Chapter 4 #4
She sniffed. “Okay. So what’s this next trick?”
“It’s called a forward fender.”
The rest of the rehearsal passed without her incurring injury to herself, which was a blessing.
She was exhausted, though, and she needed to get herself into a hot bath to try and soak the soreness out of her muscles before it settled in too deep.
“Go home. Loosen up your muscles. I’ll see you tonight.”
“What?” she asked.
“Jessie texted me to say I’m invited to come up to the Wilder homestead for dinner. She made it very clear I have to go or your brothers might hunt me down and kill me.”
“What?”
“That shocks you?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. Because her brothers had never really been overprotective. Yet now they were being weird, so what the hell?
“It doesn’t shock me. They coddle you.”
“Excuse me?” This man was turning her into the Riddler—all she had were questions.
“Probably has something to do with the abandonment you were talking about earlier.”
She sputtered. “How … how dare you bring my abandonment up when it’s convenient for you? I’m only allowed to do that when it’s convenient for me.”
“Well, see, I have a problem,” he said, his blue eyes arcing with a strange electricity. “I just say things without thinking. It’s a character flaw, I’ve been told.”
Her brothers did not coddle her. They kept her safe. They cared for her. They did what neither of her parents had managed to do.
When she’d been alone in the apartment while her mom worked, she’d stayed up too late and watched Christmas movies. Movies about home and family and love, traditions and holidays. Things she’d never experienced before. They were cozy and warm and as far from her reality as it was possible to get.
Coming to Rustler Mountain had brought her closer to that reality than anything else.
It wasn’t cutesy. Her brothers were the bad element about town, shunned in some circles, but she’d never minded because their reputation had only driven the family closer together.
It had given them more of a reason to hold on to each other.
They didn’t coddle her; they loved her.
“It’s not coddling,” she said.
“What do you care if it is?”
“Because you’re saying it like coddling is a bad thing.”
“It can be,” he said. “You’re getting treated like a kid at the ripe old age of, what … twenty-five?”
“How do you—?”
“Lucky guess. Anyway. You’re getting treated like a kid, and one of these days someone is going to come along and treat you like the grown woman you are, and you aren’t going to like it. Because it’s going to feel rough, when you’re used to soft.”
“Is that person you?”
For some reason her question made the air pulse between them.
He looked her over, his eyes moving up and down over her body, her face, and she fought the urge to … cover herself, which was ridiculous. She was head to toe covered already and there was no need to feel uncovered. But somehow, that look made her feel naked.
“Hopefully for both our sakes, it’s not,” he said, his voice rough now. “But my self-control is historically poor.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. It hurt.
She didn’t like it.
It felt like something … something old but unfamiliar at the same time. Something brand-new too. Something painful. Something interesting.
Something she wanted to run from and to all at once.
He held her stare and she was transfixed for a full minute. Or maybe it was only ten seconds. Either way, she forgot to breathe, and God knew it felt like a whole minute.
“Don’t worry about it. Just enjoy it. No one’s ever taken care of me,” he said, shaking his head. “To be clear, I don’t need them to. But you might as well take … lean into it while you can, I guess.”
The switch was so abrupt, she didn’t know how to react. So she just stood and stared at him, unsure of what came next.
“See you tonight,” he said, turning away from her.
As if the last five minutes hadn’t happened.
As if he hadn’t made it harder for her to breathe.
“See you,” she said.
But by the time she said it, he was already gone. Now she would have to grapple with seeing him again tonight while all this confusion was rolling through her like a wave.
It will be on your turf, though.
That was true. He might think she was coddled, but she knew the truth.
The Wilders were a family, and she was secure with them. Safe with them.
One of these days someone is going to come along and treat you like the grown woman you are …
He’d said that as if it was going to be bad.
It didn’t have to be. Dalton wanted to go away with her.
Dalton was part of the unit up on Wilder Mountain.
One of her safe spaces. Not like the horrible men who’d always wanted more from her mother, who watched her as if she would be next as soon as she got a little older …
No. She didn’t need to think about all that.
The thing was, West didn’t know what he was talking about.
She already knew what it was like to take care of herself. She’d done it for the first nine years of her life.
Now she had support, a family, safety.
She wasn’t going to feel bad about that.