“Yeah, she’s pretty deceptive. I think it’s because of her small size.” My words ended in a moan as he mouthed his way up and down my neck, giving me small bites and soothing them with his tongue and lips. Just when I thought he would pick me up and carry me back to bed, Bo leaned back. He dropped the dog tags under the t-shirt.

Patting the tags, he said, “Regs require the tags to be under the shirt at all times.”

“All times?” I teased.

“Yes.” He turned the chair toward the laptop, and I saw that he was researching flights from here to Texas. I wondered if that was where he was going for break. Despite all our grand plans at the beginning of the year, Ellie was going home and Brian was taking Sasha skiing with his family. I’d actually been considering the invitation to Italy.

“I want you to come to Texas with me this weekend,” Bo said, tapping his finger on the screen. I swung my legs up and curled into his lap. I didn’t want the idea of meeting Bo’s family to thrill me so much, but I couldn’t suppress my internal shivers of delight. I tried to act unaffected.

“I’ll have to see what my mom says,” I told him.

He placed his jaw on the top of my head, and I could hear his jawbones crack as he kneaded the top of my head with his chin. “Tell her I’ve already bought you a ticket.”

I pushed against him. “You did not.”

Bo nodded.

BO

I KNEW AM HATED WHEN I acted like a presumptuous ass, but I couldn’t go home without her. She was like the living embodiment of my challenge coin. Every time I looked at her, I realized I wanted to be better, do better than I was. There was no way I could face my past without her. But that also meant telling her the whole truth, and I wasn’t prepared to do that either.

I just wanted to lie on the bed and pretend that nothing existed outside of the cocoon we’d made of the sheets. Although at this point the cocoon was mostly on the floor. Looking at the wreck we’d made of AM’s bed made me feel smug as fuck, but the feeling faded quickly when I thought about all the crap I’d have to tell her. I rested my head against her side as she peered at the laptop screen to see the evidence of my ticket purchase.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

BO

TRIP TO LITTLE OAK, TEXAS, was far shorter than I wanted, even though we’d traveled half the day. AM told me about her conversation with her father, Clay’s threats, and the whole lacrosse house’s shitscapades on the flight down. I felt even dirtier after hearing it all and wanted nothing more than to eat, shower, and spend the entire night screwing AM’s brains out. I did not want to see my old man or my mom. I didn’t even want to be here. My crappy attitude permeated every one of my actions the closer the rental car got to Little Oak, and this did not escape AM’s notice.

“You sound like the wolf from the ‘Three Little Pigs,’” AM told me. At my quizzical look, she blew up her cheeks and released a big stream of air.

“I’m full of hot air?”

“You are, but no, you’re huffing and puffing like you want to blow something down.”

“Shit. I think this was a bad decision.”

“Then let’s go home.” Home. Right, home wasn’t Little Oak, Texas. Home was, well, I wasn’t sure where it was, but I figured if I could stick with AM, I’d be okay. An icy hand grabbed me by the balls. After this visit, I might not have her. Not after she saw my old man, my mom, and how I ran from all of this.

“Don’t tempt me.” I clutched the steering wheel a little harder. AM was right. My body felt tighter than a tick on a bull’s balls. If this went on, I’d end up twisted into a pretzel and starting fights with random strangers to let off stress. This was not the way to convince AM I was worth staying the course for.

I unclenched the wheel with one hand and fumbled in my pocket for the challenge coin. Going home, facing my demons, was the only way to look forward.

AM

LITTLE OAK, TEXAS, WAS A TOWN so small that it almost looked fake. I made Bo drive through the middle of town, which was arranged in an actual square, four blocks of storefronts facing a park and a big stone edifice that I assumed was the courthouse. Some jokers had defaced the post office so it read S OS AL ICE, instead of US Postal Service, the missing metal letters lying against the building like discarded noodles from a can of alphabet soup.

“Who’s Alice?”

Bo squinted through the windshield and his lips tipped up in the first smile I’d seen all day. “No idea, but I’m glad to see the grand tradition of punk-assed miscreants is being continued.”

“Does the park have your last name on it?” I pointed out a recently-painted sign proclaiming that the postage-stamp-sized lawn was “Randolph Park.” This time Bo’s response was a bittersweet smile.

“After my Pops,” Bo admitted.

“Big-time stuff, huh?”

“Little oil well.”

“Big enough to get a park named after you.”

“After my grandfather.”

I could tell by Bo’s insistence on credit being given to his grandfather that he considered the elderly man to be the last decent Randolph around. I’d bit my tongue a million times, wanting to ask Bo about why exactly we were going back to his hometown. I only knew he felt it was important and that he wanted me to come. I knew he’d reveal something at some point, and I counseled myself to be patient. We drove aimlessly up and down small streets peppered with equally small houses. Finally, we crested a hill to see a large, stately brick mansion, probably three or four times larger than all the others we had passed, staring down over the town like a disapproving dad. Bo pulled the car over to the side of the road and killed the engine.

“If your father came to Parent’s Day, what would he talk about?” Bo said, not looking away from the house.

“First, he would never come to Parent’s Day for me. But if he did come, with one of his other kids, he’d probably talk about his great times with his fraternity and how successful they all are now. Why, what would your dad talk about?”

“Which coeds he’d like to bone.”

That was kind of a disgusting thought. The idea of leering dads at Parent’s Day, saying how they’d like to test out a newer model than the old car they had at home, was creepier than fuck. I didn’t say this to Bo. He already knew it, I could tell.

“My dad would always ask me what girls I was banging. Who had the sweetest snatch. Which cheerleader put out the most.”

