All It Takes Read online

  If that poodle was the sign of things to come, then I’m pretty much doomed.

  I raise my hand in the air and try to flag down my waitress, but she ignores me and moves across the room to top up the mug of an old man who’s sitting in a booth with a little boy. They’re playing Go Fish, their discarded cards littering the table between them. It’s adorable, but it’s no reason to ignore me.

  Another waitress, a blonde about my age walks by me with a tray of plates in her arms, and I reach out to touch her arm before she gets too far. She jumps at my touch, but doesn’t lose her hold on the tray. It’s impressive.

  “Sorry!” I say, drawing my hands back before I do any more damage. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I was just wondering if I could get a refill.” I waggle my empty mug in her direction. Her gaze darts between the mug and my face, and the tray in her arms wobbles a bit.

  “Star?”

  My heart stutters a bit at the sound of my name. How the hell does she know my name? My gaze darts around the diner. I feel like everyone’s looking at me. By now the news about my mother’s . . . condition must have made the rounds through town, not to mention her passing. Stupid small towns. I look back up at her, and she’s smiling down at me, expectantly. “Star Collins?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, baffled, “do I . . . ?”

  “It’s me!” she says, and lays the tray down on a nearby table before sinking into the seat across from me. “Lacey Kendall.”

  I blink at her stupidly for a second before the name finally clicks into place somewhere in the back of my memory.

  Holy shit. I can actually see it now. Her face has slimmed out since childhood, all that baby fat melted away to reveal the woman underneath. The hair is the same, though, bright blonde just like mine is under all the black dye. I can’t believe it.

  “Holy crap,” I say. It’s the only thing I can say. I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me when I decided to come back here. I spent the first nine years of my life in this tiny town. Of course someone would recognize me. Especially the girl I used to spend nearly every afternoon in the sandbox with.

  “How are you?” she says, face breaking out into a smile. She leans her elbows on the table between us, somehow managing to carve herself out a little spot between my giant lunch platter and my abandoned laptop. I’d been trying to email my roommate earlier, to update her on what was happening, but I’m not sure that my email actually went through. Wi-Fi is apparently hard to come by in town, and while the sign in the diner’s window boasts its availability, its signal strength left something to be desired. I can only hope that I got through. Otherwise my stay here is going to be pretty lonely. As sweet as Lacey seems, all bright eyes and smiles, I’m not really interested in mingling with the locals. Especially if news of my mother’s problem hasn’t passed around town yet.

  What they don’t know won’t hurt them.

  Or, more importantly, me.

  I don’t know how, but if it’s possible, I’m going to keep the house and the hoard under the radar. Just the thought of what the house is hiding has me getting all worked up again. I don’t need any other distractions. I just need to get it cleaned out.

  Even though I have no fucking idea how I’m going to do that.

  I look back up at Lacey, and I realize she’s waiting for me to say something, but I have no idea what she just said. My mind’s a total blank.

  Before I can stop it, a nervous laugh bubbles up out of me. God, I’m so awkward.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, shaking my head and rubbing a hand over my burning face. “I completely spaced. What did you say?”

  Lacey just smiles at me, all bright eyes and tanned skin and super-straight white teeth. God, she’s grown up to be the spitting image of a small-town girl, all bubbly and blonde. It’s bizarre. “It’s okay,” she says. “I just asked how you were. I mean—” her eyes dance over me, and I can’t help but wonder exactly what she thinks she’s seeing when she looks at me “—you just look so . . . so different!”

  Yeah, I think. No kidding.

  When I’d last seen her, Lacey and I had looked more alike than we did different. Long blond hair. Big smiles with missing baby teeth. We’d even been the same height. I’ve grown taller than her, but I am by no means a giant. She just . . . stopped. She is all tiny and dainty and golden. I . . . am not.

  I reach up and tug at the ends of my dark hair. I’ve been dyeing it for years. I don’t think I could go back to blonde ever again. It just isn’t . . . me.

