Under the Lights (24 page)

When she said nothing, I unfolded the letter and began to read.

Gunner,

I'm sorry that this has to be done in a letter. Believe me, this is not my way of being afraid to face you. It's the only way I can protect myself. Not from you but from being sent away. Again.

Nonna was waiting on me last night
when I got home. It didn't look good, and it was similar to what had happened with my mother when she was this age. Nonna is afraid I'll end up like my mother, and she is worried about me.

I had no one and Nonna took me in. She deserves more from me than my sneaking around. She asked me to not spend time with boys, and I broke that rule within the first week of my being here. It isn't fair to her. She is giving me a home when no one else will.

You have a lot of hurt inside you that needs time and space to heal. Going off to college next year will give you that. There's this whole world outside of Lawton that you can conquer then. I can't give you the healing you need. I'd like to think that loving you is enough, but it isn't. You can't love yet. Our timing is off, and for both of us this is better.

I'll be homeschooling the rest of the year and staying in this house. No social outings or contact with anyone. It's for the best. I need to heal too.

I'm sorry I can't be there for you, but I have to take care of me.

Willa

I didn't reread it. I didn't have to. The words were clear. I folded the paper back into the neat little rectangle it had been in and placed it back in the envelope before slipping it back through the slot.

Then I walked away. There was no reason to argue with her. I was tired of begging the world to love me. I was exhausted from trying to be good enough for someone to want to fight for. Willa was no different. I should have expected that. Something was wrong with me. That was the only explanation.

She hadn't loved me. If she loved me, she would have opened that door and faced me. Explained this to me. Given me more than a piece of paper. I had come to her house. Knocked on her door and called out her name.

That was as close to begging as I was going to do. Ever again. I should have known better than to love someone and trust them to love me in return.

WILLA

Standing in my window, I held the letter he'd read, then slipped back to me. His retreating form was stiff, and I wanted to call out his name and run after him. But I couldn't. Nonna had made it clear I had to stay away from Gunner or I'd be going to a Catholic school in Nashville.

He hadn't said anything else to me through the door or even tried to ask me questions. I had been prepared to respond if he had. Ignoring him was too hard. It hurt me to not respond to him. The letter was the only way I could think of and not get in trouble with Nonna. She didn't understand that Gunner needed me. She was worried about me.

When I could no longer see him anymore, I set the letter on my nightstand and walked back to the kitchen where the phone was. Calling him was tempting, but it wouldn't help. It would make things harder.

So I stood there alone in the kitchen. Wishing things were different. Knowing they never would be.

•  •  •

Two days later Nonna had supplied me with a laptop and gotten me signed up for homeschooling online. She wasn't that great with technology, but I was, so I had been able to research it and show her what she needed to do. Monday I had thought I might get to sleep late since we weren't set up for online classes yet, but Nonna had woken me up at five in the morning with a list of things she wanted done in the house.

From before the sun rose to after it set I worked on that list. Only took a break to eat lunch. I didn't complain though. I'd much rather be cleaning Nonna's house than that of some strange woman I didn't know in Nashville.

Tuesday morning I was relieved to have my computer and classes ready so I wouldn't have to do another of those lists again. Not that there was anything left to do in this house. It was spotless and completely organized now.

However, Nonna woke me up at five again with another list, this one much shorter than yesterday's, and had me do
those things before eight when she expected me to start my classes. At this rate I was going to start going to bed at eight every night in order to survive. No one should be awake at five in the morning. It wasn't even light out yet.

I was almost done with the last item on the list, mopping the back porch, when Nonna came up to the house with a worried frown.

“You talked to Gunner?”

I shook my head. “No, ma'am.”

“You sure?” she asked in a more demanding tone.

“I swear. He came here Saturday morning, and I didn't answer the door. He went away. He hasn't been back.”

Nonna sighed and her shoulders sagged. “This is the second morning he hasn't come down for breakfast. Yesterday morning his bed was unmade when I went to clean his room. But then I don't clean on Sundays, so that could have been since Saturday night. He didn't come get breakfast yesterday morning and this morning. When I went to make up his bed, it was untouched. Just like I left it yesterday.”

“Have you called the Higgenses? Asked Brady or his mom? Maybe he's there.” That was hopeful thinking. He wasn't there. He was gone. Gunner had run. Just like he wanted to. And it was my fault. I was all he had to talk to about this, and I had shut him out to save myself.

“I did.” She nodded. “They ain't seen him either. I'm
gonna have to tell his momma. She's off in San Francisco at some spa.”

She didn't say she needed to tell his dad. There was no point. He wouldn't care. “Is Rhett still home?”

She shook her head. “No, he left Sunday.”

My heart hurt. It had taken my Nonna to notice Gunner was missing. He had known running wouldn't affect them. They wouldn't look for him. This was what he wanted. It's the only way he thought he could find happiness.

“He's run, Nonna. He hates his parents. He hates this town. So he left. He was threatening to do it that night I was at the tree house with him. He . . . he wanted me to go with him. I said no. I couldn't. I had you to think about.”

Nonna stood there staring at me for several moments. Then finally she spoke. “Does that boy know, about his father?”

My nonna had been in that house for over thirty years. She knew a lot. She'd seen a lot. I just nodded.

“Who told him?”

“His mother.”

She shook her head. “She told that boy, then took off to California to a spa. Jesus, it don't get no worse. Poor kid.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. Knowing Gunner was gone and alone was hard. I wanted to go after him, but I had no idea where to start or even what to say. I'd pushed
him the rest of the way out the door with that letter. If I'd just opened the door and talked to him . . .

“Do you think she'll look for him?” I asked.

Nonna nodded. “He's her cash cow. That's how she sees him. She'll look for him.”

