Page 21 of Salvage Him

"Point proven. You like her." Seth wiggled hiseyebrows.

I shookmyhead.

"Hey," Justin spoke in hisI'm not refereeing you two todayvoice. He had always been the mediator between Seth and me. He led our group of privileged delinquents in high school, and the role continued in our adulthood. "Seth, don't you have a model to work on? The Daniels will be back in afewdays."

"Yeah. I'm going." Seth took a sip of his coffee and reached out to rustlemyhair.

I ducked away and punched him in his side, but he stepped out of the way andlaughed.

We were boysagain.

I settled back in my chair, anxious to hear some words of wisdom fromJustin.

"Stop,"Justinsaid.

I looked overathim.

"What do you mean, stop?" Iasked.

"Whatever it is you're thinking. Whatever you may feel about her or her situation, you have to stop." Justin rubbed the back of his neck. "She's a client and a nice person, and she is in her situation for reasons we have no clue about. Don't do something stupid and make it harderforher."

"How do you know it's not one of those situations where we need to intervene?" I stared at the ground. "What if he'sabusingher?"

"You don't know that. You can't save her if she doesn't want or need saving.” Justin leaned in, and I followed. "I get it. You have a sense about these things, but don't see something that's not there because you like her. I like her too, and if she needs us, we’ll be thereforher."

I squeezed my eyes shut. My mind went back to when I was eight years old. My mom and stepfather would fight one second and grope each other in front of me the next. When I say fight, I mean knock-down, drag-out, call the police in the middle of the night kind offights.

I told my father about the situation, and instead of helping my mother, he made me live with him. My mom didn't stop him, and I hated her for it. She neededourhelp.

When I asked him why he wasn't helping her, he said whatJustinsaid.

She didn't want to besaved.

That was when I moved into Highland Park and met Justin and Seth. They knew my story and knew what kind of guilt I held for leaving my mom in thatsituation.

Three years later, my stepfather killed my mom and thenhimself.

"What do you think of the house?" Justin changed the subject and pulled me back from thedarkside.

"The house is beautiful. Well designed. Very impressive," I said andchuckled.

"You think so?" Justin nodded and sipped hiscoffee.

"Yeah. You outdid yourself onthisone."

"Thanks, man. It kind of sucks, though." Hegrinned.

"What?" Iasked.

"That house would make a great hideout," heanswered.

We bothlaughed.

When we were kids, we planned to pool our trust fund money together and build a house of our own. One we could hide out in away from our parents and partake in what teenagers with too much time and too much money did. I shook my head and downed the rest of mycoffee.

We headed out onto the street. I needed to get back to my studio and work on some of Brooklyn's stuff and get my mind off her situation and herbeautifulass.

"You good?" Justinasked.