Page 8 of The Other Side of Green

“Where’s Mom?” I didn’t want to make conversation with Luca but needed to know where the bitch was.

His footsteps trailed behind. “No idea. She disappeared yesterday afternoon.”

“Let me guess, with Grams’ purse?”

Luca dropped his gaze to the floor, and I clenched my fists. “When are you going to stop always hoping for a miracle, Luca? The woman is a menace. She’s done nothing for us, and right now I’d say she’s almost destroyed us. But there you are, always defending her, always hoping that one day she will be a good mama who makes you cookies and a Thanksgiving roast.”

Ha. That would be the day. In my eighteen years she’d only been present at a handful of Thanksgiving meals.

The only thing Mom gave thanks for was Class A drugs and vodka.

I turned my back on Luca and faced Grams’ chair. Faded and worn, the wings of the back seemed smaller without her sat in it to frame. Two steps and my hand reached for the threadbare brocade that had once been a burnished gold with embroidered green leaves and hideous birds, until the sun through the window had stolen the color and detail. I sat down, the chair pulling me in and fitting against my spine in an unexpected hug.

Warmth spread through my body and I closed my eyes, registering the faint fall of Luca’s feet as he went into the hallway.

I sank back, exhaustion aching at my bones.

Grams had gone, leaving me without a guide to steer my ship.

Grams had gone, but as I nestled back and let my heart break, I could still feel her in the room.

Fly, Lyra Bird, fly.

I have, Grams, I have… I’ve flown right home.

I couldn’t think of the alternative that Jack and I would have been soaring in the opposite direction, cloaked in the biggest secret of all.

Chapter Three

Jack ~ Four Years Ago

The drive to the sink hole didn’t take as long as I might have wanted. You know, if I was being brutally honest with myself. With Lyra resting against my thigh, her tan, long legs pressed tight together, her gaze resolutely focused out of the window—anywhere other than me.

I’d squeezed into the side next to her, jumping into the back seat of Luca’s beat-up Corolla. Caitlin Monroe from our school year, who Luca had been test-driving like a new car, had been all too eager to call shotgun while Raven sat the other side, her gaze not looking out of the window, but instead at me.

Resolutely, I ignored her.

Which was kind of hard when she had her newly hormone splurged assets served up right in my damn face.

“Luca, did you tell Grams we were going out?” Lyra twirled a strand of bronze around her index finger.

“I thought you did when you went in to get changed.”

Luca’s eye met mine in the rearview and he smirked.

Lyra let out an audible low sigh but didn’t say anything.

I wanted to touch her, run my fingers along that smooth and golden skin of hers.

I didn’t.

“How was work, bud?” Luca directed his question to me, the only one of us with an actual job.

“Well, you know, changed a tire, then another tire, and then another.”

‘Ole Man Johnson, not letting you look under the hood yet?”

I flipped Luca the bird which made him snort.