Page 49 of Sharp Lies

“What are you doing?” I asked, coming out of my fog enough to notice. I’d asked him to take me home and had barely said anything on the drive, too caught up in the memory of Stephen McCarthy’s stare to be able to think of any words. If he thought I wanted to come in and watch a movie or something, he had another thing coming. I wanted a mug of hot chocolate and then my bed. I wanted sleep without any dreams and a way to escape the fear that was coursing through my veins.

“Taking you to my house,” he said. “I would have thought that much was obvious.”

I made a face at him. “Yes, I can see that. Though I would have thought the more obvious thing to do would be to take me home. Like I asked you to.”

He pulled to a stop and turned to me, his handsome face deadly serious. “And I would have thought it would be obvious that there is no way in hell I’m going to take you to your house and leave you there tonight. I don’t want you anywhere that Tony McCarthy or his father can find you or get their hands on you. If they do show up, I want to be the first one to know about it, and the best way to do that is to make sure I know where you are and they don’t.”

I stared at him, half annoyed at him thinking he got to just up and make decisions for me... and half relieved at the idea that he was taking this so seriously. Of course that didn’t mean he should have made the decision without even asking me.

“And what about my mom?”

“Your mom is smart enough not to get up and answer the door for men she doesn’t want to see, Lily. And she’s not going to let Tony or Stephen guilt her into letting them in.”

I wanted to argue with him. Really, I did. I wanted to point out that he was implying that I would let Tony guilt me into letting him in, or that I wasn’t smart enough to keep them out.

But he was probably right about that first part, if not the latter.

And the truth was, I didn’t really want to be in my mom’s house, either. Because I was almost positive Tony would be coming after me tonight, and if he did, I didn’t want to be lying in my bed by myself. I wanted to have a hero at my beck and call.

So if Warren was volunteering for the position...

“Okay,” I said softly.

He smiled gently, trailed his fingers along my cheek, and then said, “Sit there. I’ll come around and get you.”

I watched him get out of the car and walk around the front toward me, wondering at this man who could think of things like that while rubbing my cheek so gently. I would have said he was overreacting, but I didn’t think he was. And I felt better for knowing that he was watching out for me.

When my door opened and he held his hand out to me, I took it gratefully and stepped down from the truck, my eyes on the darkness around us. I hated that I didn’t know what—or who—was out there, and I really didn’t like the fact that I even had to consider things like that. What had I ever done to anyone to get myself in this situation? Why had I, of all people, ended up in a spot where I had to be scared for my life?

Because Tony McCarthy had chosen me, I realized. He’d chosen me out of all the other girls in this town, and then he’d been cruel and heartless toward me and expected me to be okay with it. And when I wasn’t, when it looked like I might actually tell someone what was going on, his father had turned his own cruelty toward me and forced me out of town.

This wasn’t my fault.

It was Tony and Stephen’s.

And I was the one left dealing with it. But at least I wasn’t on my own anymore.

Warren led me into his house and up the stairs, and I realized with a start that we were heading toward the bedrooms that must lay upstairs. We had two bedrooms upstairs, though, and maybe his house was the same? Maybe he was just giving me his guest bedroom. Maybe he...

We got to the top of the stairs, and I saw that there weren’t, in fact, two bedrooms up here. There was one bathroom, and one bedroom.

One bedroom.

“Stop overthinking,” he said softly. “I’ll be glad to take the floor.”

I huffed out a laugh. “Am I that obvious?”

He put a hand around my shoulder and pulled me close. “You, Lily, have a face that can’t tell lies. But I wasn’t born yesterday. A man takes a woman he’s sweet on into his house and shows her to a floor where there’s only one bedroom, and she’s going to start getting ideas.”

“Oh, you think I’m the one getting ideas?” I asked, smiling. “You’re the one who just brought me into a house that evidently only has one bedroom!”

I saw the smile curving his mouth, and my own smile grew. “Are you going to pretend you didn’t even consider how this might look?”

He turned to me, cupped my face, and looked deeply into my eyes. “The only thing I considered was keeping you safe. I didn’t really think about how that might look.”

“Oh, you didn’t think that it might look odd? Suggesting that I spend the night in your house—to keep me safe, of course—and then taking me right to your bedroom?”

His mouth twitched, though he tried to hide it, and I lifted my eyebrows. He narrowed his eyes, trying so hard to stay serious, but he was losing that fight, and the moment I started grinning at him, he gave in and shook his head.