Page 72

In fact, all of him looks soft now that he’s fully lying down with his cheek pressed against the cushions.

I am ignoring the fact that he looks cuddly.

Ignoring. It.

It’s easy, when he surprises me.

“But you can also go out in the evenings. Steele U is only a train ride away, and you went there, right? You must have college buddies nearby.”

“Ah.” I shake my head. “I don’t know about that.”

Instead of asking questions, or even demanding answers, he just tilts his head. That puppy look is back.

“You’re annoyingly easy to talk to,” I murmur without meaning to. Who the hell admits these kinds of things out loud?

“You think so?” It seems that makes him very happy to hear.

Yay him.

I scoff.

Then look down and away because this might be the one thing I’m the most ashamed of, what I allowed to happen to my social life.

“I had friends in college, and I think I’m pretty okay at forming surface-level friendships overall. I did pretty well when I moved down to Miami. I mean . . .” I finally look at him, forcing a teasing smile and tone. “I didn’t have a father with piles of money and an evil reputation or incredible talent to make everyone around me resent me, but I did let my friendships die a slow, painful death over the past few years.”

“How so?”

I shrug.

“It started with my masters, because I was so busy, but then I moved to Miami, and then . . .” I trail off, wondering if I’m really about to tell Tucker fucking Barclay what only my therapist has heard me say.

I suck in a fortifying breath and look him right in the eyes.

I can be brave again.

“At some point I decided it was easier to stop talking to them altogether, rather than to keep fighting with He—my ex about them.”

I’m well aware that if anyone was saying all of this to me, I’d ask questions. Lots of them, more than likely. I’d want to get to the meat of the issue and find a way to fix it.

It means more to me than I can say that Tucker doesn’t.

He lets me decide if I want to say more with seemingly no judgement at all. I can also tell that it’s not because he doesn’t want to know, not because he doesn’t care. He just seems like the kind of person who rarely pushes.

It’s fucking refreshing.

“We got off track.” Is it obvious I’m changing the subject? Fuck yeah it is, but again, he lets me. “What’s the game plan for tomorrow?”

He lets out a huge breath.

“Tomorrow are the depositions. Which means I might see my mother.”

It would be hypocritical of me to ask him how he feels about that, wouldn’t it?

“The boys⁠—”

“The DA agreed not to interrogate them right now, but . . . Shit. Whenever the trial happens, the judge might ask them a few questions. I don’t know how any of it is going to work out really, but what I do know is that I want to keep them as far away from the circus as possible.”

“You’re protecting them the best way you know how,” I point out. “It’s the right thing to do.”