  “Yeah,” I murmur, “I guess I do.” Her smile is hesitant even as her gaze darts over the tattoos that wander down my arms, the names inked on the fingers of my right hand, the names of the people who have been a positive influence in my life. Roth on the inner edge of my right pinkie, Autumn on my ring finger, my old foster brother and first boyfriend Brick on my middle finger. The word climb I had tattooed on the inside of my wrist when I’d gotten into college. Everything. She wants to say something. I can tell. So I shift back in my chair and wait. I just want to see if she’s actually going to mention them.

  She doesn’t. But that might just be because the diner door swings open, tinkling the little bell that’s hanging just above it, a guy walks in who looks like he fits in even less than I do.

  If that’s even possible.

  He’s not very tall, not for a guy, at least. He’s maybe a couple inches taller than my five-foot-six, and he’s wearing ripped, baggy jeans that seem to be holding onto his body by sheer force of will, like at any second they’re going to make a break for it and just fall right down. Over that, he’s wearing a T-shirt and the ugliest army jacket I’ve ever seen in my life, and just beneath the cuff, I can see the black ink of a tattoo as it snakes down his wrist to cover the back of his left hand.

  His dirty-blond hair is cut short, but not in any particular style. More than anything it just looks like he took a pair of scissors to it and started hacking, and his jaw is covered in a few days’ worth of scruff. He has a face that looks like if he’d cleaned himself up, he’d look pretty good. But he has a long way to go.

  And judging by the way Lacey has tensed up in her chair as she looks over her shoulder at him, she agrees.

  The guy kind of hovers in the doorway for a minute, looking around like he hasn’t seen the place in years—Did I look like that when I walked in?—then his eyes clap on the waitress behind the counter, the one who’d given me and my tattoos a dirty look earlier, and he shoves his hands into his pockets and kind of shuffles in her general direction.

  Lacey whips back around to face me, her pale ponytail slicing through the air so fast I’m amazed she doesn’t take her own eye out. She plants the palms of her hands flat down on the table top. “Excuse me for a minute, Star. I’ll be right back.” Then she’s up and out of the seat before I can say a word. She’s completely forgotten about the tray of food she was in the middle of delivering to the other diners when she spotted me, but, as I glance around the room, worried that someone is going to call her out on it, I realize that none of the diners seem to care about that.

  All their attention is on the guy, the one Lacey is making a beeline toward. I can see her face from here, and she looks like a bloodhound who’s just caught a scent, all full of concentration and purpose. It’s a little unnerving to watch. The guy only makes it about two-thirds of the way to the counter when Lacey intercepts him with a—I hate to say it, but really freaking snotty—“Can I help you?”

  Cold. Really cold. And judging by the look on the guy’s face, he feels the chill.

  “I . . . Could I maybe speak to the manager?” He pauses for a moment, and when Lacey doesn’t say anything, he adds an awkward “Please?”

  “I can help you,” Lacey says, and crosses her arms over her chest.

  “Okay,” he says, and blows out a breath, slowly, like he’s trying his best to ignore her reaction, which, t
o be honest, is unexpectedly bitchy. He reaches into the pocket of his army jacket, and pulls out a folded piece of paper. “Well, I was just wondering if you guys had any openings.” He unfolds the piece of paper and holds it out to her. It trembles a bit in his grip, and as I watch, he starts chewing on his lip. “I’m looking for a job.”

  I expect Lacey to reach out and take the paper, to tell him that she’ll pass it on to the manager for him. But she doesn’t. Instead she just stands there, her arms crossed over her chest, her fingers tapping against her arm.

  “Sorry,” she says, but the tone of her voice makes it clear she’s anything but. “We’re not hiring.”

