Chapter 2
Two
HARLEY
One Week Earlier
I had been so excited for today, after numerous trips to the mall with Kennedy to pick out outfits for this weekend.
I was stricter, much harder on myself with what foods I ate, so that I’d look perfect in the skimpy top and tiny shorts.
And yet, the hotel light is a cruel punishment for all the meals I missed.
I stare at my reflection, the light bouncing off my skin. Too white. Too honest. It peels away kindness and leaves only edges.
I stand in front of the mirror in the top I bought just for today, tiny white ties at the shoulders, a ruffle that’s supposed to feel flirty.
I twist sideways, and the ruffle folds wrong.
My eye goes straight to the soft curve at my waist, the one that wasn’t there last summer…
or maybe it was, and I just didn’t let myself see it.
I wanted to be pretty for Easton.
I pinch the little bit of skin at my side and immediately hate myself for it. It’s not even anything. It’s…just skin. Mine. My stomach flips anyway, the old reflex sparking like a match. Skip just one meal; if I can control this one thing, the voice in my head will stop screaming.
Miami heat is already pressing against the bathroom window, leaving a sheet of humidity I hate.
The shower steamed up an hour ago, and still the air smells like hotel soap and Easton’s aftershave, cedar and clean.
I close my eyes and breathe him in like it’s medicine.
When I open my eyes, he’s there behind me, silently watching with his eyes all-knowing, like he can hear the war raging on in my head.
I hum a soft tune while twisting my hair into the fancy braids I’d seen other girls do on TikTok. Kennedy had sent me video after video, and I spent so many hours figuring out how to force my hair to comply.
He doesn’t say anything, yet his presence is warm and settles something in me I didn’t realize was shaking.
I wish I knew how to be Kennedy for just five minutes, her thick blonde hair in a sleek ponytail and her eyeliner sharp enough to cut.
Everything was so effortless with her. Funny to think that I used to write to Easton about how much I couldn’t stand her.
Now she’s my favorite person to call when I can’t untangle my own thoughts.
People are allowed to change their minds.
Bodies are allowed to change, too. Maybe.
I try on a smile. It looks tight, and I hope Easton doesn’t notice, but he has a habit of always noticing.
In the Uber everything spins—sweat beads my hairline, and I close my eyes trying to steady my breathing.
Not enough sleep, that’s all . The mattress was a rock.
The AC rattled like it swallowed a coin.
Cheap hotel, on purpose, because I told Easton we didn’t need the Ritz, and I meant it.
He offered, and I hated how fast I wanted to say yes, but I wanted him to know I wasn’t with him because of the money.
Easton shifts closer to me in the car, his leg rubbing against mine as his warm hand grips my knee, the feather-light touch saying I don’t need to be anything but exactly this. He smells like cedar and something warm, and if he asked me to ditch the festival and crawl back into bed, I would.
I open my eyes and look into his.
“You look…” He doesn’t finish. He just leans in and kisses me, soft and sure, and the voice stops shouting for three whole seconds. “You, okay?”
I nod, even though there’s a tremor under it. “Yeah. I’m just nervous.”
He laces our fingers together and looks out the window at the passing city.
I feel the dizziness brush me again and swallow against it. Easton’s thumb draws a circle on my palm.
“You, okay?” he murmurs again, like he already knows the answer and wants me to hear myself say it out loud.
“Yeah,” I say. The word wobbles. “Just tired. It’s been a long week.”
“Then today we’re just going to have fun,” he says. “No rules.”
I nod again and let him believe me, or maybe I let myself believe him.
I can like this girl, I think, if I try hard enough. I can keep her fed. I can let her be seen.
Picking up my phone, it lights up with pictures and texts from Kennedy. She’s so effortlessly beautiful.
When we get out of the car, the bass is thick, the sun is in the shape of a spotlight, and bodies move like a tide that doesn’t care what it knocks over. Kennedy finds us like a magnet, the snap of her perfume, the flash of her smile, a shriek that’s somehow affectionate.
“You’re late,” she accuses, then kisses both my cheeks like we’re French and pulls me into a hug that smells like coconut oil and hairspray. Her ponytail is so perfect it could deflect bullets.
She looks over my outfit, even though she helped me pick it, and I wonder if she also sees the extra bit of skin around my waist or if it’s all in my head. “You look so cute,” she gushes.
Ethan’s there too, looking at us through fancy sunglasses, his hair gelled back in a slimy kind of way, but I smile because my best friend adores this man. Who am I to judge?