I hated them all too. For hurting Gunner and treating him like he was an unwanted possession they had to keep. A part of me hated me for turning him away. Even though I was trying to stay close by doing it.

Gunner needed to find love. Maybe out there he would learn to love and find the happiness he didn't have here. If this was what he wanted, letting him go was all I could do. But I wish I could talk to him just one last time.

“Go on back inside and start your schoolwork. I'm going to go back to the big house and make some calls. See if I can't figure out where he's taken off to before I call his momma. She'll drag her heels doing it.”

Nonna turned and headed back to the Lawtons'. I watched her go, thinking she'd never find him. He hadn't left without thinking about it. This had been planned, and he had the money to stay hidden.

“Be safe, Gunner,” I whispered, although he was nowhere near me. Then I turned and went inside to put the mop away and begin my first day as a homeschooled senior in high school.

GUNNER

I stared at the toss phone I'd bought at the local Walmart before taking off. I had left my iPhone turned off and hidden in my room. Not that I thought my parents might want to actually find me, but if they did realize I was missing, then tracking me via my cell was easy.

Although I had over ten thousand dollars in cash, thanks to my father's lack of creativity with the combination, I'd been able to take it out of the vault in the office, I was living cheap. The motel room I'd ended up at somewhere in Tennessee, about five hundred miles from Lawton, was only forty dollars a night, and it was for good cause. This place was a shit hole.

I didn't have anyone to call, so why I had gotten the phone in the first place was stupid. Last night I'd considered calling Brady or West and letting them know I was gone for good. But I hadn't.

Staring at it now, I wanted to call Willa. If anyone would be worried, it would be her. Did she even know I was gone yet? Would her Nonna tell her, since she was apparently under house arrest?

I kept going over that letter in my head. Wishing I hadn't given it back but kept it. My pride had won out that day, and I'd shoved it back at her. My pride wasn't winning out now though. I wanted to see her. Read her words. Talk to her.

God, I missed her.

Flopping back on the cheap-ass bed I was sitting on, I directed my frustrated gaze to the water-stained ceiling. Was this what I had wanted? Running across the country from one cheap motel to the next, alone? Sure didn't feel free. Not living in that house with those people was a relief, but this wasn't much better. It was lonely. Ms. Ames wasn't in the kitchen cooking, and I wouldn't get to go out on the field in the afternoons and play football.

More importantly, there was no Willa here. I should have fought harder. She'd been the one to tell me she loved me. I hadn't said the words back to her. Because I hadn't been able to. Saying those words sounded like a promise,
and I wasn't good at keeping promises. I was a Lawton, after all. Blood or not, the other men that I knew that had the same last name didn't have a moral bone in their body. Why would I be different?

If I had been able to say those words, would she have opened that door Saturday? Would she have gone against the rules for me then? Had I even fucking thought about that?

No.

Growling in frustration, I pounded my fists on the bed. This wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to be . . . hell, I wanted to be a Brady Higgens or a West Ashby. A guy who Willa could trust and love without fear. A guy who could tell her he loved her back like she deserved. Why did I have to be so goddamn messed up?

Willa was the best thing that ever happened to me. When I was a little boy and now. Both times she walked into my life and gave me a reason to smile. A reason to hope for more. Running away was throwing that away. I knew there would never be another Willa. Never another chance for the way she made me feel.

But going back meant facing the demons in my house. Conquering them and learning how to live with the changes. Convincing myself I wasn't that little boy anymore who they could mistreat was tough. I still saw them as being powerful and in control.

Sitting up, I reached for my phone and dialed the only number I could right now.

It rang twice before he answered. “Hello.” Brady's voice was comforting. Simply because it was a part of home. A part of Lawton. A place I thought I hated, yet my chest warmed at the idea of it. My parents weren't the town.

The town was Brady and his family, West and his mom, Asa and his family, Nash and Ryker. It was all those people I'd grown up around, and it was Ms. Ames . . . and Willa.

“It's Gunner,” I said.

“Where are you, man? Coach about shit when you missed yesterday. I went by your house and no one answered. Even went by Willa's and nothing there, too. She's not at school either.”

“Willa is fine. She's being homeschooled. I'm coming back. I thought I wanted to run, but I'm coming back. I need your help with something though.”

He paused. “You ran? Like in away from home?”

Figures Brady was going to get hung up on all the details. I needed him to focus on what I was going to ask him. Not the play-by-play of my taking off.

“Yeah, shit got bad at home, so I just left—”

“Where are you?” He cut me off, sounding panicked now.

I smiled. I was missed. Brady missed me. I hadn't given
credit to Brady for caring when he'd tried to show me more than once he was there if I needed him. I'd just felt safe with Willa. Knowing he cared . . . that felt good. “I'm about five hundred miles away, but I'm coming home. Now would you listen to me and do something for me?”

“When did you leave? Jesus, Gunner, I tried to be a friend and listen to you on Saturday. You sent me packing. If you needed to talk, I was available. You didn't have to take off.”

If Mr. Do-Gooder didn't shut the hell up and listen to me, I was going to lose my shit. “Brady, could you focus please?”

“I'm focused. What do you want? I'm going to need a good excuse for why you aren't at practice again. We need you on the field Friday night. Coach won't let you play if you don't have a good excuse.”

A good excuse was the last thing on my mind. “Tell Willa to tell Ms. Ames everything. Explain it all. And that I'm coming home.”

I almost added to tell her that I loved her, but I wanted to say those words myself. To her. It was for both of us. A part of my moving on and letting go of the bitterness that controlled me.

“Okay . . .” he replied slowly, then added, “Is this gonna get her in trouble? Because she's on probation. She
can't get in trouble. Or is she already? Why is she homeschooled?”