Until the End (Sea Breeze #9)(11)

Krit tried to jerk his arm free. “Dude, let go. I’ve already missed my bus. I need the ride. You don’t have to break my arm.”

I wasn’t aware my grip was so tight. I let go of him.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

He shook his arm as if to get feeling back in it, but he continued to walk beside me.

“Don’t you have football practice?” he asked, glancing back at the field I had been due at twenty minutes ago.

“Yeah,” I replied, jerking open the door to my dad’s beat-up truck. I only got to drive it when he was working nights and sleeping all day. That was this week. I just had to fill it with gas and wash it.

“You gonna get to play Friday night if you miss? I heard that you had scouts watching you all season.”

If my dad found out I’d missed a practice, he’d be furious. The only reason he hadn’t kicked me out was because I could play football. He liked knowing his boy was going to be something.

When I was younger, he had left me with my mom and had barely come to visit me. Then one day in middle school I had begged him to let me play football and he’d been excited about it. When the coaches praised me and I became the star of the team, Dad had taken me away from my mother more and more.

The day I had come home from school to find all my things packed up in the back of his truck, my mother had been standing on the porch with the man she was dating. She explained that she needed a life and it was my dad’s turn to take care of me. Plus, she couldn’t afford it anymore.

The next month she moved to another state, and I hadn’t heard from her since.

So Dad was all I had. A man who only loved what I could do. Not me.

“If you don’t get to play, everyone’s gonna be pissed. We can’t beat the Dolphins without you.”

I would get to play. Coach would be mad and he’d make me pay for it with longer practices. But he’d let me play.

“I’ll play. Tell me how to get to your house.”

Krit pointed to the left. “Take the main street until you’re almost out of town. Then turn right onto Forts Road. Fifth trailer on the left.”

Forts Road was in the bad area of Sea Breeze. I’d been on that road once before with my mother when I was a kid. She’d been buying pot from someone there. We didn’t live in a great part of town, but it wasn’t this bad. And Dad had an apartment that wasn’t so bad. It was better than the house I’d lived in with Mom.

But Forts Road . . . Shit. Trisha shouldn’t be there by herself.

“It ain’t all that bad. Stop looking so damn horrified,” Krit grumbled.

I started to argue with him, but I let it go. No need to make him feel bad.

Chapter Ten

Trisha

From my bed, where I had lain all day, I could hear the school bus pull up by the road. Mommie Dearest came home sometime after noon. She stumbled down the hall, and I heard her door slam. Then nothing else. She was hungover or still high and sleeping it off. The door to my room was closed, so she never thought to look inside.

I waited for the front door to open and Krit to come in, but I never heard it. Once the bus was gone and he still hadn’t come inside, I knew I had to get up. Something was wrong. If he missed the bus, he’d need me. I held my breath and tried not to groan as I sat up and slowly moved my legs off the bed. Once I had them both on the carpet, I stood up and took short breaths.

Today I had babied my side. Tomorrow I couldn’t do that. For starters, the wicked witch was now home. Then, of course, if I missed more school, they’d start calling here. That would be bad. Very bad.

Just as I took a step toward the door, I heard someone pull up outside. I froze and waited. Krit’s voice drifted through the window. I let out a sigh of relief. He’d gotten a ride. I continued to walk to the door, but then I heard another voice.

Once again . . . I froze.

Rock Taylor was here. Oh no. What had Krit done?

“That’s Mom’s car. She’s home,” I heard Krit tell Rock freaking Taylor! What was he doing?

Forgetting the pain, I opened my door and made my way down the hall and into the living room just as the front door opened up and in walked my brother, followed by Rock. Holy crap.

He was so big. Stepping into our trailer, he looked so out of place.

“Krit,” I croaked out, while my eyes were locked on Rock.

His gaze dropped to my ribs, and I remembered what I had on. Wrapping my arms around my waist, I tried to hide the tape we had used on my ribs. I hadn’t wanted my clothes to touch my injured ribs, so I was wearing a sports bra and a pair of cutoff sweatpants.

“I missed the bus. He gave me a ride,” Krit started to explain.

That didn’t make sense. “Why did you miss the bus?” I asked, still trying to figure out why Rock was here. In our trailer.

“He asked about you. When you didn’t show up at school. I told him . . .”

I snapped my gaze off Rock and glared at my brother. Surely he hadn’t told Rock what had happened. “You told him what?”

Krit shuffled his feet nervously. He had told him about Mom. Why would he do that? Rock Taylor wasn’t going to run in and save the day. He was interested in me. Now that he’d seen me like this, I hoped his fascination with getting in my pants would go away. My hair wasn’t washed and I looked awful.