  The guy just kinds of stares at her. I don’t think he was expecting that, either. The piece of paper—which must be his résumé, I realize—sort of hangs there in the air between them, and the fact that Lacey isn’t even pretending to be interested in it speaks volumes. Hell, it screams them. After a moment, the guy’s gaze drops to the floor, and he pulls the résumé back. That’s when I notice just how worn that piece of paper is. It’s half-crumpled and looks kind of soft, like it’s been folded and unfolded again and again. This is not the first time he’s been turned down, but I’m willing to bet real money that it’s one of the rudest. And most unexpected, given the way his face falls. “Oh. Okay,” he says quietly, and neatly folds the piece of paper and slides it back into his pocket. “Thanks for your time.” He doesn’t look up as he leaves, just steps around her and beelines for the door.

  Just as he pushes open the door, though, one of the customers lets out a cough.

  “Killer.”

  Even through the fake cough, the word is loud enough that I flinch at the sound. And if I can hear him, the guy at the door can, too. He freezes for a second, then, head down, shoves his way out the door. It slams behind him, bell jangling, and I jump as Lacey slides back into the seat in front of me.

  “Holy crap,” she says, her face flushed and her eyes wide as saucers. “Did you see that?”

  My stomach twists and something inside me aches for that guy. “What the hell just happened?” I ask, turning to face Lacey. She looks so sweet, but that was harsh. What the hell is going on in this town?

  “Oh,” she says, and a weird little smile begins to spread across her face. She plants her elbows on the table and cups her face in her hands. Leaning forward, like she’s sharing gossip at a slumber party, she says, “Just wait ’til you hear this.”

  Chapter 3

  Star

  I can’t believe it.

  This is just my luck.

  The stupid car won’t start.

  I’m stuck in the parking lot with Lacey watching from the window, and my mother’s stupid fucking car won’t start. I keep turning the key but the engine just won’t turn over. It just sputters and dies. Sputters and dies.

  I give it one last shot, muttering every swear word I can think of as I twist the key in the ignition, but once again, nothing. Groaning, I slump forward and let my head fall against the steering wheel.

  Fuck.

  God. Fucking. Dammit.

  What next? Just how much more am I going to have to deal with?

  I already had to sit through Lacey’s entire rendition of the tragic life story of the guy she’d run off at the diner. She’d just sat there and went on and on, completely unaffected, like she was regaling me with the plot of a movie she’d just watched or something. It was shameful.

  I don’t know if I’ve changed so much since we were kids, or if she has, but the girl I remember playing in the sandbox with wouldn’t have gotten so much joy out of another person’s suffering. Or wouldn’t have been so oblivious about it, as she seemed to be. Because I don’t know how anyone could cause the death of another human being unintentionally and not be suffering.

  And, according to Lacey, that’s what the guy had done.

  He’d killed a man. A father. A man with a family.

  He’d gone to a party, had apparently gotten high as a kite and he’d driven himself home. But the party was three towns away, and he only made it back through one and a half of them before the accident. He’d made it nearly all the way through Thurould when his car had collided with the other man’s. And that had been that.

  Lacey had taken such joy in telling me this that it actually soured what was left of my appetite, and I ended up pushing the rest of my food away. She didn’t even notice. She just grinned at me. “It was even bigger news around here then when the Fire Marshall’s son decided that he was a she, if you know what I mean. I mean, Avenue’s very own murderer. How insane is that?”

  “Manslaughter,” I mumbled as one of the guys in the booth a little ways away started waving in our direction and calling out to her.

  She glanced over her shoulder real quick, as the guy called out playfully, “Can we get some service over here, Babycakes?” then turned back at me, puzzlement in her eyes.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Manslaughter,” I repeated, louder this time. “Murder requires intent. Manslaughter is accidental. Unless he actually went out and tried to run someone down, he would have been charged with manslaughter. Not murder.”

  “Lacey!” the guy had resorted to yelling by then, the playful tone fading out of his voice.

  She twisted around in her seat and yelled “I’m coming! Keep your pants on!” at the guy, and then turned back to me.

