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and his frown deepens into a scowl.
    “How did you know about that?” He unknots the bandana at his neck and yanks it down.
    “Our mothers have the biggest mouths in the world.” I say it before I remember I’m using the wrong tense for his mother.
    Shut up, Sadie. Shut your damn mouth, you idiot.
    I’m glad that the moonlight hides the flush of my embarrassment. “You know what I mean,” I mutter, staring down at my shoes.
    “Yeah. I always gave everyone a lot to talk about, didn’t I? Trent, the fuckup. That’s kind of my modus operandi, right?” He grabs his hood and pulls it back up and tighter around his face.
    “No!” I put a hand out and press it against his chest. He glances down, eyebrows raised high. “But, I mean, you were on probation, weren’t you? I mean, are you still on probation? Because, technically, what you’re doing is graffiti. So if you get busted…”
    “ Graffiti . You say it the same way you’d say porn .”
    He brushes the tips of his fingers, darkened from paint, I assume, over my hand, and body parts entirely unrelated to my hand tighten and tingle.
    I shrug one shoulder in an attempt to appear careless because I hate the fact that he’s so willing to take these crazy risks. If he wants to make this gorgeous art, why not get a studio space? Enroll in an art class? Why does Trent need to make it a risk?
    “Not all that different right? Both are kind of perversely beautiful? Taboo expression?” I could write a thesis on this. I think I actually did , a few semesters before.
    “‘Taboo expression’?” He gnaws on the side of his bottom lip in and shakes his head in disgust. “It’s not just jerking off for me. It’s not just fucking the man.” He lifts his eyes and his jaw pinches with the tight clamp of his teeth. “Of everyone, I thought you’d get it, Sadie. I thought you’d see what I was doing.”
    I glance back at the art that seems like it’s moved since I last looked at it. I want to stand here and soak it in, but I have to let Trent know this is not a good idea. That I give more of a shit about his being safe and on the right side of the law than I do about his art, no matter how breathtaking it might be.
    “What? Making yourself a target for the local law enforcement?”
    I drop my hand, but he leaves his on his chest, pressed over the spot where mine rested. His eyes are narrowed with pain, like I stabbed him in the heart.
    My guilt snakes up and makes me lash out. “Georgia can hardly keep it together, and you’re out on the fucking trestle waving down trouble with a neon can of spray-paint? Grow up, Trent!”
    “Grow up? Me ?” It’s dark, but not so dark that I can’t see the black swirl of hurt in his eyes. He gives a cold laugh. “Right, because I’m the one who can’t face shit like an adult. You know what? Fuck off, Sadie.”
    He takes a few steps away from me, stops short, and shakes his head again. He grunts with frustration, whirls back, and grabs my upper arm hard, dragging me towards my mother’s house.
    “What the hell are you doing?” I snatch my arm away.
    “Getting you home safe, that’s what I’m doing. Damnit, you piss me off like no one else in the fucking world can, but I can’t leave you here. I never can manage to walk away from you,” he mutters, reaching for my wrist.
    I pull away, my feet almost slipping out from under me when I careen on the edge of my equilibrium.
    “Seriously? I’ve been on my own for four years. I walk back and forth to work at night. I’ve been on a dozen road trips alone. I navigated my way to Tennessee and back all by myself. I’m not an idiot, and I don’t need my best friend’s baby brother to take me home.”
    Shit. Shit, shit, shit .
    I pushed it too far, and I know it. I try to find the words to fix it, but I don’t know what they would be, where to even start. So I just stand there, mouth hanging half open.
    I’m an idiot.
    Trent’s hands fall to his sides. He blows out a