Hey, everyone! I hope y'all remember Torrin! If not, here's a very adorable picture of him. Enjoy!
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"Are you sure you're feeling up to this?" My aunt questioned, glancing to my swollen hand with one blonde eyebrow poised towards the sky. I let my eyes drift to the almost shiny green tinted skin. The ultra-sticky suture strips were beginning to peel off, making it look pretty horrible. Thankfully, it looked a lot worse than it felt and I was tough.
I lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "Yeah, I'm fine. It can't get any worse, right?"
"Blake..." Warning sounded in her voice as I was pinned with a motherly gaze, "I wasn't even there and I know the doctor told you to take it easy. If you rip those stitches out you're gonna be in a world of hurt."
"Mama Callie," I groaned, sending her a pleading look, "I'm fine. It's a little swollen but I took some Ibuprofen already. That's about the only thing I can do for it. Besides, we're just going for coffee. It's not like I'll be lifting weights or anything."
She sighed, giving me one more pointed look. "Alright, you can go. But if it starts hurting you tell him to take you home, got it?"
I nodded solemnly and tucked my wounded hand behind my back. The swollen skin felt tight against the row of stitches across my knuckles, but I didn't really care. I was sick and tired of being stuck inside this house with nothing to do. As stir crazy as I felt, even school wasn't sounding that bad.
"And don't stay out too late," my blonde aunt called over her shoulder as I pulled out my phone to text Torrin.
"I won't," I hollered back, typing out a quick confirmation message and hitting send.
I definitely hadn't expected to receive a concerned message from Coda's brother right after I finished puking up what little had been in my stomach, but it had been a gentle reminder that I was doing everything in my power to take care of that little blonde. Torrin had been sweet, asking how my hand was and if I'd gone to the hospital. I was a little ashamed to admit it, but he caught me in a vulnerable moment and I'd agreed to get coffee with him after school ended on Friday.
Dropping my locked phone face down on my stomach, I closed my eyes and waited patiently for a response. I could hear Mama Callie puttering around in the kitchen but she wasn't singing. My heart constricted as I thought back to how defeated she had sounded on Wednesday night when I overheard the conversation between her and my uncle about what to do with Coda. Even though it wasn't her fault, my best friend was definitely testing the patience of every family member. I felt for her but couldn't help the sliver of irritation that always poked at me when people do nothing to help themselves. For the millionth time I wished I could smack her hard enough to knock some sense and spunk back into her. This broken girl was the same one I had met six months ago and managed to put some life into with the help of Kellan and Wyatt. She had been doing so much better until her crazy-ass mom had to come in and ruin everything, again. Bitter didn't even begin to describe my sentiments towards that woman.
My phone chimed with Torrin's reply of on my way (: and I let it fall onto the couch beside me. If I remembered right, the Paxton place was about twenty minutes away from Uncle Mark and Mama Callie's, but I wasn't sure whether he was coming straight from school or not. Kellan wasn't home yet, not that I expected him to. His job kept him busy until nearly six most nights and then he would come home exhausted and covered in grease from mechanicing all afternoon on top of school work. I would never admit it, but my cousin definitely impressed me sometimes with his work ethic and dedication.
A job was one thing I'd never really had. With all the queening and rodeos I was normally involved in, working wasn't feasible or necessary. My parents made good enough money to keep me running all over the northwest participating in the sport I loved (most of the time). I was grateful for for that opportunity, although there were times I wished I had a job just to keep me busy in times like these. There was no indoor arena up here so working horses wasn't an option in the winter. I tended to go a little stir crazy when stuck inside all the time.
That had been one of the reasons I agreed so quickly to Torrin's offer of coffee and a visit. With only my over-stressed aunt to talk to and nothing to do but worry about Coda, I was on the brink of insanity. My conversation a few nights ago with Kellan was actually making me worry more than before; something I didn't like. I was the take-action kind of girl, usually leaving all worrying to Kellan.
I was just getting sleepy when I heard the crunching of tires on the frozen ground outside nearly ten minutes later and jumped to my feet. Clumsily I shoved my feet into a pair of snow boots by the door and yanked my Carhartt coat over the lined flannel I had on. The frigid January air sent goosebumps up my legs and I realized with a twinge of regret that I hadn't bothered to wear long johns underneath my jeans.
Torrin was waiting with a smile in the little silver Honda he used as his daily driver even in the winter, which I found a touch crazy. I kept my wounded right hand poised against my ribs and ducked inside the warm car, closing the passenger door a bit awkwardly.
"Hey," he grinned, sliding his left hand up to rest on top of the steering wheel. I noticed that the inside of the car was mainly clean and it smelled vaguely like mint. There was a backpack slung carelessly on the backseat with a few books spilling out and a blue and black Nike bag on the floor. Torrin kept smiling, waiting for me to speak.
"Hey," I grinned back, situating myself in the bucket seat. It was covered in black to match the rest of the interior. "So, where are we going?"
He reached down to put the car in gear and we began moving as he let off the brake. "Well, there's at least two places over in Starton and the one in Fairview. We don't even have to go for coffee if you don't want to; I just figured that was a good place to start."
I quirked an eyebrow at him, taking a second to think before mouthing off. "Whichever is closer."
