I know I messed up a lot as a kid. I know my parents just want to protect me, I know they love me. But love like this is suffocating.
Chapter Four
Roman
Thought I might find you out here.
Go away, Roman.
No can do. Not gonna leave you when you’re crying.
I’m not crying. It’s the salt from the sea.
That’s too bad. I can’t beat up the sea.
- Conversation between Roman, age 21 and Lola, age 14
I screwmy hand up into a fist as Lola storms out of the kitchen, the purple streaks in her chestnut hair flashing as she turns her back on us. That woman is going to be the death of me because every instinct I have is telling me to go to her. They always do.
Even before I found her in that barn, clothes torn and barely conscious, all I’ve ever wanted to do is keep Lola safe. But I failed that night and I’ve spent the last six years telling myself she’s better off without me.
“She needs to grow the fuck up,” