All That Really Matters by Nicole Deese (new books to read TXT) 📕

on at the first wink of the morning sun. Just like I could envision him standing in his kitchen, filling a glass of water at his sink, or making a meal for one after a long day of work.

His watchful gaze tracked me as I moved through his house, but his smile indicated I hadn’t yet overstayed my welcome. As I cut through his living room, past his sleek kitchen to poke my head around the corner, I recalled our late-night phone conversations this past week. Now that I had the added visual of his floorplan, I could imagine him moving about his space as we talked together. It was like a movie playing in my mind, one I could rewind and pause now at my leisure.

My attention turned to a lacquered wooden dart board at the end of his hallway. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dart board like that.”

“It was a gift. From my father. He made it.”

“Wow. It’s beautiful.”

“Yes. It’s a hobby we’ve shared for many years.”

“That’s really special.” Slowly, I turned toward him, realizing just how little I knew about Silas’s world. Though he’d told me bits and pieces about his adoption, his siblings and folks, and his altered career path in his midtwenties, there was still so much I’d yet to learn about him. And I wanted to learn it. I wanted to know anything Silas was willing to share with me.

He smiled quizzically, and I broke the spell his dark eyes had cast with a gesture toward his living room. “Well, it’s official. You have the nicest bachelor pad I’ve ever been to.” At the gleam of humor in his eyes, I realized how a statement like that might sound. “Not that I’ve been to a ton of bachelor pads or anything. I haven’t. Just a few. One of them being my brother’s.”

“Molly,” he said. “I understood what you meant.”

“Right, okay.”

“Okay,” he said, smiling. “Need to see anything else while we’re here?”

“Nope, I’m good now. Wait.” I held up a finger. “Inquiring minds still need to know how you arrange your spices.”

“Is the answer a prerequisite to driving your car?”

I laughed. “It is now, yes.”

“They’re alphabetized.”

For some unexplainable reason, his answer delighted me.

“You passed. Let’s go.” I tossed him the keys, and he stared down at his palm as if I’d just given him the deed to a private island. The corner of his mouth ticked into a sly grin.

Silas didn’t say much as he opened the driver’s door and listened to the voice prompts from the talking computer that was, in fact, my car. He buckled his seatbelt and shot me a glance I couldn’t quite decipher as it rattled off current statistics—mileage total, battery charge, road conditions, weather conditions, the current time.

“What?” I asked. “What are you thinking?”

“That I’m about to drive a brand-new Tesla, and Jake’s not even here to witness it.”

“It’s just a car,” I offered nonchalantly.

He laughed and pressed a button to adjust the mirrors to his height. “Right, and you’re just a woman.”

Though I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant, if the way he accelerated was any indication, his comment had been anything but negative. Silas wove through his neighborhood, fiddling with every button and testing out the brakes several times.

“Mind if I take a more scenic route through Spokane?”

“Of course not.”

Neither of us spoke as we passed fir trees, streetlights, residential neighborhoods, farms, and then eventually the more industrial districts of downtown.

For some unknown reason, it didn’t feel odd in the least to hand over the driver’s seat to Silas. In fact, it felt just the opposite. Like I could close my eyes and relax my head against the back of the passenger seat as he grinned like a teenage boy who’d been let loose with a brand-new license.

“I can’t get over how smooth the acceleration is. It’s incredible.”

“Yeah,” I said a bit dully. “It’s great.”

“I take it you’re not much of a car specs gal?”

I chuckled. “Not at all. The specs weren’t why I bought it.” A painful admission I rarely shared. I hadn’t bought it for the cool tricks or the fuel economy–saving statistics. I bought for status, a shiny symbol of my success. I bought it because Ethan had pointed to an image on a magazine with a quote that read, “This year’s most coveted car for under a hundred grand!” The memory of it caused shame to swirl in my lower abdomen. What could a program like The Bridge do with money like that? I knew the answer, of course. It’s the reason I agreed to work so hard on the fundraiser, so that Silas’s vision could be made into a reality. So that more kids like Wren could sleep in a safe home and be given a hope for their future outside the disheartening statistics.

“So why did you buy it?” Silas asked.

The story seemed too unreal to retell, like it was connected to another life outside of mine. And yet, somehow, I often told Silas the things I usually reserved for my brother—and sometimes not even him.

“I’d just hit a big milestone on my platforms. Five hundred thousand followers. I celebrated by buying a new car.” With Ethan was what I left out. “To be totally honest, I probably spent more time deciding what to wear to the car lot than I did on this purchase.” The admission soured in my mouth as I waited for Silas to say something about the wastefulness of it all, of the poor financial decision I’d made when there were thousands of better options for me to invest that money in. And yet his face remained pensive as he drove on without comment.

As we neared the mall, I changed the subject to one we both had stock in. “Have you heard anything from Wren today?”

He glanced at me before looking back at the road. “No, you?”

“Not yet. But I just keep thinking about how happy she was when I dropped her off last night. The