All He Ever Desired by Shannon Stacey Read Free Book Online Page B

lifted her hand to let him know she’d heard him.
    Thanks to her son’s stupidity, she’d be seeing him Monday night. And Tuesday night. And Wednesday night.
    She got her car turned around and sped down the driveway as quickly as she could without kicking up gravel. And a couple of glances in the rearview mirror told her he watched her go until she was out of sight.

Chapter Four
    “I can’t believe you did this.” Lauren forced herself to stop strangling the steering wheel before she drove into a ditch. She should probably wait until they were home to have this discussion, but she couldn’t keep it inside. “What were you thinking? And don’t you dare shrug your shoulders at me.”
    “I dunno,” Nick mumbled.
    “That doesn’t cut it. What you did was criminal, Nick. Criminal . Chief Miller could have arrested you.” She started shaking just thinking about it.
    “Sorry.”
    He could say he was sorry all day long, but that’s not what she wanted to know. “Why did you do it?”
    “I dunno.”
    She would have screamed if she thought she could vent her frustration and focus on the road at the same time. “That’s not an answer. You’ve been getting in trouble at school. You’ve already had detention. And now you’re destroying people’s property and breaking the law. There has to be a reason.”
    “I’ll do better.”
    “Damn straight you will. But I still want to know why this happened. Are you doing drugs?”
    “No!” He took his eyes off his shoelaces, at least. “I swear.”
    “If you don’t straighten up, I’ll buy every home drug test they have at the drugstore, Nicholas. I mean it.”
    “I’m not, Mom.”
    “Then what’s going on?”
    He shrugged, gaze back on his feet. “I dunno. I just screwed up.”
    “Well,” she said as she pulled into her driveway,”now you get to call your dad and tell him you screwed up.”
    “Can’t you tell him?”
    “I’m going to talk to him once you’re done, but you’re going to tell him yourself.”
    She went through the mail while Nick made the phone call, though she didn’t really register the return addresses. Mostly bills, probably, so she tossed them on the counter unopened. Nick sounded on the verge of tears as he told Dean what he’d done, and she could hear her ex-husband’s voice, loud and angry, from halfway across the kitchen.
    “I’m sorry,” Nick said into the phone, and then he held it out to her. “Dad wants to talk to you.”
    Lucky her. “Hello?”
    “What the hell is this about Nick working for Ryan Kowalski?”
    “He’s going to work off the damages.”
    “Don’t you think you should have asked me first?”
    She wasn’t in the mood to have a pissing contest with her ex. “No, I don’t. Since you cried poverty when I asked for extra child support for school clothes and supplies, I’m guessing you don’t have an extra grand in the cookie jar.”
    “I don’t want my kid working for him.”
    Through the anger, Lauren felt a familiar tiny poke of guilt. Dean had a lot of resentment toward Ryan, but it was for the wrong reason. He didn’t know the truth of why his best friend had left town and never looked back. “You don’t have any choice.”
    “I don’t like it.”
    “This isn’t about you, Dean. This is about Nick breaking the law and Drew and Ryan giving him a chance to make it right rather than pressing charges, and whether you like it or not, he’s going to do just that.”
    “Why did it have to be him?” Dean muttered, and Lauren silently echoed the sentiment.
    “I have to go,” she told him. “Needless to say, Nick’s grounded. I trust you and Jody will follow through with that when he’s at your house.”
    “Yeah.”
    With nothing left to say, Lauren ended the call and leaned against the counter. Nick was still sitting at the table, picking at his thumbnail. “Do you have anything else to say?”
    “I’m sorry.”
    She shook her head, too frazzled to keep running in circles. “From