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“I was young once, you know? You think I don’t know what happens when the adults turn their backs?”
“Maybe… before…” I let the words linger.
Silence enveloped us. Thick, oppressive, it squeezed my lungs until I couldn’t breathe. But I didn’t drop my gaze, and neither did Xander. Instead, he stared at me, his eyes studying me. Searching my face for something.
When he inhaled a sharp breath, I wondered if he’d found whatever he’d been looking for. “You should go back—”
“If you’re that upset by my presence, why don’t you go back inside?” My brow rose.
“Peyton,” he sighed again. “I’m the adult here.”
Damn him.
Did he think I didn’t know that? That every time I thought about his strong arms pulling me out of the river, or his gravelly voice coaxing me from the darkness, I wasn’t hyperaware of the fact he was a man, and I was just a girl?
I knew… and I hated it.
I hated that he looked at me and saw a weak, pathetic girl.
I might have only been almost eighteen, but I’d been forced to grow up a long time ago. It didn’t matter though. Because he didn’t look at me and see a young woman struggling to find her place in the world…
Xander saw the girl his friend—his boss—took in when she had nowhere left to turn.
He saw a charity case.
Nothing more.
