The teen walked out to the truck, moving so slowly he might as well have been walking backward. “So Mom finally bailed, huh?” Troy asked when he finally got close enough to be heard.“You know?” Tanner asked.“Yeah. I overheard her talking on the phone a week ago.”Shit. No wonder the kid had been attitude-ridden and pissed at the world. “You’ll still see her,” Tanner told him. “You can fly back there whenever you want and—”“I don’t care.” Troy tossed his backpack into the back, slid into the truck, and buckled up.“Troy—”“I don’t wanna talk about it.”Tanner wanted to say tough shit because they needed to talk about it, but that battle could wait until they weren’t in the truck. So could the talk about getting caught in a girl’s bedroom. “School okay?”He got a barely lifted shoulder.“You turn in your research paper for English that was due today?”Another shoulder lift.“Help me out here,” Tanner said. “Is that yes, no, or go to hell?”Troy let out a breath.
