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HARLEY

I woke up to the sensation of fingers working through my hair and rolled over still half asleep. “Mm?”

“Morning,” Steph said, tracing his fingers over my cheek.

“Were you just watching me sleep?” I mumbled.

“Just a little,” he said with a smile. “Can’t help it. You’re cute when you’re sleeping.”

I rolled onto my side and pulled him in for a kiss.

It started off slow, then deepened. My body was a little sore all over from last night, but it was a delicious ache.

Steph had been so wild, so uninhibited, and I loved that side of him.

Even though he had taken me so roughly, I’d felt like I was in control.

I was the only one who could make him feel like that, and the only one who could give him that kind of release.

Our kisses grew more heated, and Steph’s hand slid to my waist.

“Ugh.” I pulled away as my phone pinged with a text, and the memory of yesterday crashed into my brain. Rolling over, I grabbed my phone and saw my suspicions confirmed. I didn’t open the text. “Mom.”

“Is she okay?” Steph asked.

“I don’t know yet.” I flopped onto my back, all the desire suddenly vanishing from my body. “Ugh. I should go check on her.”

He rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. “Want me to go with you?”

“No, I don’t think so.” I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes. “This should be just me and her. I’ve been through this a lot with her. It’s fine.”

“Yeah,” Steph said, “but that doesn’t mean you have to keep doing it alone. You shouldn’t have to be a parent to your own mother.”

My heart clenched. “I know that, but no one’s ever told me so.”

“I’m telling you that. You don’t have to take care of her.”

I sighed heavily. “I know. But… I guess I still want to. I’m used to dealing with her, and I’ll feel better if I know she’s okay. It won’t take long.”

“Why are you still so devoted to her? For as long as I’ve known her, she’s been…” Steph searched for the right word. “Lost. Lost in her addiction.”

If anyone else had asked me that, I would’ve been defensive or even offended. But Steph asked so softly, I knew he just wanted to understand.

“I guess it’s just a regular part of my life,” I said. “She wasn’t much better when I was a kid, but she wasn’t this bad. I guess… I guess part of me just wants to see that version of my mom again.”

“What was she like?” Steph ran his fingers up and down my forearm in a rhythmic, soothing manner.

“When she wasn’t drinking?” I hummed and closed my eyes.

The question had me drifting back into my memories when I was just a young kid.

“She was funny. Really loud. She was good at making the smallest things an adventure. She’d turn a grocery store trip into a scavenger hunt.

Or take me to the park after dark for a late-night game of flashlight tag.

She didn’t have a lot of money, but I never felt like I was missing anything. We had fun every time I visited.”

“Visited?” Steph asked.

“Yeah. My father had full custody, so I only saw my mom on the occasional weekend. When I was with her, it was like a vacation.”

Steph hummed in understanding. “It sounds like you had fun together. But maybe she wasn’t really like a mom?”

I caught his hand where it was stroking up and down my arm, and tangled our fingers together. “Yeah,” I admitted in a small voice. “Yeah. She wasn’t. And I wanted that. I think I still want that.”

Steph squeezed my hand.

“And I want it for Dylan, too. I want him to know Mom the way I knew her, you know? I want us to have fun together. I want him to make those same memories.”

“I get it,” Steph said. “I know what you mean. How it feels to want to save someone so badly, but you can’t save her unless she wants to be saved.”

Sean.

In a way, it was the same situation. Sean was lost to his own thirst for revenge, the way my mother was lost to her drinking. We both desperately wanted to pull them out. To bring back the people we once knew.

But we couldn’t force them to change.

“It sucks,” I said. “It really fucking sucks.”

Steph sighed. “Yeah. It does.”

“I wish I could just stop loving her,” I said. “But she’s my mom. It’s not that simple.”

“I know. I should hate Sean’s guts, but he’s still my brother.”

I groaned and rolled onto my side again, then buried my face in Steph’s chest. “I wish it was easier. For both of us.”

“So do I,” Steph said as he raked his fingers through my hair. “You sure you don’t want me to come with you?”

“I’m sure. I need to get this over with.”

Reluctantly, I got out of bed and dressed. I had time for a cup of coffee and a hug before I was out the door and heading to Mom’s, with Rome following behind me as my escort.

As I drove, I replayed the conversation in my mind. Maybe I should’ve asked Steph to come with me, but I wasn’t sure what I would find at Mom’s. She might be okay, or she might be in really bad shape. I wanted to handle it myself.

