Page 7 of Seven Lost Summers (Broken Oasis #3)

“That’s my fucking son. Get your goddamn hands off him!” he snarls, spitting the words like they still carry weight.

Wes lets go of my arm, and I bolt. Feet moving before my brain catches up, tearing across the room toward the only safe thing I’ve ever known. Nate’s standing in the doorway, wide-eyed, frozen—and all I want is to reach him. To fall into something that doesn’t hurt.

Behind me, I hear Wes’s voice tear through the room, each word soaked in venom.

“You’re not a fucking father. He’s thirteen, you sick fuck. Not some fucking debt you get to hand over.”

The words drop heavy, and for once, my father has nothing to say.

No comeback. No threat. Just silence.

“You touch him again,” Wes growls, voice feral, shaking with restraint he’s barely holding onto, “and I swear on every grave I’ve ever dug, I’ll fucking rip you apart with my bare hands. I’ll break every bone in your body, while you choke on your own teeth.”

He steps in, chest to chest with my father, eyes black with rage.

“You think I haven’t dealt with worse pieces of shit than you?

You ever lay a finger on Theo again and I’ll end you so violently they won’t find enough of you to scrape into a fucking box.

” He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t back down. “Theo’s not yours.

He’s mine to protect now even if it means ending you right here.

Come near him again. I fucking dare you. ”

He turns away as if my father isn’t worth another second of his time.

My father stands frozen, mouth twitching like he wants to throw out some drunken threat, but nothing comes.

No slurred curses or snarling comeback. Only silence.

Because he fucking knows. Wes isn’t bluffing.

This isn’t a warning. It’s a death sentence waiting to be cashed in.

And if he so much as breathes wrong, the next time won’t come.

Wes turns and starts toward us, no hesitation in his stride, only that same quiet fury simmering beneath the surface.

Nate and I move without thinking, instinct pulling us apart to let him pass. He doesn’t have to say a word. We follow.

Our footsteps echo behind him as he hits the front steps like a man on a mission.

My legs move but everything else in me is hollow. The adrenaline’s still buzzing under my skin, but it’s thinning out, leaving behind nothing but the crash. That deep, bone-heavy exhaustion that wraps around my ribs and pulls me down.

All I want is a quiet corner, somewhere to sit and let this whole fucked-up mess settle, to untangle the knots twisting in my head. And yet, through the chaos, one thought refuses to let go. It presses in, over and over.

Nate’s family has always been there. I never understood why. I still don’t. I’m the fucked-up kid with too many bruises and not enough reasons to be loved. The waste of space my father made sure I believed I was.

But Wes.

The man who steps between you and hell without needing a reason. He didn’t ask. Didn’t wait. He was the shield I never earned, but he gave it all to me the same.

Rose with the gentle hands, tired eyes, arms that wrapped around me the first time like I wasn’t broken glass. She didn’t flinch or pull away. She held me soft and steady, and for a second, I wasn’t rotting from the inside out.

Even Scarlet, Nate’s annoying little sister, always in my face, pushing my buttons, showing up when I never wanted her to, but somehow she knew exactly when I needed someone there. She never let me disappear, even when I wanted to.

Just being in their house, breathing that air is enough to know I’ve been claimed. And it terrifies me. Because for the first time in my life, I’m not invisible. I’m seen and I don’t know how to live with that.

They’re not blood but they’re something stronger. A constant in all my chaos. A lifeline I never expected, never let myself hope for, but somehow, against every fucked-up odd, they’re mine.

I can’t say where I’d be if I hadn’t met Nate that day when I was sitting on the curb, hollowed out, barely breathing, feeling like the world had chewed me up, spat me out, and forgot all about me.

I remember them—Nate and Scarlet riding their bikes, laughter spilling out of them.

No weight in their voices or bruises behind their eyes. Pure freedom.

Then Nate stopped.

He slammed his brakes on, tires skidding to a halt right in front of me like the universe paused for one fucking second and said, here. Somehow, that pause gave me him.

