I wanted to throw it out the window.
The worst part was, for a second in that kitchen, I’d really believed Gunner was going to fuck me. Not just because I wanted it, but because it would prove I wasn’t just a broken toy—prove that I could make him lose control. I’d almost kissed him first, and the fact that he beat me to it, and then stopped, made the humiliation burn hotter.
I wasn’t even good enough for a quick lay. Not for him.
I remembered the first time I ever made a man look at me like I was the last glass of water in the desert. It was at a high school party back in Houston, where I’d borrowed my sister’s lipstick and wore a dress that showed off my young curves. I was sixteen, and I knew I was hot, and I’d made a varsity quarterback trip over his own feet. It was stupid, but for five minutes I’d felt untouchable.
I’d spent the last seven years chasing that feeling, and every year it got a little harder to catch.
Luc Renault had seen right through me. He’d called me a “little rabbit,” but the way he said it had made me feel elegant, fragile, impossible tocatch. He’d treated me like a secret, something precious, but I knew now that I’d only ever been a tool to him. A disposable one. It’s hard to trust yourself when you allowed a man to use you; whose goal it was to traffic you.
Gunner was the first man to see every crack and still want to break me down further. He didn’t lie, didn’t even try. That scared me more than anything.
I wanted to text Harper, or even Parker, and tell them what an absolute asshole Gunner was. But I didn’t. I didn’t want them to see how much it hurt.
My phone buzzed on the bedside table—a notification from some art account I followed, nothing important. I left it unread.
The tears had mostly dried by the time I heard the sound of tires crunching the gravel outside. My mother’s car. She was home early, probably to make some casserole or reorganize the pantry or, God forbid, check on me.
I scrambled to the bathroom, splashed cold water on my face, then studied myself in the mirror. The skin under my eyes was puffy, but I could fix that with makeup. I could always fix it. I ran the flat iron through the front two chunks of my hair, slicked on some concealer, and practiced a smile.
It looked wrong.
I locked my bedroom door and tried to ignore the sound of her heels on the hardwood, the cheerful “Brie? Darling? Are you home?” echoing down the hall. She’d come looking if I didn’t answer. I tucked myself under the covers, pretending to sleep.
It only took two minutes for her to knock. Three sharp raps, just like when I was a kid, and she wanted to quiz me on state capitals or what fork went with the fish course.
“Brie?” The knob rattled. “Are you alright?”
I willed her to go away, but she was nothing if not persistent.
“Brie, I made us some tea. Why don’t you come join me in the kitchen?”
She always made it sound like an invitation, never an order. But itwasan order.
Nanette was a dead ringer for a lady on a cruise commercial—pearl earrings, hair just-so, and an apron as if she’d ever dirtied herself baking. She stood at the stove, arranging two mugs on a tray with thin, perfect lemon slices balanced on the rim, like she expected Martha Stewart to rate her form. Her movements were so deliberate I almost laughed, but my throat was sandpaper. I hovered in the doorway, damp with humiliation and wanting to retreat, but that would mean losing the only neutral zone in this house.
She didn’t turn around. “I hope you don’t mind chamomile. The black tea keeps me up.” The way she said it, you’d think sleep was a leisure activity, not an Olympic event. Then, as she set the sugar bowl just so: “Rough night?”
My lip started to tremble, and I bit down on the inside so hard I tasted iron. I tried to play it off. “You could say that.” I gripped the edge of the counter, fingers pressed so hard to the cool stone they turned white. The silence in the kitchen was louder than the whirr of the fridge, the tick of the clock, louder than every accusation I’d leveled at myself in the last hour.
Nanette finally faced me, and her eyes were clinical—first scanning my hair, then my smudged eyeliner, then the cut-off shorts I’d worn two days running. “Sit,” she said, voice gentle but absolute, the way only women raised in the South can pull off.
I slid onto the stool at the counter, hands in my lap. She poured tea, her hands steady even when she set the cup in front of me. Then she just looked at me, that calm, implacable stare.
I broke first. “He hates me.”
Nanette blinked, and if she’d been anyone else, I might have detected a smirk. But this was my mother: if she found my drama entertaining, she’d never let on. “Is that so?”
“I know it,” I said, the words spilling out, ugly and wet. “You should have heard what he called me. Spoiled, a brat, not ready for anything. That I act like everything is a game and I don’t know how to be a grown-up.”
She folded her hands, interlaced them, and rested her chin on the nest of knuckles. “Is any of that… wrong?”
It felt like a slap, but not the cruel kind. The kind you need to reset your vision. I blinked, tears threatening to tip over, but I didn’t want to cry in front of her. “It’s all wrong. Or it’s all true. I don’t know. He thinks I can’t handle myself, that I’m just… I don’t know, a project.”
Nanette reached over, and for the first time in months, touched my hand. Her skin was dry and smooth, the pressure soft but unyielding. “Brie, darling, you are not a project. You’re a person. A complicated, beautiful, difficult person.” She paused, then added, “You get that from both sides.”
The heat behind my eyes turned sharp, and I shook my head. “No, Mom. That’s bullshit. I’m not complicated; I’m just broken. He saw it the second he met me. I act tough, but I’m just… pathetic. I can’t even talk to him without losing my mind.”
