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Brandon answers and places the call on speaker. “Hey, Ash. I have Ava here. She’s safe.”
Asher exhales a breath, and I hear him speaking to someone in the background.
“Avie! We’ve been worried sick since we didn’t hear from either of you!”
“I’m okay, Ash. Let Mom know I’m safe—” I can’t put up the front anymore and burst into tears. The past few weeks of getting scary messages, swearing I see a man in all black wandering around my neighborhood, and now the shots tonight. All of it comes to head, and I breakdown.
My entire family could have been murdered tonight.
If anything happened to them, I would have had to live with the knowledge that they died because of my refusal of protection and not taking the threats serious enough.
I didn’t realize Brandon had moved behind me until he placed a heavy, muscled arm around my shoulder. “I don’t think Ava is up for any more conversation, Ash.”
“Alright,” I hear my brother say. “Madison and Lola are tucked into bed now. Let Ava know Mom is going to bed but expects a callback in the morning, er, well, later.”
Hearing my niece’s name brings more tears. An innocent child could have lost her parents tonight. Thankfully, Lola was away from the party in the upstairs bedroom.
Brandon says goodbye to Asher for me since my throat feels like gravel. He tucks the phone back into his pocket and lifts me into his arms again.
We’re quiet as he makes his way upstairs and commands the lights on in the hallway. We pass two empty bedrooms, and all the way at the end of the hall is another open doorway. This time, we walk into a large bedroom.
He deposits me on the ottoman in front of the bed and begins extracting clothing from the bottom drawer.
It’s a washed-out Yankees World Series T-shirt I know has seen better days. I remember when my Dad purchase identical ones for himself, Asher, and Brandon.
“Going to start that bath you were promised,” Brandon says, releasing the first three buttons of his shirt.
I avert my gaze from the exposed skin of his defined chest before I’m caught.
While he’s setting up my much-needed bath, I bend over to unfasten the shoe on my left foot and begin taking off the gold necklace and earrings. When Brandon finally walks back in, he catches me releasing the last pin holding up my hair.
My curls are long, grazing past my shoulders. I turn my face to Brandon in the bathroom doorway, but he’s caught staring at my back.
I can’t quite name what’s in his eyes, but all his expression evokes is…desire.
Clearing his throat, he pushes away from the doorframe when I stand up and apply too much weight to my right foot.
“Let me help you, Ava,” Brandon says, quickly making his way back to where I’m standing.
“No, really you don’t—” I begin to protest when I’m lifted off the ground and carried in Brandon’s arms into the spacious but stark bathroom. Modern and unfeeling like the rest of the home.
“I could have made it three feet from the end of the bed,” I say, desperately trying to project annoyance at Brandon’s actions when I feel anything but annoyed right now.
“Haven’t I let you know that nothing happens to you under my watch? I can’t risk you slipping, even if it is three feet,” he says gruffly, gently putting me down near the large bathtub.
Brandon still has a hand at my waist to steady me on my feet. Without it, I’d have swooned at his words.
“Everything you need is in the linen closet behind this door. I’ll be downstairs. If you need anything else, give a shout,” he says a little too closely into my ear, his warm breath tickling as he speaks.
Before he can exit the bathroom, I call out to him. “Thank you for…everything. I was rude earlier tonight, but I was mad at Asher. You know how he can be.”
“No problem, Ava,” he says. I’ve always liked that he calls me by my full name. No cutesy shorthand or nickname. “You know as long as you’re with me, you’re safe.”
With the click of the door closed, I’m left to my own devices and with an odd feeling of missing Brandon’s presence.
CHAPTER 3
Brandon
