“Your next number-one hit?”I ask, half joking.
One of Boone’s eyebrows goes up.“I guess we’ll see.”
What would it be like for that to even be a possibility?Do I really want to know?
“I’ve been doing some thinking, and I want to take you home.”
Jerked away from answering either question, I snap my gaze back to Boone with surprise, and a shaft of disappointment surprises me with its intensity.“Oh.Of course.I just need to get my stuff, and I’ll be ready.I can have Hope come get me if you’re too busy.”
A look of confusion crosses Boone’s face before it clears.He shakes his head.“No, not your home.Mine.My folks.I want you to meet them.See where I grew up.”
I catch my reflection in the glass windows of the recording studio, and I’m not sure my eyebrows could go any higher.
“What?Like ...soon?”Meeting the parents is kind of a big freaking deal.
One corner of Boone’s mouth quirks up.“Yeah, like today.”
“Today?I can’t.I have to work tonight.”
“I took care of it.”
What did he just say?He couldn’t have possibly said what I think he just said.
“Excuse me?”
“I took care of it.I called Hope.She said you can have the weekend off.”
I take a deep breath, but my temper gets the best of me.How dare he?
“I don’t want the weekend off!I need to work.I need the money.That’s why I have a job.I can’t keep taking time off, because I’ll never save any money and get my own place.And weekend shifts are the biggest for tips.”
Boone shrugs like it’s no big deal.“I’ll cover it.You won’t lose any money.”
My jaw drops open at the fact that he thinks I’d take a handout.
“I’m not taking your money.Iworkfor mine, which is why I need to call Hope right now and tell her not to take me off the schedule.”
“Too late.She said someone else asked for extra shifts because she’s got a sick kid who needs surgery, so she said it worked out perfectly.”
He’s talking about Lenora, another part-time bartender at the White Horse, a single mom whose baby has been in and out of the hospital since she was born.
I suck in a deep breath, my temper still dangerously close to boiling over.If there’s one person I’ve met who needs money more than I do, it’s her.Butstill.
I straighten my shoulders and lift my chin.“Listen.You don’t get to run my life or make decisions for me.You don’t get to decide whether I do or don’t need the cash from working a weekend.You have no idea what it’s like to be me, and what it’s like to be worried about making enough money so you don’t have to eat PB&J for weeks at a time.”
The smile on Boone’s face fades and his expression goes dark.“You think I don’t know what it’s like not to know where your next meal is coming from?You think you’re the only one who has ever had to worry about making ends meet?”
“You just told me about your perfect parents and perfect childhood and perfect freaking life, so no.I don’t think you know what that’s like.”
Boone’s eyebrows dive into slashes between his eyes.“I lived in my car for six months—through the goddamned winter.Some nights I couldn’t sleep because my teeth would chatter so hard.If I didn’t pull in enough tips at the bar or find odd jobs, I didn’t eat the next day.I know what it’s like, Ripley, but I also didn’t have friends like you do.No one rolled out the welcome mat for me and told me to stay as long as I liked.No one helped me get a job or a break.You’re buried so deep in the struggle, you can’t see all the good you’ve got around you.”
“Because the struggle is all I know!I can’t rely on anyone but me.If I do and it falls through, then I’m even more screwed than I was before.”
“You think Hope is going to screw you over?”
“No, but—”
“You think I’m going to screw you over?”