I bend my knees to bring myself eye to eye with my sister. “I’m not even sure Jules would fight them right now anyway. She’s pretty pissed.”
“No, she’s not.” When I lift my head in disbelief, she laughs. “She’s not. Well, not exactly mad you two got married. She’s hurt you didn’t tell her. She’s coming home from DC tomorrow morning.”
Kenzie smiles when Myrtle makes her way into my room and rubs herself against Kenz like a cat instead of a fifty-pound bulldog. “I swear to God, if you tell Jules I told you that, I’ll sic Jace on your other eye.”
I touch the pale bruising from when he hit me the other day and cringe. Not a great week. “I won’t say anything.”
She huffs and looks at the clothes laying on my half-packed bag that Myrtle just made herself comfortable on, and her body goes rigid. “Where are you going?”
“I’ve got an away-game stretch. I’ll be back next week. I told you yesterday. It’s why you’re getting the condo ready, remember?”
“Yeah. I just hate that you’re leaving. You just got here.” Kenzie and I aren’t the greatest with people leaving. That’s what happens when your perfectly healthy, young mom dies of the fucking flu.
“It’s the team’s schedule, Kenz. I can’t control it. But I’m coming back. I promise.” I wrap my arm around her and squeeze. “I signed a five-year contract. You’re not getting rid of me that easy.”
“Promise?” she whispers, and I suddenly feel like a dick for staying away so long. I was so wrapped up in my own shit, I didn’t think about how being away would affect her.
“Promise.” We sit quietly for a minute, then I decide to test the waters. “So . . . any chance you’d want to help me?”
“With what?” She perks up.
“Lindy.”
Her smile stretches across her face. “Let’s see . . . do I want to help my brother win over my best friend so she can literally be my sister? Hmm . . . What do you think?”
“I think I need to romance her.”
“Yes, you do,” Kenzie laughs before she drops her head on my shoulder. “I guess there’s hope for you yet.”
I sure as hell hope she’s right.
I haven’t been a light sleeper in, well, ever. Even as a kid, I heard every noise. Every beep of a horn. Every conversation my mom thought she was having in private because her kids were sleeping. Everything wakes me up, and that’s if I’m even able to fall asleep in the first place.
If I’m lucky, I get four hours a night. It’s not healthy, especially for an athlete. But I’m used to it. I’ve adapted. So when the stairs leading up to the loft creak at two a.m., I’m wide-awake and looking at the open doorway, waiting to see who’s coming. I’m half expecting my new best friend, Myrtle, to be looking for a warm spot to crash when I see Lindy hesitate at the opening.
“Easton,” she whispers, and my stomach drops because I know that tone.
“You okay, princess?” I force myself to stay in bed. The last thing I want to do is push her right now. She came up here. The ball is in her court.
“No,” she tells me softly but stays frozen at the door. Her long hair is a tangled mess around her shoulders as she stands in front of me in the white t-shirt I helped her put on Sunday morning before she stormed off. “I had a dream and picked up my phone to call you . . . but you’re already here.”
“I’ll always be here. Come here, baby,” I whisper.
Lindy pauses, then slowly tiptoes over to the bed where I lift the blanket and make room for her next to me. She looks down at the mattress with such hesitancy that until she gently climbs in and fits herself against me, I’m not completely convinced if she’ll get in or go back to her room. “I haven’t had one this bad in a long time,” she admits so quietly, I barely hear her before she lays her head against my chest. “I could feel the barrel of the gun pressed against my head. It was so cold. And he just kept saying over and over again that he was going to make Mom watch as he shot me. Make her watch as he killed me.”
The tremble in her voice breaks me because that’s not a nightmare.
That’s what we lived through.
“You’re safe, princess.” I wrap my arm around her and press my lips against her head. “We got out of there. He’ll never hurt you again.” Sometimes I wish I’d been the one who killed him for what he did to her.