Walk (Gentry Boys) by Cora Brent

mean-“
    “Come with me.” 
    She looked up in surprise.  I hadn’t thought about it.  I’d just said it.  But now it seemed like a great idea.  Cord wouldn’t mind; I was sure of it.  My cousins were always ‘the more, the merrier’ type of people.  They wouldn’t even blink over the fact that I barely knew this girl.
    Evie looked uncertain but hopeful.  “You sure it’s okay?  After all, if it’s a family thing…”
    “It’s fine,” I said and tightened my grip on her hand.  “My cousins are cool with just about everything and everyone. I would really like to bring you.” 
    She beamed, so plainly delighted you’d think I’d just asked her to the damn prom.  She offered to drive but I had enough male macho attitude left in me that I wanted to be the pilot.  If getting behind the wheel still made me sweat a little I’d never let her know it. 
    We chatted easily on the way to Cord’s house.  Evie talked about her job in the corporate office of a big construction company that was based downtown, mentioned that she lived alone and was twenty-five.  She was surprised to learn my age. 
    “You seem older than twenty-two,” she said bluntly. 
    “Yeah, well I feel older than twenty-two,” I admitted. 
    Once, when we were stopped at a light, I tensed when I heard sirens but they faded and so I relaxed.  Evie didn’t seem to notice; she was telling me about her childhood in the pine country up north.  She talked fast, using rare words like ‘whimsical’ and ‘capricious’ and gestured with her hands a lot.  She also had a sharp sense of humor, blurting out comical phrases that got me laughing out loud.   I stole glances at her whenever I could, wondering how I’d ever come by that first impression in the café a few weeks ago that she was cute but not gorgeous. 
    The more I looked at her and the longer I listened to her the more I understood that Evie wasn’t cute.  She wasn’t pretty.  She was absolutely fucking beautiful. 

CHAPTER NINE
    Evie
     
    There are probably a lot of women out there who would find all kinds of sensible reasons not to get into the passenger seat of a rickety pickup with a stranger who had a great body and a prison record.  
    But I couldn’t think of a single one. 
    Then again, I didn’t recall ever being accused of being too sensible. 
    Stone was younger than I’d assumed.  So many guys his age and even older were full of a certain kind of cocky superiority that demanded the world, but there was nothing casual about his watchful blue eyes. 
    There was pain in there.  Heartbreak.  Damage.  Sometimes I caught him looking at me almost warily, as if he thought I was something risky and unfathomable.   It was funny to me that a guy his size, and who looked the way he did, would be timid even for a second. He’d been genuinely shocked when I kissed him in his apartment.  
    Stone had grown up in the small town of Emblem, coincidentally where the Central State prison was located.   But he shifted uncomfortably when he said the name of his hometown and I could tell he didn’t want to talk about the past.   I didn’t mention to him that I’d been to Emblem, that I’d been to the prison, that I had a blood-related reason to return there.  There were things I didn’t want to talk about either.  So instead I talked about life up north, where the air was crisp and not dusty, where ten thousand adventures waited in the shadows of the ponderosa pines. 
    “Wait!” I shouted as we passed a supermarket.  “Pull in here real quick.”
    He was confused.  “What for?  They’ll have food at the barbecue.” 
    “Silly.  You shouldn’t arrive empty handed to a party.  Let’s stop in and grab a cake or something.” 
    Stone swung into the parking lot.  “That’s a good idea actually.” 
    After he set the break he sat there for a moment and gave me a long, hard look of approval.  There was something else in there too.  Something