Tempt Me Twice 1 Read Free

but I hadn’t wanted to admit it.
    I could have dealt with the fact that my family was pure trailer trash, in every sense of the world. I could handle that they weren’t sophisticated, that dinner at a truck stop was a momentous occasion, and that obtaining a high school diploma put you on par with Mark Zuckerberg.
    I could deal with the fact that, as the oldest of seven, now eight, I’d been forced to act as a parent instead of a child myself—after all, it was hard to extract child support from that many different men.
    I could even push away the meanness that came about when the alcohol came out. After all, these people that were my kin didn’t have much else in the way of relief.
    But I couldn’t deal with being stolen from, not when I’d given up so much for these kids. Now when I’d stayed to look out for them, even though it meant I had to see my own tormentor every day.
    Shuddering, I yanked myself out of my thoughts and back into the present. I’d told nick I knew who had stolen my money, and though it took him a moment, he understood.
    “Your family?” Demonstrating how well he knew me, he didn’t argue the point, immediately seeing the truth in my words. “Which one?”
    “TJ.” My twenty year old brother was cunning and sneaky, and was inseparable with the person who terrified me more than anyone else on the planet.
    As I thought about it, a sneaking tendril of a memory worked its way into my mind, and in a flash I understood how he had done it. He had just gotten his girlfriend Justine pregnant too, so he’d be hurting for cash.
    He must have held on to the information for a time in which he’d need it—remarkable self-control for my impulsive sibling.
    “How?” Nick finally asked. I cringed, feeling naïve and stupid.
    “Last time I was home, I was working on my laptop. I went to the bathroom and when I came back TJ was on my computer. He said he’d just been checking his e-mail.” Technology had finally come all the way down to the bayou, though the computer in the double wide was one that my fifteen year old brother Ray had ‘found’ somewhere and didn’t work half the time.
    My throat hurt, I felt like such an idiot. “My online banking is saved in my bookmarks. My password, too.”
    I’d used the same password for almost everything since I was a teen— freedom . In retrospect I should have used something else, but I needed passwords for so many things, if I didn’t use the same one I’d never remember them all.
    So. Stupid.
    Nick and I were silent for a long moment, sitting there on the steps outside the small bank. We’d been silent on the car ride here too.
    There was so much to say, and no way to say it.
    When he had called this morning, he’d said he wanted to talk. Though just hearing his voice had sent me into a tailspin, had slammed me right back into the pain that leaving him had caused, I hadn’t been able to resist.
    We hadn’t parted ways because of a big blow-up, more like the stereotypical “irreconcilable differences”.
    He had wanted to forget everything that happened on his trip home to Fish Creek.
    I hadn’t been able to forget. I never would
    Too much had happened for us to ever be together again I was pretty sure about that. If I lingered on it, I was still furious that he’d run because he couldn’t reconcile a kiss with a man—a man he loved—with his image of himself.
    A kiss he’d asked for. And he’d broken off a lifelong friendship over it. Though since we hadn’t spoken, I supposed that he and Jax could be likethis again and I’d have no idea.
    They could even be together—like, dating together. Jax and I talked occasionally, but romance was not something that we ever mentioned.
    Like, ever .
    The thought left me feeling slightly nauseous. But still, I wanted to know why Nick wanted to talk to me now.
    I really hoped we could salvage something from our relationship—that we could still be friends at least.
    I’d never have admitted it