Yours to Keep by Serena Bell Read Free Book Online Page B

that again.”
    Theo looked at Ana. So did Ethan. She shrugged. “This is your story,” she told Theo.
    Theo took an audible breath. “The-police-picked-me-up-I-was-riding-my-skateboard-on-a-wall-and-not-wearing-a-helmet.”
    “What?” Ethan was still hoping he’d misheard.
    “Tell him which wall.”
    Theo glared daggers.
    “On-Route-50.”
    Ethan looked at Ana with an expression that was meant to convey Help me understand this.
    Ana shrank a bit in her seat, looking uncomfortable for the first time. “He wasn’t here when I arrived. Then he came home in a cop car. He’d been riding without a helmet on the wall by the side of Route 50, near the library.”
    “Holy shit!” Ethan said, unable to stop himself. He put both his hands on his head. “I’m sorry,” he told Ana. “But, holy shit, Theo. You could have been killed. What were you thinking ?” The rush of fight-or-flight hormones had him rigid and shaking. He could see that stretch of road, cars whizzing by in both directions, could see Theo, not as he was now but as a younger child, slipping, falling, crushed, his little body— Oh, fuck! He took a breath. Another. “What. Were. You. Thinking?” He advanced on Theo.
    Theo’s eyes were huge as Ethan got closer. He made a scrambling movement in the chair as if he were trying to escape. “I—”
    Ethan stopped. Froze. “This is about that helmet slogan.”
    Theo slumped. “No.”
    “You did it just to piss me off. To make a point.” He prodded the air with his finger.
    “I—”
    “Are you crazy?” The words came out before he could think better of them. Before he could think at all, pure reflex. Fear and rage, mingled. “Do you want to die?”
    Theo’s eyes darted, and even through the miasma of his madness Ethan followed his panicked gaze to Ana’s face.
    He had forgotten she was there, witnessing this. It was a good thing he’d already decided that there was no way on earth he could be involved with her, because after she’d seen him like this, livid and swearing, there was no way on earth she’d want to be involved with him.
    She looked steadily back at Theo, as if telegraphing something to him.
    Theo shook his head.
    “Tell him,” Ana urged.
    “There’s more ?” Ethan demanded. His gaze darted between Ana and Theo.
    His son took a deep breath, and his fingers toyed restlessly with the denim of his jeans while his eyes sought a safe corner of the room. “I lied to the police. Sort of.”
    “You—” He couldn’t speak now. His emotions were a hot, tight ball in his chest that nothing could push past.
    Somehow Theo was still talking, even though Ethan could see that he’d scared his son half to death.
    “I saw Ana on the steps, and I didn’t think, I just said, it just popped out—” The words came out choked. Theo shoved his chair back from the table, ducked his head, and fled on a sob, out of the kitchen, up the stairs.
    Ethan stared after him, paralyzed.
    Ana cleared her throat.
    He slowly turned to meet her gaze.
    She didn’t look horrified. Or even particularly embarrassed. She looked—sympathetic. Her eyes were warm and, possibly, ever so slightly amused.
    He crossed to the stove and turned off the boiling water and the vent fan. Then he leaned his elbows on the counter and put his head in his hands.
    “You okay?” she asked. She got up from her seat and came to stand a few feet from him.
    “I should be asking you that.” His voice was muffled. He lifted his head and allowed himself to look at her again. Yes, she was definitely amused. “I’m sorry for all the yelling.”
    She took a step closer and patted his arm. “I would have yelled, too, in your shoes.”
    “This all happened when you were here? The police?”
    “Yes. I was here. Yes.”
    “They brought him home in a cop car?” He wanted to know whether the lights had been flashing, whether the neighbors had seen, who else knew what a bad seed his son was becoming.
    “Somehow the officer got it