Page 106 of The Bounty

He doesn’t understand.

I make my way to the first floor, but head in the opposite way of the kitchen.

My appetite is gone, and I don’t want to snap at Killian and Dylan unnecessarily.

Maybe I could talk to them after I calm down.

But my world feels like it’s crashing down on me.

And once again, I torture myself with questions I don’t have the answers to.

What am I doing here, with them?

When did I decide I wanted to stay here?

When did Igive up?

I limp through the first floor, exploring it as I did my first days here.

I can hear Dylan and Killian chatting somewhere with muffled, low voices.

And I just don’t want to deal with them right now.

I walk into an empty study and lock the door behind me, my face in my hands.

I won’t let them hear me cry.

Deep breaths, Olive. It will be fine.

Brock reacted like a jackass. But I’ll talk to Dylan and Killian once I’ve calmed down and have my head straight.

They’ll help me.

They have to.

Like every other room in Brock’s mansion, this spare study contains a flatscreen television, and I turn it on, hoping to distract myself.

But it’s set to a news station, and I don’t find it in me to change the channel. I just turn away and rifle through the bookshelves, trying to find something to distract myself with.

And while Brock makes me rage, his quirkiness tears at my heart as I rummage through his reading materials.

Programming books, cookbooks, and detective novels fill the shelves, and I look through them haphazardly until my eyes fall on a photo album on the bottom shelf. It’s wedged between two books on coding theories, gathering dust.

The house is quiet as I take it over to the desk chair, flipping open the first page.

There are only a few photos inside, but I glimpse the young men Dylan and Brock once were.

Dylan, a lanky teen, with the same broad grin plastered on his face, covered in flour and wearing an apron.

Brock graduating high school, diploma in hand and clean shaven, giving the camera a shy smile.

I flip through the photos, wondering about who the other people are in the pictures.

Are they still in contact with their parents?

I don’t even know their last names.

I know nothing about these men, yet I’ve welcomed them into my heart and body with little resistance.