Page 97 of Nine Month Contract
Luke interjects, “He actually doesn’t like to be alone at all. He’s just particular about who he spends time with. He has zero tolerance for people he doesn’t like.”
“I keep a small circle. There’s nothing wrong with that.” I shrug dismissively and turn to face Trista before I ask, “Why aren’t you close with your sister?”
Trista’s head jerks back, clearly not expecting the change in conversation, but she opened a door, and I’m sure as hell going to step through it.
“Well, because she’s not a potbellied pig, most likely.” She shrugs like she’s completely serious, and I half think she might be.
Calder and Luke laugh.
“And because she’s kind of a raging bitch who bailed on me when I was sixteen, and she was all I had.” She sips her drink loudly.
“Where were your parents?” Luke asks.
“They dipped for good when I was fourteen.”
“Both of them?”
“Yep.”
“Did you live with a grandparent or something?” Calder asks.
“Nope,” Trista replies cheerily. “Just my sister, who was eighteen at the time and my technical legal guardian. That is until she met a guy and moved to Hawaii with him right before my sixteenth birthday.”
“Jesus, so who did you live with then?” Luke asks, concern evident all over his face.
“Myself.” Trista shrugs like it’s completely normal for her to live on her own at barely sixteen. That’s two years younger than Everly, and I am inwardly seething that her parents could do that to her.She was a child. Someone who needed parents.“I literally lived in my family’s same income-based apartment until I moved up onto the mountain with you guys.”
How the hell did she pay rent? Feed herself? Buy school shit? Pay utilities?
The three of us all blink back at her, our minds reeling with this new information.
“That’s fucked up, right?” Luke’s angry voice perfectly portrays the rage I’m feeling right now but am unable to say it out loud.
Trista’s nose wrinkles. “I mean, I was almost an adult, so it was fine. I had a job and finished high school. One of my friends had me over to her house all the time, so I wasn’t always alone.”
Calder’s tone is scary serious when he asks, “Do you ever hear from your parents? Where did they go?”
“Alaska that time.” Trista looks thoughtful as she seemingly works toward recalling the whereabouts of her parents. “They joined some cult, but then they were kicked out and living in Canada illegally for a while. That was five years ago when my mom called and told me that. I haven’t heard from them directly since then, but I think my sister said they were in Maine at one point. I don’t fully recall.” Trista looks stiff and detached as she forces a bright smile that literally hurts my guts. “They weren’t model parents to begin with growing up, always leaving for these religious retreats, so I’m probably better off without them, but yeah…no idea where they are now.”
The table grows silent as the three of us stew over what these kinds of parents must be like, especially when we had parents who would walk through fire for us. I’d walk through fire for Trista now, and I’ve only known her a handful of months. I want to burn every home their parents ever lived in to the ground and make them watch.
Calder breaks the tension when he asks, “I bet you wish you could drink right now, huh?”
Trista bursts out laughing, and we all smile along with her, but it feels sad. She literally has no family looking out for her. Everyone who should have cared about her left her.
It makes me want to hurt someone.
Jesus, I really need to get a grip these days.
Can I blame the pregnancy hormones on oversharing? Becausetwo days ago, I spilled my guts to Cozy, and now, I have three mountain men all looking at me like I’m a lost puppy dog. Not the vibe I want for the first night out I’ve had in ages, especially since I’ve been feeling really good about my life lately.
There’s a weird thing that happens up on the mountain. You seem to lose track of reality a bit. Yes, I go to the shelter every day and beg Earl not to fire me when I’m late. But when I return to Fletcher Mountain, all the noise just sort of goes away. Time just sort of ceases to exist in the magnificence of it all. It’s like this little sanctuary that makes the stresses of the real world disappear.
It’s magical.
When coyotes aren’t eating my chickens, at least.
Calder and Luke are up at the bar, talking to some locals, and I can feel Wyatt’s eyes burrowing in on me. He’s looking at me differently since I opened my big mouth, and I’m pissed at myself for being so stupid. I wish I was drinking alcohol to have something to blame.
