Bookmarks & Burnouts

Chapter6

Silas

The clubhouse is loud, as it always is after school—music thumping somewhere in the back, somebody arguing over cards, the smell of oil and beer and whatever’s cooking in the kitchen. I ignore all of it and drop onto the worn couch in the corner with my phone in my hand.

I type out the message before I can talk myself out of it.

Me: This is Silas. We need to set a time to work on the project.

She answers faster than I expect.

Quinn: Okay. When works for you?

Me: Tomorrow after school. Where?

The three dots appear. Disappear. Come back.

Quinn: Not my house.

I stare at the words.

Not my house.

No explanation. Just a flat refusal. My thumb hovers over the screen.

Me: Why not?

It takes her longer this time.

Quinn: It just won’t work. Can we do it somewhere else?

Something cold and suspicious slides under my ribs. The bruise under her eye flashes through my head again—dark, poorly covered, the kind that doesn’t come from walking into a door. Combined with the way she shut down the idea of her house so fast, it paints a picture I don’t like.

I type the next message with more force than necessary.

Me: Clubhouse is too loud. You’ll hate it.

I’m not wrong. This place would swallow her whole.

Quinn: Library then?

I almost laugh. Almost.

Me: I’m not hanging out in the library like a f*****g nerd.

Across the room Joker is watching me with a s**t-eating grin. He raises his voice over the music.

“Careful, Havoc. You’re typing so hard you’re gonna crack the screen. What’s the little mouse saying that’s got you so worked up?”

I don’t look up. “f**k off.”

Red drops into the chair across from me, boots kicked up on the edge of the table. She nods at my phone. “Why not just bring her here? We can clear out the back room. It’s quieter.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Because the second she walked through those doors every pair of eyes in the place would be on her. Because she’d look even smaller and more out of place than she already does. Because I don’t want these people seeing the bruise or the way she flinches.

I don’t say any of that.

“She’d hate it,” I settle on. “And I need this grade. I’m not f*****g it up by scaring her off on day one.”

Red studies me for a long second, like she’s reading between every word I didn’t say. Joker opens his mouth again—probably to make another joke about me and the quiet girl—and I shoot him a look that finally shuts him up.

My phone buzzes.

Quinn: Then where? We have to work somewhere.

I drag a hand down my face.

Me: Diner on 5th. The one that’s open late. After your shift or whatever.

There’s a pause. Then:

Quinn: Okay. Tomorrow. 5:30?

Me: Fine.

I lock the screen and toss the phone onto the couch beside me like it burned me.

Red’s still watching.

“You’re worried about more than the grade,” she says quietly.

I don’t answer.

I don’t have to.

Joker, of course, can’t leave it alone.

He leans forward with that grin that always means trouble. “Or you could just bring her back to your room and get it over with. Project. Tension. Whatever else is making you look like you want to put your fist through a wall. Kill two birds with one—”

“Finish that sentence and I’ll break your nose,” I say without raising my voice.

He laughs anyway, holding up both hands. “Jesus. Touchy.”

Red kicks his boot hard enough to make him wince. “You’re an idiot.”

“I’m a visionary,” he corrects, still smiling. “There’s a difference.”

I ignore both of them and scrub a hand over my face. The image of Quinn sitting across from me in that diner tomorrow is already lodged under my skin—hoodie, bruise, those bright blue eyes behind the glasses that I noticed too late and can’t stop thinking about. I hate that I noticed. I hate that I care why she won’t let me near her house.

My phone buzzes again.

I almost ignore it, assuming it’s Quinn with some last-minute change of plans. Then I see the name on the screen and my entire body goes cold.

Dick.

Of course.

I open the text with my jaw already locked.

Dick: I expect an update on your grades by the end of the month. Do not make me come down there.

No greeting. No question about how I’m doing. Just the same cold threat he’s been holding over my head since the day he threw me out.

I stare at the message long enough that Red notices the shift in my expression.

“Who is it?” she asks, quieter now.

“Nobody.”

I type back the shortest response I can manage.

Me: I’ll graduate. Stay the f**k out of it.

I hit send and shove the phone into my pocket before he can reply. The familiar anger is already crawling up the back of my neck—hot, useless, and directed at a man who will never give a s**t whether I live or die as long as I don’t embarrass him.

Joker has gone uncharacteristically quiet. Even he knows better than to joke when d**k’s name comes up.

I stand up hard enough to make the couch shift.

“I’m going for a ride.”

Nobody tries to stop me.

I need the wind and the noise of the engine and anything that isn’t the sound of my father’s voice still echoing in my head—or the memory of a quiet girl who looked at me like I was something dangerous and still gave me her number anyway.

The road helps, but not enough.

I take the long way out of town, engine loud between my knees, wind cutting across my face hard enough to sting. It usually clears my head. Tonight it just gives me more room to think about things I don’t want to think about.

Quinn Keller.

The bruise. The way she shut down the second I asked about her house. The soft mouth I noticed too late and can’t stop replaying. The fact that she looked at me like I was the biggest threat in the room and still handed over her number anyway.

I don’t know exactly where she lives. I’ve never cared enough to find out. But I’ve heard the comments—Sloane’s little digs in the hallway, the way people talk when they think no one’s listening. Trailer park on the edge of town. The rundown one past the old water tower. The kind of place people only mention when they’re trying to be cruel.

I tell myself I’m not going there.

Then I turn the bike in that direction anyway.

Just to take a look, I decide. Nothing else. Confirm the rumors, file it away, and leave.

The park is exactly as bad as the stories make it sound. Rows of tired single-wides under weak streetlights, yards full of weeds and rusted s**t people never bothered to haul away. I slow down without fully stopping, engine dropping to a low idle as I roll past.

That’s when I see her.

A small figure in an oversized hoodie, moving fast and quiet along the side of one of the trailers near the back. She glances around once, then puts her hands on the windowsill and boosts herself up with the practiced ease of someone who’s done it a hundred times. One leg over. Then the other. She disappears inside and the curtain twitches shut behind her.

I sit there in the dark with the bike rumbling under me, staring at the closed window.

She sneaks in and out of her own house through the window.

The bruise under her eye suddenly makes a lot more sense. So does the hard refusal when I suggested meeting there.

Something ugly and protective twists hard in my chest. I don’t like it. I don’t want it.

I rev the engine louder than necessary and pull away before I do something stupid like knock on the door—or worse, wait around to see if she comes back out.

I don’t know what the f**k is going on in that trailer.

But I’m starting to get the feeling that the project is going to be the least complicated thing between us.