And I can’t do that to him.
I shake my head. “No. I need to go. I just… I’m terrified.”
Mom’s face softens. “Of him?”
“No,” I whisper. “Of everything else.”
She nods once, like that’s the answer she expected.
“I keep thinking…” My voice catches. I clear my throat and try again. “I keep thinking my dad’s going to show up. Or someone with a camera.”
Mom’s eyes go sharp. Protective. “No one is coming through that door tonight.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” she says, calm as a stone in a river. “Because if your father shows up here, he will have to go through me first.”
A stupid little laugh escapes me. It sounds shaky and not at all like laughter should.
Mom arches a brow. “Don’t underestimate how much I’ve been waiting for the chance to say ‘absolutely not’ to that man.”
That makes my chest loosen just a fraction, like a knot untwisting one strand at a time.
I sit on the edge of the bed because my legs suddenly feel like they’re made of paper.
Mom comes over with my hairbrush in hand.
“Okay,” she says, brisk now, like she’s putting on her mother armor. “We’re doing your hair.”
I blink. “You’re doing my hair?”
“I am,” she says, and her mouth curves. “Because it’s been years since you last let me. Sit still.”
I obey, mostly because arguing would require energy I no longer possess.
She starts brushing, long strokes from crown to ends, gentle but efficient. The sensation nearly knocks the air out of me.
It’s so normal.
So safe.
The kind of touch that saysyou’re still my babyeven if I’m twenty-something and technically a grown woman who has committed the sin of not being manageable.
I stare at the posters on my wall. Barrel racers, vintage movie quotes, the faded corkboard with ribbons I won in high school. Evidence that I used to be a person with interests instead of an accessory to my father’s success.
I swallow hard. “Mom?”
“Mhm.”
“What if Dallas… What if he thinks I used him?”
The brush pauses for half a heartbeat, then resumes. “Dallas McCoy is not going to think that.”
“You don’t know?—”
“I do,” she interrupts, gentle but firm. “Dallas knows the you underneath all this. And he’s not the kind of man who confuses survival with manipulation.”
My eyes sting. I blink fast, but it doesn’t help.
