Page 88 of Burn Bright

“It was, until tonight.”

Damn. The urge to protect her throttles me to the core. I want to ask if she was safe. I want to ask if any of the guys hurt her. I want to hurt them, if they did. She’s been doing this for…fuck-knows how long. “Can I ask when it started?”

She turns her head, her cheek against my bicep that curves around her. “Years ago, I guess.” It takes her a couple minutes to gather the next words. “One of my mom’s ex-boyfriends, arguably the worst one, used to be strict and…angry over dumb shit. I came home too late without texting. I forgot to take out the trash before school. She microwaved the lasagna for too long. He’d throw TV remotes, lamps, chairs at me…at her, and she always made excuses.” I see Harriet’s cringe forming. “She’d claim I hated him because I wasjealous. She’d get pissed atmewhen he stared at my body, but that was par for the course with Hope. It was alwaysmyfault if her boyfriends looked at me like they…” Her voice tapers out.

I tuck her closer while she expels a long, heavy breath. Then she says, “One day, I guess I realized I could use his gross fantasies against him. I told him I’d blow him if he’d leave my mom and never see us again. He’d be gone for good.” She inhales. “And it worked. Mostly because he thought I might’ve recorded him. He’d be in jail, so…he chose life without bars and without us.”

I stare up at the car’s ceiling. My head heavies. “How old were you?”

“Fifteen.”

I cut my glare to the window, feeling the weight and pain of that. “Fuck him,” I let out. “He deserves to be in prison.”

“I didn’t actually record him.” She sits up a little more. “It wasn’t my first blow job so don’t think that perv messed me up or anything. I was in control. It wasmyidea, and he’s not in the back of my head doing damage.” She clings to my gaze, seeingI’m not looking at her like she’s broken. “How can you still want to be around me…?”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit, Fisher,” I whisper. “We all have different starting lines, and yours was much farther back than mine. Yet, you got yourself so fucking far without any help. When you had more reasons to fall, you kept getting back up. You kept going. You don’t think that’s admirable?”

She shrugs. “No one’s every really admired me, so I don’t know.”

“It’s a fucking shame I’m your first. It feels like the whole world should admire you.”

Harriet gives me acome onglower. Like I’m blowing smoke up her ass.

I smile into a laugh. “You want my eyes? I’d take them out and give them to you. Just so you can see exactly how I see you. You’re driven, compassionate, sharp, beautiful—in so many ways. You’re everything I’d want to be around.”

Her tears well. “That’s not how that organ works, Cobalt boy. So don’t go plucking your eyeballs out for me.”

My smile stretches, and I can’t stop staring at her. Watching her smile reemerge just hushes all the noise in my body. It’s like walking barefoot through dewy grass. Feeling the stickiness of morning air. Smelling the wet earth and budding magnolias. “You’re the one person who…” I trail off, not knowing how to describe this out loud.

“Who what?”

“Who I feel like…I won’t harm.”

She’s a little puzzled, and I can’t blame her. I’m sure it’s fucking ridiculous. But I feel this quiet sense of ease with Harriet. Somewhere in my brain, I’m so certain that I’m a positive force in her life. My presence caused the hammerhead shark to swim away. She wasn’t thrown in the pool at the frat party. She’s no longer upset in the back of her car.

She’s slowly smiling at me, at the way I’m looking at her. She’s something good in my life I don’t want to lose. I’m afraid to lose, but I have to…I shake the stabbing thought away.

Then my phone buzzes in my ass pocket against the seat, disrupting the peaceful silence.

“You getting that?” Harriet asks, about to slide off me, but I hold her still and dig out my phone to check the caller ID.

“It’s Beckett. They all probably want to know if you’re okay.” I motion my head to the window. “They’re parked a few cars over.”

Her brows spring. “They’re here?”

“Yeah.” I try not to laugh at her surprise. “We’re typically a ‘come one, come all’ kind of family.”

Her lips are parted while she’s staring out the window, maybe contemplating if they’re in view.

Tension stiffens her body, and I ask, “You want to rip off the Band-Aid? Confront them now?”

“Now?”

“Right now. I’d just suggest putting on some pants before we go out there.” I slip her a teasing smile. “Breathe, Fisher.”

She inhales through her nose, then says, “Why the hell not, right? Better now than later.” She’s digging around, then unearths black sweatpants. “Let’s see how many of your brothers have jumped on the Anti-Harriet train.”

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