AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Remembering the last time he’d come for a visit, she peered around him at her driveway, finding nothing but weakening sunlight sliding across the pavement. The SUV sat there, but it looked empty.
“No brothers?” she said.
He smiled, but it was cautious. “No brothers.”
“Want to sit on the porch?” she said. “My mom’s sleeping, so ... if you want to talk ...”
“Sure.”
So they sat on the porch swing, barely rocking at all.
“How’s Nick?” she asked. “I bet he’s bummed about the cast.”
Chris shrugged as if pleased she’d introduced a safe topic. “Actually, no cast. He just has to wear one of those Velcro things. Even that, probably only a week.”
“I thought you said he had a compound fracture!”
He grinned. “Yeah, well, air is everywhere, Becca. He’ll heal pretty quick now that we’re out of that room.” Then he lost the smile. “How are you?”
Her turn to shrug. “I haven’t heard from my father, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“It’s not.” He leaned close, his voice low, intense. “You, Becca. How are you?”
She shifted on the bench and looked out at the yard. “Confused.”
“Yeah?” Chris reached out a hand and brushed a piece of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear.
His touch was gentle but electric, and it made her breath catch. But that was all he did before settling against the backrest. Maybe it was a casual thing. She shouldn’t read meaning into it, the way she had with Hunter.
“I don’t know why my father would keep this from me,” she said.
“From what Hunter told me, he had his reasons.”
She sat up straight. “You talked to Hunter?”
He nodded.
“Did anyone throw a punch?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Not the way you mean. But Gabriel asked him about that self-defense stuff.”
“So you’re all friends now?”
“Not by a long shot.” He shook his head. “Michael says Hunter’s lonely. I actually think he feels bad for the kid.”
“You know Hunter held a gun to his head. He came here to kill him.”
Chris shrugged. “Guys bond over weird stuff, I guess.” He leaned in again and sighed. “Jesus, Becca, it’s impossible to get you to talk about yourself. I didn’t even mean the Elemental stuff. Are you okay?”
She stared across into his blue eyes, just now wide with emotion.
And then she realized he was talking about what had happened at Homecoming.
“Yeah,” she said, and she hated that her voice was rough. “I wasn’t going to say anything. It was—you stopped them.” Her shoulders felt tight, braced against the wood of the swing. “I didn’t think it would do any good. I figured everyone would be talking about me again, and I just—I didn’t want to go through that.” She gave a little laugh, and was surprised when a tear rolled off her cheek to land on her finger.
“Becca,” Chris whispered. “You can’t—”
“No, I changed my mind.” She looked up at him through her lashes. “I will now. I kept wondering what good it would do for me to report them, for me to tell people what they’d done. Why put myself through it? But then I started thinking about your parents, about Tyler and Seth and all those other dickheads. I thought of all the deals, and the secrets, and the lies people told in the name of protection.”