Bo’s recitation was made all the more chilling by the matter-of-fact way he was telling it, as if he were reciting the weather report for the day. “I fucked my way through high school. Slept with the whole goddamned drill team. It was like a challenge for me.”

“All of them?” My voice sounded small, even to my own ears. The self-loathing in Bo’s voice made me ache. I forced myself to sit still and not throw open the door and run away screaming.

“Every last one,” he said grimly. “You want to know how I got my nickname, Bo Peep? Guys from my platoon said its because the girls supposedly follow me around like sheep. I’m not entirely proud of my past. You know why it didn’t matter to me about whether the rumor about you and the lacrosse team was true?”

“Um, no?” I offered tentatively, a bit mortified that he was bringing the issue up.

“It’s because I’ve done everything a thousand times worse. I don’t care if you slept with the whole lacrosse team. Maybe you did and maybe you didn’t. It just didn’t matter.

“Thinking it was some flaw in me that was causing Bobby, my dad, to lose control with Mom, I tried to fashion myself into whatever thing Bobby wanted. The football player. The guy who could get all the pussy. The academic. Whatever. I tried it all until I realized that nothing I did was going to change him. And somehow, he knew. He just knew that hitting me wouldn’t cause me any pain. I wanted it. I goaded him as I got older, and then I learned to shut up when he would hit my mother or burn her with the iron if I didn’t just shut the fuck up. Finally, when I was about fourteen, my dad starting talking about girls in a way that—” Bo paused, searching for the right words. “In a way that wasn’t right, but I thought, maybe if we can bond this way, he’ll get off my mom’s back. I was such a stupid fuck. He drank my stories down. Some I made up, but when I realized that I could lose my mind, forget what was happening around me when I was with someone, I started doing it for myself. Using them. I cut through that dance line like a butter knife through a hot fresh biscuit.

“I’m telling you all this because my past is so gross and sordid that nothing you could have ever done would have ever turned me off. So what if you slept with fifteen or fifty guys? It doesn’t define you.”

“If you think that about me, then why can’t you cut yourself slack?” I cried.

“Because I can’t unsee all the shitty things I’ve done. Just sitting here looking at that house,” Bo spit out the word “house” like an expletive, “only serves to remind me what an asshole I was. And still am. Do you know that I’ve not called my mom once since I left? That I’ve ignored her attempts to contact me? I just wanted to forget all of this.” Bo threw up an arm over his eyes, as if he was trying to block out that mental image of him doing whatever unsavory acts he now despised. “Maybe I’m not supposed to be with someone like you.”

“I think that’s kind of a shitty thing to say.” It sounded like he was trying to ditch me again. “You’re going to decide for me what’s best?”

“What?” Bo dropped his arm and faced me for the first time. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do. I’m trying to warn you off.”

“You’re saying that you shouldn’t be with me because you aren’t good enough for me, but that’s like saying that I’m too dumb to make decisions for myself. Don’t I get to decide what’s good enough for me?”

“Yes, but—”

“You’d best be quiet now before you dig yourself a deeper hole,” I huffed.

Bo stared at me, slightly open-mouthed, then burst out into laughter. “Goddamn, AM. How’d I ever get so lucky to find you?”

“You must’ve done something right,” I sassed. Somehow I knew that Bo needed me to show no sympathy, no pity, even though inside my heart was breaking into a thousand pieces for the confused and traumatized boy he’d been. I wished I were a mythical Norse creature so I could hurt Bo’s father, as if that would somehow make up for the horror of his childhood.

“Am I feeling sorry for myself?” Bo asked, a rueful smile playing around the edges of his mouth.

“Yes, and if you act like this any more, I’m going to start calling you Edward.”

“Wow, is that the insult we’re using instead of pussy?”

“It’s the male version. Essentially, the same thing. Now put this car in gear, and let’s get this over with.”

BEAUREGARD RANDOLPH II WAS THE same height as Bo. Had the same hair, although his was longer, shaggier than Bo’s, like he hadn’t had a haircut, a decent one, in years. And even though they were clearly stamped from the same cloth, this man looked smaller. His shoulders were rolled slightly forward, making him look shorter. He shuffled down the hallway, whereas Bo always strode.

The house itself smelled of rotten food and disuse. Flies buzzed around the rooms, alighting on what looked like old spills on tables and counters. The sun that shone in through the big windows at the back was hazy, the dust so thick that it created a fog inside the house.

We followed Bobby back to the kitchen, a large room dominated by a huge center island. At one time, this place would looked like it belonged in a magazine. The counters were made of marble and the appliances were industrial-grade stainless steel. The setup showed signs of serious money, but the counters were filled with unwashed dishes. The flies that had buzzed around the front living areas were more plentiful here and the smell worse. I pretended to be unaffected, but I tried not to touch anything.

The look on Bo’s face had changed from stoic indifference to shock. Obviously he’d never seen it like this either.

“Sit down, sit down.” Bobby Randolph gestured toward the table. I sat down gingerly on a chair but kept my arms tucked close to my sides to avoid touching something and contracting a disease. Bobby took out the chair next to me and sat too close. Bo stood like an angry Thor by my side, ready to smite Bobby for any wrong move. His muscles tensed when Bobby leaned forward.

“You’re a hot—” Bobby’s voice cut off when Bo let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like a growl. I leaned back so my head was resting against his thighs. Bo placed a hand on my shoulder and leaned forward.

“This is my girl, Bobby, and you treat her with respect or we’re out of here. Now why don’t you tell me why this place looks like it’s been abandoned for months. It smells rank and looks twice as bad.”