Flock (The Ravenhood #1)(89)

And he is because he fucks me twice before he rolls a joint while I lay back in the seat, my head resting on the door, in nothing but my panties. From my vantage point I’m able to admire his profile, his physique, him. Music drifts from his speakers as I lift my bare foot and playfully massage his side with my toes as he readies the blunt paper.

“What is this?”

“David Bowie. Shhh,” he releases the weed into the paper and reaches for his dash to turn it up. “The first minute and a half of this song is money. Listen.”

And I do, deciding it’s definitely one for us to dissect and repeat. It’s one of our things now. He plays DJ, and we talk about the music. I’m pretty sure if he wasn’t a vigilante/criminal/mechanic, he would have done something in that arena.

“I love it.”

He flashes me a rare, full smile. “I knew you would.”

A flutter zigzags across my chest. He’s trying, for me. “Are you ever going to tell me why you didn’t like me at first?”

“Who says I like you now?”

I press into his side with my toes and earn a stink eye when some weed falls from his lap.

“If I say I like you, do I have to take you to prom?”

“I’m not that young.”

“You’re a baby.”

“You aren’t that much older.” He’s just had his twenty-sixth birthday, and I woke him up in a way I hope he’ll never forget.

“I’m old enough to know better.”

“Yet, you got really stupid with me.”

“Yeah,” he says thoughtfully, “I did.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t take offense,” he cuts in, apparently rethinking his word choice.

“Color me offended,” I dig my toes in, hoping it’s painful.

“Drama,” he chuckles, licking the blunt and sealing it. “Don’t be such a girl.”

“Sorry, I’ve been missing you.”

He frowns, and I laugh because I know it’s not the fact that he doesn’t want me saying those things, it’s that he feels like an asshole when he’s not in the mood to return the sentiment, and that mood comes more rarely than his smiles. There’s so much about him I can anticipate now, and I pride myself in getting close enough to understand him. Sean tried to tell me there was far more to him, but I didn’t truly recognize it until I got close enough to see, to experience it, for myself.

“Are you ever going to tell me what happened to your parents?”

I immediately regret my question because his eyes dim, his focus shifting past his windshield into the woods. We’re at the meetup spot, where he takes me often to work on his laptop when he wants to get out of the house before storms hit. I now consider it more our spot, though technically Tyler owns it. He bought it before joining the Marines.

“They died in an accident.”

“How old were you?”

“Six.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Joint in his lips, he tilts his head and lights it, his reply coming out on an exhale.

“Yeah, me too.” The now-familiar smell is a comfort as it clouds around me.

“I don’t remember a lot, images here and there of a smile. Of her cleaning up my knee after a bad bike ride, the color of her hair, like mine. The way she laughed hysterically. Little things, small pieces of her I keep locked up. But mostly, I remember the music she listened to because she played it all the time.” He swallows, his confession taking me by surprise.

“What we listen to? This is all her tastes?”

He nods. “Most of it, yeah.” He turns to me, his eyes shimmering with a rare vulnerability. “When I listen to it, I feel like I know her. The older I get, the better I understand the lyrics and understand her, you know what I mean?”

My heart melts with his confession, and I nod, wanting so much to pull him to me, but now’s not the time.

“And your father?”

He grimaces. “The same. A flash here and there.” He chuckles. “He had red hair.”

“No way.”

“Yeah, his father was Scottish, that’s where my namesake comes from, and his mother was French, so he was a half Scottish, half French mutt, raised in France.”

“You must not look a thing like him.”

“I don’t.”

“How did they meet?”

He takes another tug on the joint and exhales before passing it to me. “Different story for a different day.”

I don’t press my luck and inhale deep. “Do you have pictures of them?”

“A few, but they died before the digital revolution.” He pulls a piece of loose weed from his tongue. “Tatie has some photos locked away in her attic somewhere, but we weren’t much for family photos anyway.”

“Why is that? Because of The Ravenhood?”

He grins over at me, his brow lifting, an incredulous laugh in his question. “The Ravenhood?”

I shrug. “I mean, essentially that’s what you are. Don’t tell me you’ve never thought of it that way. Tyler is nicknamed the Friar.”

“It’s a lot less storybook to me.”

“Because you’re living it.”