Charm came in right behind her.
Charm:Send your location. Right now.
My thumb hovered over the screen again. Turning my location back on felt like unlocking a door I had slammed shut with both hands. It felt like admitting I had been alone and hated it. It felt like giving them a way back in when I still had bruises from the last time they had stood too close to the wound.
I did it anyway.
Then I dropped the phone onto the passenger seat, folded forward over the wheel, and cried so hard my throat forgot how to make sound.
By the time headlights swung into the lot behind me, I had one palm pressed to my chest and the other over my mouth, trying to shove myself back into something with edges. A dark SUV pulled into the space beside me, tires hissing through shallow puddles, and my first thought was Cade, which made my spine snap straight with panic because I could not survive another man trying to manage the blast zone that night.
Then Bliss climbed out from one side in leggings, boots, and one of Cade’s hoodies swallowing her whole body. Charm stepped out from the other in a cream cardigan over pajama shorts and rain boots that probably cost more than my car payment.
Ryan pulled away as soon as they were clear, leaving without getting out.
No boys.
No Cade.
No Ryan.
Just my girls.
That broke something worse.
Bliss yanked my door open before I could decide whether I was ready to be seen. “Move over.”
I blinked at her through wet lashes. “That is not how car doors work.”
“I’m not emotionally available for mechanics right now.” She leaned in, smelling like rain, Cade’s detergent, and panic, then took one look at my face and went pale. “Ay.”
“No.” I lifted one shaking finger toward her. “If you say my nickname like I’m a lost child, I’m driving into a lake.”
Charm opened the passenger door, grabbed my phone, my purse, and the shoe I had kicked onto the floorboard, then looked me over with eyes too sharp to be fooled by attitude. “You are not driving anywhere.”
“I drove here.”
“That wasn’t a defense. That was evidence of poor supervision.”
Bliss reached across me, turned off the ignition, and pulled the keys free. “Out.”
“I’m comfortable.”
“You’re crying in a parking lot outside the saddest apartment building in Kimball Falls while wearing your work uniform like evidence,” Bliss said, her voice shaking around every word. “You are not comfortable. You are feral with cup holders.”
Charm leaned one elbow against the roof and looked at Bliss. “That was unexpectedly strong.”
“I have been emotionally abandoned for days. My material has sharpened.”
A laugh broke out of me before I could stop it, small, ugly, and soaked in tears.
Bliss’s face crumpled immediately. “Don’t laugh like that.”
“I don’t have a prettier one available.”
“Then get out and let me hug you before I throw up from guilt.”
That should have made me mean. Three days ago, it would have. I would have sharpened myself on the word guilt and sliced until both of them backed away bleeding. That night, I was too empty to enjoy the weapon.
