He licked his lips, then gave a single shake of his head, like he was answering some question she hadn’t heard anyone ask. “Cora,” he whispered. Two more strokes of his thumb and he withdrew his hand. She was on the verge of protesting or pleading or launching herself at him when he said more, keeping her from doing a thing. “You should go back to sleep.”
Chapter 5
“I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever,” Haven said as they lay together on Cora’s bed in her old hotel-like room in the Ravens’ clubhouse. Her friend wasn’t entirely wrong. It’d been four days since Ben had been discharged from the hospital, and Cora had been at Slider’s house more hours than usual.
“I know,” Cora said. “Ben has just been a bit of a handful and Slider’s needed the extra help.” While the poor kid had weathered the injury and the hospital stay like a trooper, once the pain meds had worn off, he’d been miserable—unable to sleep and too uncomfortable to make it through a whole day of school.
“They’re really lucky to have you. I hope Slider realizes that,” Haven said. “Which reminds me, what was with you walking home the other day?”
Cora bit back a groan. She’d hoped Haven would’ve forgotten that. “It was just me making sure Slider realizes it,” she fibbed with a dismissive wink she prayed would throw Haven off the scent. Lying to her bestie made her feel like crap, but the alternative was coming clean about why Cora had been equally desperate to run away from home . . . and that made her want to vomit. “Besides, I don’t mind helping them out. It’s not like I have anything better to do,” she said. She’d meant for the comment to come off flippantly, but she’d failed, if the sympathetic expression on Haven’s face was any indication.
“Whatever happened to your idea of checking out volunteer opportunities at the animal shelter?”
“Oh,” she said, wishing she’d never voiced her pie-in-the-sky dream of one day becoming a veterinarian. Growing up, her parents had never let her own an animal, so she’d become the queen of the stray cats, once sneaking a little gray tiger-striped kitten into her bedroom for a whole weekend when she was about nine, and routinely leaving out bowls of milk or cans of tuna for a pair of orange tabbies when she was a little older. At first, they’d been too scared to approach if she moved at all, but eventually they’d gotten brave enough to sniff her hand. And the moment when they’d finally let her pet them remained one of her fondest memories. She’d wished she could do more for them, that she knew how to do more, because those cats, even with all their standoffishness, had made her feel more loved than anyone who’d lived inside her house . . .
But what was the point of talking about her dream when it required, somehow, coming up with enough money to afford college, and then doing well enough there to get into a vet school? It remained as far out of reach now as it had when she first met those tabbies. She’d only shared it in the first place a few weeks ago in the hopes of getting Haven to admit and pursue her own much-more-realistic dream to open a bakery. The woman could be printing money with her cookies alone. “I have to save up for a car first,” Cora said, “and probably also for an apartment, before I can think of doing anything like that. More importantly, what happened to your idea of—”
“Wait. Why do you need an apartment?” Haven asked.
“It’s not like I can live in the Ravens’ clubhouse for the rest of my life,” Cora said. No one had said a word to her or Haven about moving on, and honestly, she didn’t think they would. It also probably didn’t hurt that the club’s president was in love with Cora’s best friend. But they were currently the only two permanent residents at the clubhouse, though members and the Ravens’ other protective clients sometimes crashed here, and there was always someone around. And Cora wanted more for herself than being some biker groupie, even if she was still figuring out what exactly that was.
Really, it was the first time in her life she’d ever realistically had the chance to consider it. Her dad had made it clear there’d be no money for after she graduated high school, and he’d been true to his word, forcing her to get a series of part-time jobs to pay for food, clothes, the bus, and her phone. The only thing he’d done to help her was let her keep living in her bedroom. Some favor that’d turned out to be . . .