We ended up driving back to Fairview and heading inside the same small coffee shop I'd gone to with Dustie just days before. After my stressful, dragging week, that conversation felt like it happened an eternity ago.
When Torrin glanced from the menu on the wall to me, I felt very, very small. Unlike Coda, her brother was at least six feet tall, which explained why he excelled so much at sports. Before I could think, words began tumbling out of my mouth. "Don't you have basketball practice tonight?"
One corner of his mouth tipped up in an amused smile. "Nah, we don't usually practice on Fridays."
"Oh."
"Yeah," he shrugged, returning his gaze to the handwritten list of drinks above our heads, "know what you want?"
"Um..." Just like the last time I was here, the menu seemed ridiculously overwhelming. Another teenage girl, this one without a nose ring, stared blankly at us from behind the cash register. Unlike most people, she didn't seem phased by Torrin's presence in the least. "How about hot chocolate?"
"What, no coffee?"He teased, brown eyes sparkling, "I thought Coda said something about you being one of those people who can't function without caffeine."
I shrugged, a bit embarrassed that she'd felt the need to tell him that. God only knew what other awful things this boy had heard about me. "I am, but not this late in the day."
He nodded and placed his order with the barista, grabbing a pair of cream cheese brownies to top it off. We took a seat at the same little round table Dustie and I had waited for our drinks at and proceeded to just look around at the maze of curtains and decor and mismatched furniture that dotted the room. We were the only ones there aside from a man in his fifties who was sipping a latte and staring intently at the screen of his laptop. My guess was most of the kids who typically frequented this place after school were out playing in the snow or gearing up for the weekend.
Torrin fiddled absently with the lanyard that held his keys, making little scraping noises as they moved across the wooden table. By the hint of a smile on his face, I realized he wasn't bothered by my silence. I slouched in my chair, letting the heels of my heavy snowboots rest on the ground. The snow I'd tracked in melted slowly and dripped onto the floor. I rubbed several fingers together and admired the way my swollen knuckles shone under the light.
"How's your hand?" Torrin spoke up, stilling his own for a moment.
"It kinda hurts, but nothing I can't handle." Another beat of silence passed. "The doctor said you did a good job fixing me up, by the way."
"Really?" His big brown eyes lit up unexpectedly.
I nodded, not really sure where he was going with this. "Yeah, but he made me get stitches anyway. Said it would make it scar less, not that I care."
He gave a little shake of his head and the half smile appeared again. "Blake, you're something else."
The amount of times I'd been told that was too many to count, but coming from Torrin, it stung a little. I didn't realize my face fell until he began backtracking. "I didn't mean that in a bad way, you know. I'm just saying you're not like any other girl in our school."
I pushed down the momentary hurt and shot him a grin. "Yeah, yeah, most high school girls don't wear spurs in the halls, I know."
"You've stopped wearing them, though," he observed, leaning back in his chair.
I grimaced a little. "Yeah, the janitor gave me a talking to. Said they were taking the wax off the floors."
Torrin began laughing heartily right as the barista called out our order. I took in his appearance for the first time as he stood to grab the pair of drinks off the dark counter top. When we first met, he'd been in basketball shorts and a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, making me believe he was the preppy jock Coda had described him as. When we decided to go fishing towards the end of the summer, I'd been extremely surprised to see him waltz down the stairs in wrangler jeans and another t-shirt, cowboy boots on his feet. That image had long since been forgotten about, though, as he always wore fancy jeans and brand-name shirts to school along with expensive looking basketball shoes.
Now he was sporting a pair of relaxed-fit wranglers that appeared to be well worn and comfortable along with a blue checkered flannel shirt with a plain white long-sleeve underneath. I noticed a fluffy white lining peeking out from under the collar as he turned to present me with the hot chocolate he'd graciously paid for. I wondered for a minute if he'd gone home to change clothes before picking me up because I'd never seen him wear anything like this at school.
Unlike Coda's other brother, he didn't wear a hat and kept his light brown hair short. A cowlick over his forehead caused it to spike up in an unintentionally cute way. His brown eyes sparkled at me as I stood to accept the drink using my good hand. "Careful."
As he picked up our untouched brownies and led the way to a couch in the far corner of the room, I inspected him some more. Surprisingly he had on a pair of work boots. As little clumps of snow dropped to the floor with every step he took and I realized I had no desire to be a janitor. He set his food on the low slung table placed conveniently in front of a worn leather couch and I took a seat on his left.
"Well," he grinned at me, showing off what almost looked like a pair of dimples that I hadn't noticed, "shall we eat?"
I gave him a nod and began to remove a layer of plastic wrap from my brownie. I hadn't ate much since throwing up because of all my worrying but it did look good. He took a huge bite of his and slouched down so his head leaned against the back of the light brown couch. "Man, that's good!"
I took my own bite and nodded in agreement before sipping my cocoa. Both were chocolatey and rich, making me wonder if he'd just wasted a perfectly good five bucks on something I couldn't finish. "Hey, Torrin?"
"Yeah?" His alert brown eyes fixed on me in a curious way as if he hadn't really expected me to talk.
"What are we gonna do about your sister?"