Page 5 of Faking It With My Pucking Protector

“Ava, you’ve got to breathe,” I say softly, shifting in my seat so we’re at eye level. “In through your nose, out through your mouth. Can you do that?”

Her dark eyes dart to mine. Wide, glassy. She nods, but her chest rises and falls in shallow bursts.

I reach over and rest a hand lightly on her shoulder, trying to ground her. Her hands find mine and clutch it firmly.

“Follow me, okay? Breathe in.” I take a slow, deliberate breath, exaggerating it for her to mimic me. “Now out.”

She exhales shakily. We do it again. And again.

After a few rounds, some of the tension starts to leave her face. Her grip on my hand loosens a little.

As I watch her take slow, deliberate breaths, a memory flashes. Ava at ten, sitting on the curb outside the school, her face flushed with frustration. She’d been late to class because her bike chain broke, and some kids had thought it’d be funny to hide her backpack while she was trying to fix it.

I’d found her crouched by the bike rack, trying to blink back tears as she searched for her things. Without a second thought, I marched into the nearby crowd and demanded her bag back, my twelve-year-old self in an all fury.

When I handed it back to her, she grinned through her tears. I’ll never forget how she had clung to me so fiercely then.

Just like she is now.

“Better?” I ask.

She nods again, more solidly this time. “Yeah. A little.”

She lets out a slow breath, then glances down at her phone again.

“I should probably at least text my parents,” she says, as if she’s thinking out loud. “Just so they know I’m safe. I just… I can’t talk to them yet. Not right now.”

I nod, staying quiet.

She unlocks the screen with a shaky thumb, types something quickly, then powers it back off without waiting for a reply.

I sit back and ease the truck into gear.

“I didn’t think I’d ever be the girl who runs,” she murmurs after a long moment.

“You didn’t run,” I say, eyes on the road. “It sounds like you walked away from a fire. That’s different.”

She doesn’t reply, but her head leans back against the seat.

“I feel like my life is falling apart.” She swallows hard, her lips trembling. “I don’t know what to do.”

“You don’t have to figure everything out right now. Let’s get you somewhere safe. You can figure it out from there.”

Her brows furrow. “Where?”

“My place,” I answer without hesitation. “It’s quiet. No one will bother you there. You can take all the time you need.”

She hesitates, glancing back toward the church. The fight drains from her posture, and she nods. “Okay.”

The drive is quiet, the only sound is the low hum of the engine and the occasional shuffle of fabric as she adjusts the layers of her dress. She stares out the window, face pale in the passing light, her jaw clenched.

I keep one hand on the wheel, the other resting uselessly in my lap, resisting the urge to say too much. She doesn’t need words. She needs stillness. Space.

At a red light, I notice her lip quivers, and she blinks rapidly, as if fighting to keep it together. Without thinking, I reach over and give her hand a gentle squeeze. She doesn’t pull away.

My house sits at the end of a long, curved driveway tucked behind rows of sycamore trees, the kind of place people don’t stumble upon by accident. Three stories of warm brick, dark wood accents, and iron-railed balconies come into view, framed by a wraparound porch and tall windows that glow softly from within.

It’s quiet, private. The opposite of the chaos Ava just walked away from.