He didn’t look at me the way the assholes at school did —with disgust, or the way their eyes darted away like I was contagious. He knelt down, stared right at me and asked why I was crying. The moment hit so hard I nearly broke.

I wanted to tell him everything.

All the suffocating secrets, the pain, the shit that had been eating me alive for as long as I could remember. The things no kid should ever have to carry.

But I didn’t, not that day. I couldn’t. Not at that point. Not for a long time.

Those secrets… they were mine to bear.

My burden. My fucking curse. I locked them so deep inside that they felt like part of me, like if I buried them far enough, maybe-just maybe I could pretend they weren’t real. That they hadn’t shaped me into this broken, fucked-up version of myself.

But Nate, even back in those days, didn’t push. He didn’t pry. He sat down next to me, like sitting shoulder to shoulder with a stranger unraveling on a sidewalk could somehow make the world a little less cruel. For a second, the world softened.

Now he knows everything.

Every sick, twisted fucked-up shit they did to me, the kind of hurt that steals pieces of you that you didn’t even know could be taken. Things I never wanted to say out loud. Things I was never supposed to survive.

He knows what it was like for me to be used.

To be stripped down to nothing but fear and skin.

To be touched by hands that took without permission and left bruises that never healed.

And now it’s out there. No more hiding behind half-truths and shrugged shoulders.

He sees it. All the damage. All the shame I’ve choked on for years.

And somehow… he’s still here.

Even now, with him knowing every fucked-up detail, there’s still this part of me that’s scared.

I’m terrified that one day he’ll wake up and realize what I really am. Not just broken. But worthless. The damage that sinks deep and poisons everything it touches. The mess you can’t fix no matter how hard you try to love it clean.

When that day comes, and fuck, I know it will; I don’t think I’ll survive it. Because he’ll walk. And he’ll have every right to when he realizes I am nothing.

Wes stands at the curb, waiting. Still as stone, backstraight, tension bleeding off him in waves. His whole body’s coiled, like he’s seconds from detonating. Fists clenched so tight the veins bulge, jaw locked. That kind of quiet fury that doesn’t shout.

But with all that anger, even with the intimidating ink staining his skin and the scars that tell the story of a life that’s never gone easy on him, I’ve never been afraid of Wes.

Not once.

The first time I saw him, I knew he was a man who didn’t need to raise his voice to command a room. A man who could break you without lifting a damn finger.

When Nate dragged me off the curb that night, my body beaten and used, my face streaked with tears, Wes didn’t say a word. He didn’t ask what happened. In that silence, he gave me something I hadn’t had in a long fucking time. I was safe, and I was home.

I remember watching him with Nate and Scarlet.

The way he carried himself like nothing could shake him.

But underneath all that muscle and grit there was something else.

Something warmer. In the way his eyes softened when they spoke, even if the rest of him stayed steel.

They were safe. Wes would burn the world down before letting anyone touch them.

Fuck, I used to sit on the curb, watching the scene like a movie from a life I’d never get. Wishing I could understand what it was to be protected by someone who wanted nothing in return.

I never thought I’d be on the receiving end of that. But somehow, against all odds, Wes gave that same love to me. A broken, silent kid who didn’t know what the fuck to do with it.

As we get closer to the house Wes turns. Rage still burns under his skin, but he keeps the fire caged for me.

“Are you okay, Theo?”

“Yeah,” I lie, the word barely making it past the tightness in my throat. I force a smile, but the attempt falls flat.

He steps closer, his hand landing on my shoulder, like he sees right through my bullshit.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” His voice is soft. “Because it’s okay not to be okay.”

The words hit hard, knocking the air out of me. I swallow the ache, fight the lump in my throat, blink fast, bite the inside of my cheek—anything to stay steady. But the wave’s already crashing.

Before I can pull it together, Wes pulls me in. One arm around my shoulders.

“You’re strong, Theo,” Wes says. “Stronger than most. But even the strongest break, and sometimes… sometimes, it’s okay to let it hurt.”

Then his gaze shifts to Nate.

“Take him home, Nate,” he says, voice firm, leaving no room for argument. “I’m not finished here, yet.”