  “Whatever,” she said, waving me off and pulling herself up out of the chair and snagging the tray of food she’d abandoned earlier. “Listen, since you’re back now, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

  That’s how I ended up getting dragged across the diner by my childhood best friend—who I would have been perfectly happy leaving in my childhood—and meeting a group of three guys who looked up at me like I was an alien that had just crash-landed on their planet. On Christmas. In the middle of dinner. Jesus, I was already sick of this town.

  How is this my life?

  “This is Preston,” she said, laying a plate of steak and eggs in front of the guy closest to her, the one with the blond hair and bright green eyes. Damn, I think. Apparently Lacey isn’t the only one that embraced the whole small-town-golden-child thing. I nodded at him, like his name was supposed to mean something to me. “Preston’s granddaddy owns this Mary Lou’s. Has for years. Preston,” she said, turning back to me and waving her hands at me like she was presenting some kind of door prize. “This is Star. We went to elementary school together.” He nodded at me, and I felt kind of like I’d just been dismissed by a dignitary or something. Who did this guy think he was? “And this,” Lacey continued, oblivious to how uncomfortable I was “is Clay.” She set another plate of food on the table, this time in front of a guy who I suddenly realized looked exactly the same as Preston. How the hell had she been able to tell them apart? “Clay is Preston’s brother,” she said to me, because apparently I was blind on top of being an alien.

  “Much to my dismay,” the guy said, giving me a little smile before turning to his food. Okay, I liked this one a little better. But beside me, Lacey scoffed and whapped him on the shoulder with the back of her hand. “You be nice, Clayton,” she said. Then turned to me. “Preston’s my boyfriend,” she said. Ah, that explained it. “And Clay is just jealous.”

  “Of course I am, Lacey. Of course I am.”

  He clearly wasn’t, but Lacey didn’t seem to notice that, judging by the grin she had spreading across her face. “And that’s Barry,” she said, pointing at the other guy at the table who had broad shoulders and close-cropped brown hair. And who, mercifully, didn’t look anything like the other two. “He’s been friends with Preston and Clay since forever. He’s back from college for the summer. He’s on a football scholarship. Quarterback,” she said, her voice ripe with emphasis, much to my confusion. Did I look like someone who cared about football? I was pretty sure I didn’t.

&n
bsp; “You know,” she said, turning to me with a strange little smile pulling at her lips, “since you’re here for the summer and Bear’s here for the summer, maybe you two could go out sometime.”

  That was when my brain clicked back online and I realized I had to make my escape. I could see where she was going with this and I wasn’t about to let myself be led like a lamb to the slaughter of a summer full of bad blind dates. Quarterback or not, I was out of there. Before she could get another word out, I made my excuses, grabbed my stuff and tossed a twenty on my table—more than enough to cover my crappy BLT platter when I’d actually ordered a bacon cheeseburger in the first place—and hightailed it out of there before Lacey could stop me.

  Unfortunately, my escape only got me as far as the parking lot where my getaway vehicle is refusing to start and sounds like an old woman with bronchitis and a three-pack-a-day habit. Fantastic.

  I’m trying to decide whether screaming or crying would be a better option for venting my frustration before I freaking explode when there’s a knock on the window next to me and my entire body jerks.

  I whip around in my seat, heart slamming in my chest, and find the guy that Lacey had all but kicked out of the diner standing there, looking at me through the driver’s-side window.

  Great. Just great.

  Ash

  I fucked up. I know that.

  But for some reason I hadn’t expected it to follow me around for the rest of my life.

  It’s not like I’ve ever stopped thinking about it. It’s hard not to, when your fuck-up costs another man his life. But I’d just assumed that when I got out of prison, it would be over.

  It is never going to be over.

  No one is ever going to let me forget what I’ve done.

  What they don’t seem to realize is that they don’t have to bother. I’ve been living my mistake every single day for the past five years.