Deafening Silence

Chapter 3

Beck

I was pacing impatiently in front of my garage, checking my watch every ten seconds and my phone in between. Where is he? He said he'd be here by eight. I'll have to tell him not to come. I ran my hand through my hair, yanking on the curls.

As it was eight-fifteen, I was about to pull out my phone to text him that he couldn't come until later when I heard a rumble approaching. I looked up to find Travis's familiar red truck. He climbed out with a coil of cables around his wrist and his hood pulled low over his face.

"You're late," I said, expecting him to come back with some snarky comment.

"Let's just do this," Travis said instead. I looked at him in surprise, his demeanor completely different from yesterday afternoon, but he didn't meet my gaze. He went about hooking up the cables, not looking my way once. I rolled my eyes. Fine. Let him be moody.

"What's up with you?" I asked, the silence not nearly as comfortable as yesterday afternoon. He didn't look up from where he was kneeling on the floor in front of my motorcycle, his hood hiding any movement of his head or facial expression.

I stalked over and pulled the hood back from his face, ready to force him to look at me and talk to me. As soon as I did, my breath caught. There was a purplish bruise underneath his right eye that wasn't there yesterday, and it looked like it would only get worse.

He tried to pull his hood back up, but I tugged it back down.

"Stand up," I said. He didn't move, still working on attaching the cables to the bike. "Stand up," I said again, more forcefully this time. He complied, grudgingly but without the stubbornness I had seen yesterday.

"It's nothing," he said, looking anywhere but me. I touched his cheek and gently but firmly turned his face to mine. His skin was warm and slightly scratchy from him not shaving this morning.

"It's not 'nothing,'" I returned, ignoring how his eyes jumped to mine the second my fingertips touched his skin. I focused on the bruise, lightly brushing my fingers over it.

Before anything else could be said, I heard the door connecting the house to the garage open and I cursed under my breath as I quickly dropped my hand. This is exactly what I was hoping to avoid.

"Morning, Dad," I said, looking over Travis's shoulder. My dad was in full uniform, his police officer badge gleaming brightly on his chest. Travis stuffed his hands in his pockets and became extremely interested with a crack in the floor of the garage.

"Hey, Beck," my dad replied, quickly noticing Travis, his voice becoming strained when he noticed how close we were. "Who's this?" Travis turned around and my dad's face turned white after a moment. I saw a glimmer of recognition in Travis's face as he stumbled back, his eyes flicking to the gun strapped to my father's hip. I stared at both of them, sure I held the short end of the stick when it came to knowing what was up.

"Travis is just helping me jump-start my bike. He'll be gone in twenty minutes. Tops," I said slowly, breaking the silence but still unsure about what was currently going down in my garage. My dad nodded slowly and walked around to his black wrangler parked on the side of the house. He pulled out slowly, watching us the whole time. When he was gone, I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding.

"You didn't tell me your dad was a cop," Travis said accusingly as he walked around to his pickup.

"I didn't feel the need to," I replied shortly. "You never told me about your parents," I retaliated, sure it would put him in his place. He started the engine of his car, sitting in the driver's seat a moment or two before replying.