #1)(28)

I shake my head and rub my eyes. Sleeping Beauty must have been seriously disoriented after she woke up, but then she slept for years and me—I’ve obviously only slept an hour or so. “What time is it?”

“Too early to be awake,” Eli answers. “Go back to sleep, Emily. Your mom mentioned you don’t like the dark, woods or the unfamiliar so she said Olivia’s would make you uncomfortable. I’ll stay up if it’ll make you feel better.”

A pang of hurt shoots through me that she’d tell Eli, or anyone, my fear.

Another huff of warm air on my arm and the basset hound blinks at me before easing onto its hind legs to sit—while still on the bed. Nice to see it listened to Eli’s earlier command. Lars opens his mouth to allow his overly large pink tongue to spill out the side. He pants bad dog breath and looks at me like he’s smirking.

I detest dogs.

I wipe the slobber off my face then choke down the dry heave. Thick drool clings from finger to finger. Bad form to now deposit the slime anywhere else. Eli stands, pulls a white handkerchief out of his pocket and offers it to me. “Here.”

I accept the folded white square and take my time drying off my hand. According to the clock on the dresser it’s six in the morning and it’s too early to be attacked by drool. “When can I talk to Mom and Dad?”

“Soon,” Eli says. “They’ve moved locations. Once you get some sleep, I’ll take you to them.”

“Take me to them now.”

“You’ll see them in a few hours. Chill and go back to sleep.”

“Yay for your plans. Take me to them now.” I stare straight at Eli and he stares straight back at me. My biological father should scare the hell out of me with his glowering, but I’m too tired to be smart enough to worry. People obviously don’t talk back to him. My instincts must be right that he doesn’t have any other children. Or at least not ones he interacts with.

There’s a hard set to his jaw when he yanks his cell out of his back pocket and tosses it onto the bed. “They’re worried. I told them you had a rough night and were asleep. You’re so tired you passed out. You should be sleeping, not talking on the phone.”

I take his cell and scroll through the list of text messages already appearing on the screen. A grin attempts to pull at my lips. My mother is going absolutely ballistic. Not that I enjoy her panic, but it’s nice to see something familiar. The text conversations between my parents and Eli confirm it: I really wasn’t kidnapped.

I swing his phone back and forth. “Can I?”

“Contact them? It’d calm your mom down.” Eli relaxes back on the window seat and that stupid sloppy smile that I stupidly love crosses his face. “The past twenty-four hours have been so messed up that I haven’t had a chance to tell you how happy I am to see you. Because of Mom’s condition, I wasn’t sure when I was going to make it to Florida for a visit.”

My heart plummets and I focus on the texts even though I stopped reading. The expectant hope on Eli’s face cuts right through me. God, I’m an awful person and I don’t want to be an awful person. Eli’s a good guy and he has no idea how much I dread his annual visit to Florida.

When I was ten, I made a horrible mistake. One I continually pay for. A mistake that has brought heartache to my mother and a ton of continual hurt for me. I asked if I could see a picture of Eli because...because...I was curious.

Until then, Eli was a figment of my imagination. He was this floating nonexistent guy who had spared a few minutes of his life to create me. Thanks to a school report on family trees that included pictures, the eyelid-flipping boy I had hated since kindergarten pointed out that I resembled no one in my family. Not Dad’s parents, not my mother and definitely not my father.

I called the boy a jerk. He called me a brat. We were both called into the principal’s office. My parents were also summoned and in the middle of the parent-principal powwow, I asked if I resembled Eli.

My one question snowballed into a slew of arguments between my parents, a whole lot of tears from Mom, and it avalanched into a day at McDonald’s PlayPlace with this freaky-looking guy with tattoos and holes in his earlobes. He crouched in front of me with a sprig of daisies in his hand and introduced himself as my dad.

I’ve never been slapped before, but that’s as close to the pain as I could imagine. I curled myself around my father and he had to repeatedly pry me off him like dried-on glue. Since then, Eli, my father and I have been playing this game of once-yearly awkward visits because I was curious.

Curiosity is highly overrated.

Pushing reply, I text my mother:

It’s me. Just woke up with a dog next to me. Eli’s here. Glad to know you’re safe. I love you. Tell Dad I love him too. What’s going on?

Mom’s response is immediate. The cell buzzing every couple of seconds as she sends a flurry of texts:

We both love you very much. A dog? Please tell me they at least let you have a bed in the house. If you are in the clubhouse, tell Eli I’ll castrate him. Did Eli explain?

Not one explanation. Will demand one now.

“Mom threatened you with castration. Besides that, would you mind filling me in on what’s happening?”

Eli chuckles then pulls on his earlobe.

“She’s serious,” I say.

He chuckles more. “I know she is.”