At the same time, I felt like I had a new understanding of what he was going through with Sean. He carried the memory of the brother he loved and was desperate to find that person again, just like I was desperate to find the mother I had so many fond memories of.

I parked outside her house. Steeling myself, I walked up to the steps to her porch of her A-frame house.

“Mom?” I tapped my knuckles gently on the door. “Mom, I know you’re in there.”

It was mid-morning, and her car was still parked outside. Tank had texted to say she hadn’t left the house since Striker had dropped her off—and he would know, since Steph had ordered enforcers to keep an eye on her, too.

This wasn’t exactly how I had wanted to spend my day. I would’ve preferred to spend it in bed with Steph, especially with how intense last night was, but of course, nothing could ever be that simple in my life.

Sighing, I tried the doorknob. It was locked, but I knew my mom, and I knew she was prone to locking herself out during her benders. I picked up a flowerpot with a dead mum in it, and just as I expected, found her spare key tucked beneath it.

I glanced over my shoulder. Tank and Rome remained in the driveway. They were here to keep me safe, but were giving me some privacy with my mom. I unlocked the door and stepped inside. “Mom?”

“Harley? How the hell did you get in here?”

Mom roused into consciousness on the couch. She was a mess in sweatpants and a bathrobe, her hair frizzy and sticking up in places. There were two bottles of wine on the coffee table in front of her, one empty and the other half-full, and the television was on mute.

Disappointment surged in me. What had I expected? The house to be clean? Mom dressed and put-together? Finding her grateful and smiling and proud of me for intervening at the police station?

I should’ve known that was all a pipe dream. I sighed. “What happened to going clean, huh?”

Mom sat up and squinted at me, then rubbed her temples.

Her face contorted in pain. “What the hell did you expect? Those dragons just dumped me in here all by myself. And it’s not like I could leave after going out and getting drugged.

” She sniffed hard. “I can quit when I want to. I was just using this to help me sleep.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Mom.”

“I’m not bullshitting,” she snapped. “You don’t understand how traumatizing all that was. I was having a normal day, and then suddenly I blacked out and woke up in a jail cell.”

“That doesn’t sound too different from your usual weekends,” I said. “You can’t quit whenever you want, Mom. That much is obvious. You need to go to rehab. For real, this time.”

“How can you be talking about that right now?!” Mom exclaimed. “Your own mother has been drugged , and you’re saying it’s my fault?”

“That’s not what I’m saying?—”

“That’s exactly what you’re saying!” Mom refilled her stained wineglass and took a gulp. “You just want me out of the way. You’re the one who left Lakeview, and now you want to waltz in here, make it your own, and kick your mother out.”

“I never said?—”

“You’re embarrassed by me. I bet your life would be so much easier if I was locked up in some psychiatric facility. Then all you’d have to worry about is your new dragon boyfriend, and you could leave me to rot.” She took another angry slurp of her wine and stared at me expectantly.

She was expecting me to apologize, to bend over backwards and let her go back to living her life the way she wanted.

That’s how it always went with us. I always gave up.

I never let her know what I really thought, because I knew she never listened.

She was used to walking all over me, and I had carried that into my other relationships.

I always thought I was going to be ignored.

It was easier to never say what I wanted at all, rather than ask for it and be denied.

But I wasn’t that sad little girl anymore. I didn’t have to let myself be treated like this.

I sat down on the other end of the couch and turned toward her. She scowled at me before staring down into her wineglass. I didn’t need to be embarrassed by her anymore. She was embarrassed of her own behavior. She knew she was digging herself deeper into a hole, and she didn’t know how to get out.

I couldn’t save her, but I wasn’t going to roll over, either.

“Mom, I’d never leave you to rot. You know that.”

“Do I?” she huffed.

“And I’m not embarrassed by you. Right now, I’m just frustrated, because you’re lashing out at me.”

Mom didn’t look up. She was still frowning like a petulant child.

“You were sober for a week, Mom. That shows me you want to stop. You don’t have to let the alcohol control you anymore. But you can’t do it alone.”

“Well, I don’t have anyone,” Mom snapped. “ You’re not helping me!”

“You need professional help,” I said. “I want to us to have a real relationship, Mom. And I want Dylan to have a good relationship with his grandmother. That can’t happen if you’re sick.”

That made her look up, still frowning, but less in anger and more in confusion.