He got us wristbands and we have access to the VIP lounge, something I could only ever dream of. There’s bottle service, which makes Kennedy do happy little hops in her platform sandals. Today is going to be a good day.
Once inside the tented area, after we’ve each had a drink, Kennedy is bouncing on her heels.
“Come dance,” she demands. I laugh, closing my eyes.
When I open them, it’s because somebody screams.
Not a fun scream, but shrill and shocked. It slices straight through the music, piercing my ears, causing me to freeze and look around.
I spin toward the lounge area where I had been only a moment ago, just in time to see Easton. My beautiful Easton slams someone into a low table. Bottles explode. Ice skitters. A man in a pastel shirt goes down hard, eyes wild, hand to his jaw.
My brain stutters. I didn’t see anything before that moment.
Easton’s chest is heaving, his jaw set as his mouth forms words I can’t hear.
Security is already moving toward him—black shirts, earpieces, practiced calm that looks like violence when they use it.
Two of them hit him at once, arms yanking back, knee driving into his spine. He doesn’t fight, and my heart breaks.
“Easton!” My voice rips out of me. I stumble forward, and Kennedy grabs my wrist.
“What happened?” she gasps.
“I don’t—” The world is suddenly too bright. My stomach sours. “I don’t know.”
Ethan appears out of nowhere with. “He threw the first punch,” he says to no one and everyone. “I told you he has a temper.”
I jerk my arm out of his light, controlling grip. “Shut up. You don’t know him.”
Security doesn’t hear any of us. They’re focused on the man on the floor, on the broken glass, on the bouncer already on the radio. People close in with their phones held high like flowers at a parade. I want to slap them all.
“Back up,” one guard barks when I get too close. “Ma’am, back up.”
“He didn’t—” I start, and then stop, because I don’t actually know what he didn’t do. I didn’t see the beginning. I only saw the middle and the end.
Easton’s eyes find me in the chaos. “Stay calm,” he says. His voice is steady and meant for me alone. “Please.”
Someone is talking to the man in the pastel shirt. He’s gesturing at his jaw, at the spilled drink on the floor, at Easton like he’s a show-and-tell item. Another guy I don’t recognize leans into the security chief’s ear and whispers. I hate him instantly.
Blue lights stutter outside the tent. It’s fast. Too fast. Miami PD is suddenly a wall in navy, and Easton’s arms change from being bound in plastic ties to metal. Rights are read. He nods like he’s heard them before, and I want to throw up.
“Wait—” I say, lunging forward, and the guard steps in front of me, hand flat, impersonal. “He’s my—” I don’t know if boyfriend is the word, or if there’s a word big enough. “Please.”
They move him anyway. Through the crowd, through the phones, past the velvet rope like he’s a VIP of a different kind. Kennedy’s hand finds my back and stays there, cold and small.
“Harley, it’s going to be okay, just breathe,” she says into my hair, and it breaks me even further.
“Why did he do that?” I ask, even though I don’t think he did anything. Even though my chest knows him. Anger floats up, hot and stupid. We promised we were done with fights, we promised to choose quiet and go home early. “Why now?”
Kennedy shakes her head, ponytail slicing the air. “I don’t know. I swear I don’t know.”
Ethan makes a move like he’s going to touch me again. I step away. The car door closes on Easton, and the sound pierces the bass, terrible and final. The squad car pulls away with my heart in the back seat.
“Arraignment should be Monday,” Ethan says, like a man who’s had practice making disasters sound routine. “He’ll get bail. I can call someone.”
I look at him and say nothing; his words are meaningless.
We stand there while the crowd swallows the scene, while a server with a broom sweeps glass into a little silver pan and the DJ turns the volume up, because nothing bad exists if the bass is high enough. My ears ring with sirens that aren’t there anymore.
“I want to go,” I tell Kennedy.
“Of course,” she says simply. “I’m coming with you.”
I shake my head. “Stay. I’m fine.”
She studies my face for one full second, then nods. “Text me when you’re back in the room.” Her hand squeezes my wrist in a promise we learned late and fast. “We’ll figure it out in the morning.”
I walk out of VIP like a ghost, and the sun feels like a spotlight again, but sharper now, meaner. The Uber driver doesn’t ask why my hands won’t stop shaking. I don’t tell him that there’s a deep-rooted fear of my boyfriend going back to prison still lodged in my bones, and I can’t get it out.