All It Takes by Sadie Munroe Read Free Book Online Page B

the key out of the ignition. “Come on,” I say. “We’re going inside.”
    “No,” he snaps, and I kind of jerk in my seat at his tone. I look up at him, and the anger just bleeds right out of his face right in front of me. He sighs and scrubs both of his hands over his face. “Fuck. Sorry,” he says. “It’s not your fault. I just . . . This is a
really
bad idea. I’m not exactly welcome in there.”
    “Look,” I unbuckle my seat belt and turn in my seat to face him straight on. “I heard what they said to you. But the way I figure it, you have two options here. You either hide yourself away until your parole ends and you can start over somewhere else, or you
make
these people accept you.” He’s not looking at me. He’s just sort of staring off into space. I reach out and hesitantly place my hand on his arm. He doesn’t move.
    “Why are you doing this?” he asks.
    “What do you mean?”
    “I killed someone,” he says. “I got high as fuck and I killed someone.” He squeezes his eyes shut and his head smacks back against the headrest hard enough that it actually looks like it hurts. “And you’re just here. Why are you even here? Why aren’t you just like everyone else?”
    “Look, you messed up,” I say. “Bad. I’m not going to pretend like you didn’t. But you’ve served your time, and you’re stuck living here until your parole is up. You’re trying to do the right thing.” I rub my hand against the sleeve of his jacket.
“Illegitimi non carborundum.”
    That
got his attention. He opens his eyes and looks at me.
Ah, there was the why are you suddenly a lizard-person look again.
    “What. The. Fuck?”
    I can’t help it. I throw my head back and laugh. One day, one single day of having his help has made the weight I’ve been carrying on my shoulders feel about fifty pounds lighter.
“Illegitimi non carborundum,”
I say, and shimmy out of my hoodie, which is not an easy trick when you’re sitting in the driver’s seat of a car. The steering wheel is kind of unforgiving, but finally I manage to get it off. I stretch out my right arm and twist it so that the back of my lower arm, and the dark script that runs down the bone there, is directly in front of him. “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”
    With a tentative hand, Ash reaches out to touch, but then his fingers stop a hairbreadth away from my skin. “Can I?” he asks, and I nod.
    “Of course.”
    His touch is soft, and it’s only there for a second. But he swipes down the words, and I have to stifle a shiver that threatens to run down my spine. “You’re a weird girl,” he tells me as I pull my arm back, and I smile.
    “I’m very aware of that,” I tell him. “Now get out of the fucking car. I want a burger.”
    This time, instead of waiting for him to argue, I tug on my hoodie and hop out of the car.
    And mercifully, he follows.

    ***

    To be honest, dinner could have gone better—we both could have done without the wide-eyed stares from the other patrons—but it definitely could have gone worse. At least Lacey and the waitress that kept giving me dirty looks weren’t there. Instead we had a young guy with skinny hips and what looked like purposefully-styled bedhead as our waiter, and though his eyes widened a little when he saw us slide into a booth, he didn’t say anything.
    I made a point to glance at his name tag when he actually managed to be polite, as opposed to Lacey and that that blonde mean-looking waitress. According to the little plastic tag pinned to his shirt, his name was York, and from the looks of it, it was only him and a heavily-pregnant girl with thick-framed black glasses working that day. And York was doing most of the running around since the girl seemed to be staying put behind the cash counter as much as possible. I didn’t blame her. Especially when I saw just how much effort it took for her to pull herself up off the stool back there. But even when some of the other customers