Safe with You Read Free Page B

that is covered in mud. I’m surprised I could even make out the color of the truck.
    “Do you ever wash your truck?” I ask as I fasten my seatbelt.
    He shrugs as he backs out of the parking spot he parked in. “No, I like it muddy.”
    “Why?”
    He chuckles. “You’re definitely not from the South darlin’.” There’s that damn word again. Rearing my fist back, I let it fly, punching his bicep as hard as I can. That turned out to be a big mistake.
    He slams on the brakes when I scream and clutch my hand. “What the hell! Is your arm made of steel?”
    I hear J curse from the back seat and then he is between Bo and me, checking out my hand. I didn’t miss the spark that ignites from him grasping my hand. No…I can’t be attracted to anyone. One…I will be gone soon and two…these two are thorns in my side.
    “No darlin’, it’s man made muscle thank you very much,” he smirks. If my hand wasn’t throbbing I would punch him again.
    Very big thorns.
    “Where do you live?” Bo asks when he pulls up to a stop sign.
    “Uh, good question.”
    “Okay…let’s try this again. What road do you live on?”
    “Another very good question.”
    Bo pinches the bridge of his nose. “How in the heck do you not know where you live?”
    “I haven’t been here, but a week so excuse me if I don’t know my address by heart yet!” I immediately wish I hadn’t of yelled because now my head is starting to throb harder.
    “Cass,” J murmurs softly, grabbing my hand again. The gentleness of his touch calms me. “How did you get to school this morning?”
    I lick my lips and gave an innocent shrug. “I walked…”
    “You walked?” J sputters. “I’ll get to that topic in a minute. Can you tell me which direction you came from?”
    “Uh…” I pull my eyes from J and glance around, taking in the surroundings as I try to remember which road I turned off of when I made it to the school. Then a brilliant idea hit me. “Wait…” I start scrambling through all the papers I got today. “Here it is!” I pull out a piece of paper which incidentally has my address on it, handing it to Bo.
    Bo stares at the page with a dumbfounded look on his face. “Dang it, darlin’ you walked a good thirty minutes at least to school this morning!”
    What is so wrong with walking thirty minutes to school?
    “Let me see that.” J snatches the paper from Bo’s hand and scans it with his eyes, I guess to see for himself. “Really Cassie? It’s not safe for you to walk alone anywhere these days.”
    “I’m not a five-year-old; you do not need to lecture me on what the real world is like.” I already know.
    Neither of the guys utters another word to me as Bo drives toward my new home for, at least, four months. I shift my weight and lean against the door, my head against the cool glass. For once, I actually like the silence seeing how these two like to get under my skin so much.
    When Bo turns into the driveway I notice right away that the one car we have is gone, which means they are gone. Surprise, surprise. They are probably out looking for their next score. I don’t know where in the hell they will find drugs out here, but I guess you’d be surprised. They would drive pretty far to find their next fix. Who knows what all they are on? I’ve never cared enough to find out.
    My father used to have an undercover job, but he could never go into detail about it. My mother was the typical stay-at-home mother. I can’t say that I’ve had a bad home life because I haven’t. My parents, up until recently were pretty normal. Now, they’ve just gone off the deep end. I’m not exactly sure why. According to Dad, he claimed he was fired from his job so he turned to drugs for an ‘escape’ and somewhere along the line my mother got hooked on it. I’ve tried to explain to them that drugs don’t help, but I gave up after giving the speech a hundred times.
    “Thanks for the ride,” I mumble before I climb out. I close the