Page 11 of Love at First Ride
He gets out of his chair, hugging the bowl of chips, and shuffles over to the couch. I run some warm water and fill a container, then sit myself down on the table opposite him. I don’t know much about being a nurse, but I’ve seen my coworkers at Sunset Pines use butterfly closures on open wounds before. I clean up the main cut to his forehead. The split on his lip looks worse than it is.
‘Noah, you’re going to have to tell me who I can call,’ I tell him once he’s yawning. ‘Not to be rude, but you can’t stay here forever.’
He goes very still, his eyes wary, like suddenly he can’t trust me. ‘You can’t just let me go on my way tomorrow?’
I look inside the kit for a surgical strip. ‘You’re fourteen. The police are after you. Where are your parents?’
He shakes his head. ‘I can’t tell my mom. She’ll kill me. I got a record already.’
‘So, you do have a mum. Won’t she be wanting to know where you are?’
This time, he shrugs. ‘Cops prolly called her already, searching for me.’
‘Is there anyone else I can call?’
‘Uhm. Maybe my brother, AJ.’
I tense. It’s yet another name that does odd things to my stomach. ‘AJ,’ I repeat. I search Noah’s face, hoping I haven’t picked up on any resemblance. Then I relax my shoulders, because there’s no possibility it can be the same person I’m thinking of.
‘Noah, what’s your last name again?’ I ask casually.
‘Brady,’ he confirms, and I breathe an inward sigh of relief.
‘And where can I find AJ Brady?’
‘His name’s Callahan. He’s my half-brother. He lives over in Rapture.’
I freeze at the words, my fingers in the middle of attaching a couple of the surgical strips over Noah’s left eye.
‘AJ Callahan is your brother?’
‘Yeah. Why? You know him?’
My lips thin. Of all people, I pick up AJ Callahan’s runaway brother. ‘We were at high school together,’ I murmur, because the memories I have of that time are not exactly pleasant.
Except for one memory. The one that hasn’t left me, even after five years.
‘Small world, huh?’ Noah is saying. I can see his eyelids are drooping, but my mind is elsewhere.
For the two years I attended American high school, AJ Callahan and his friends teased me relentlessly.
Oh, oh,oh. I’m a certified idiot.
I just rescued the younger brother of one of my high school bullies, and the same boy I’ve had a crush on since the first day I set eyes on him.
Chapter Three
Hollie
‘Ow!’ Noah says, and I snap back to the present. I’m thinking about Amber Bradshaw’s graduation party, and it turns out I’m pressing too hard on Noah’s cut.
‘Sorry,’ I say, dabbing at it one last time, ‘Um. Do you have AJ’s number? Maybe I could call him.’
Noah sniffs again. ‘Dunno his number by heart.’
‘Do you have a phone?’
‘It’s at my mom’s.’
