Page 222 of Burn Bright

My parents can’t force their desires. They can get creative, yeah, and place me among the family who have bodyguards flanking their every move. Being protected by proxy.

So I assume my brothers are about to lead me down that type of path.

“No, I didn’t call him. This isn’t supposed to be a big ordeal. If you all want to go with me, then no bodyguards. I don’t want to make a scene. In and out. I’ll be five minutes. You stay in the car and wait for me after we drop Harriet off at her apartment.”

I’m floored when they instantly agree.

Minutes later, I’m in Beckett’s luxury car with his personal driver, Hans, behind the wheel. My four brothers with me. I’ve already said bye to Harriet at her apartment, and now we’re en route to the frat house.

My stomach grumbles because I burned way too many calories today working out and having sex. I want to eat the granola while not dirtying the sleek black interior of Beckett’s SUV. The risk of spreading crumbs is astronomical. It’s not a soft, chewy granola bar. It will break into too many tiny pieces with one bite.

Should’ve grabbed a banana.Fuck.

“So you’ve screwed us all over, brother,” Eliot says as we hit a red light.

My brows pinch together in confusion. “What’d I do?”

“Chose a girlfriend that Mom literally adores.” Eliot flashes a wry grin. “Thank you for setting the bar unimaginably high for the rest of our future significant others.”

“You don’t need to worry about that, Eliot,” Charlie says from the front seat. “We’ll all be dead before you stop fucking around.”

“Touché,” Eliot smiles. “But even while you are nestled in your graves, I don’t think my future girlfriend will be living up to the Harriet Fisher standard. I heard Mom asked her to Le Petit Rêve.”

“Beeeeen.” Tom lengthens my name in a groan. “Seriously, couldn’t you have told her to belch or something?”

I’m near laughter. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard her belch.”

“So she’s Mom’s favorite and she doesn’t burp?” Tom throws up his hands. “I’m calling it, she’s a demon.”

“What about Dad?” Eliot wonders. “He could be our opening. Maybe he hasn’t been bedazzled by Harriet’s demonic charm.”

I stare at the granola in my hand. Our dad didn’t have as much time to converse with Harriet, but he told me he cantell she means everything to me. He used that exact word.Everything. That’s all I care about—that he knows she’s not a tiny part of my world, that she is my world.

“Dad already likes her, I’m sure,” Beckett says, immediately grabbing my gaze. He has a soft smile on me, and I can practically read his eyes that calmly whisper,no need to be afraid.

That’s not what I’ve been afraid of, Beck. A lump wedges in my throat. How do I tell them? How do I explain the mess inside my mind? It’s beenyears, and I never really could unravel it all in perfect coherence. I barely understand myself at times.

In the silence, my growling stomach sounds like a broken dishwasher.

“Dude, did you skip dinner?” Tom side-eyes me.

“Our growing baby boy,” Eliot teases.

Beckett smiles into a laugh, which is making me smile, but I’m still not unwrapping the granola. It causes Beckett to frown a little more. Then his face just completely plummets, and that hurts. We stare at each other for a long moment, unspoken things passing between us, and I don’t know what to do until Charlie says, “Eat it.”

I waver. “I’m fine.”

“I’mfine,” Beckett says so deeply, so soothingly. “My little brother being hungry in my car, I don’t like. Especially if you’re not eating because of me.”

I can just wait until we reach the frat, but since he’s asking me not to, I say, “You sure?”

“Positive.” So I end up carefully eating the granola, but yeah, shit goes everywhere.

Tom is laughing so much, he’s rolling into Eliot.

Guilt overwhelms me. Sears the skin on my face, my arms, my chest. I seldom find humor in the same exact things Tom does, which is partly why I’m sure I’m more sensitive than mybrothers. But as soon as he laughs out, “All this time, all we had to do was feed Ben granola—follow the crumbs and we’ll never lose him,” I find some ironic levity in the joke.

I laugh from my chest. Hard.