Page 243 of The Long Way Home

How she called it — I still have dreams about it. Afraid and trapped and hurt and I can’t get to her. In the dream I can never get to her.

She started crying more, squirming under him, trying to get out.

Then one quick and wordless look and years of rugby together paid off. Me and Jo charged them. Me on Parks’ guy, Jo on Paili’s. Knocked them off the girls. Henry and Christian took the other two lads. And then it turned to mayhem.

I reckon they thought it was going to be an easy fight, but they were wrong. You toss Christian in the mix of any brawl and shit gets pretty nasty.

Me, Jo and Hen, we’re all raw energy and feeling, but Christian is controlled aggression. Still is now. You want to win a fight, you bring Christian. Didn’t really need him that night though because I beat the living fuck out of the man who’d pinned Parks. He got in one good swing. Chipped the bone in my chin, I’d find out later. Little divot in the bone still there now.

She touches it when she kisses me sometimes. I touch it when I miss her.

It was rough, the whole thing was rough. Even back then we moved as a pack, and we’ve only gotten better at it since. No one would fight us now back in London anyway, but the four of us at that beach with those men touching our girls? We were out for blood. It ended with four unconscious men on the beach.

My hands were bruised and swollen, black eye, cut cheek, busted lip. Jo broke a rib. Henry broke a finger and had to get a stitch above his eye back in London. Christian had a bloody nose but he was pretty much fine. Kind of forgot the girls were there until Magnolia flung herself into my arms. I held her tight against me for a few seconds, my chest heaving. I pulled back to look at her. “Did they hurt you?”

She shook her head. “Not really.”

“Did they touch you?” I asked, my words caught in my throat a bit. Didn’t want her to feel like I felt. Didn’t want hands on her that weren’t mine.

“A bit—” She shook her head more. “Kissed me — grabbed me a bit — if you hadn’t come…” She started crying again.

I held her face in my hands, held her against me, kissed her forehead til she stopped and then I turned around and walked away. She tried to hold my hand, wouldn’t hold it back. We got taxis back to the hotel. I sat in the front so she couldn’t sit next to me. Tried to hold my hand again as we walked back to our rooms but I smacked it away.

“No,” I yelled — sounded a bit battered, I remember that.

“BJ—” She reached for me.

“No.” I shook my head again, scowled at her. “Stupid.”

She grabbed my wrist. “BJ, I’m s—”

I shook her off and shoved her towards my brother. “Sleep in his bed tonight because you’re fucking not sleeping with me.” I skulked off.

Henry said she cried for about three hours straight.

But here’s the fucked up thing, right? I couldn’t sleep without her anyway. Forget that Henry was texting me, begging for me to come take her off him like she was a new puppy crying in the bathroom. I couldn’t sleep without her because even before any of the shit that would happen to us happened, we’d managed to sew ourselves into one.

Whenever I could at school, I’d sneak into her dorm. Whenever we were home, I’d sneak into her bed. We weren’t fused yet, but we were fusing, actively and in real time. And fuck her for that — fuck her for that then, fuck her for that now — but back then it was three in the morning and I was there knocking on my brother’s hotel room to be close to her. She opened the door, eyes red and emerald as fuck. I was leaning against the door frame and kissed her as soon as I saw her. Pulled her out of the room, pressed her up against the wall, my head on hers.

“What were you thinking?” I ground my forehead into hers.

She held on to my shirt by the waist.

“I was sad.” That’s all she said.

“Magnolia, if we hadn’t found you—”

“I know.” She nodded solemnly.

I nodded back at her, kissed her again. And then her busy little hands started all over again, the same hands that started this whole mess in the first place.

I moved them off me.

“No.” I shook my head at her, frowning a bit. “Not like this.”

She went teary again. “I don’t understand.”

“Parks—” I shook my head at her, sniffed a laugh. “You’re not ready.”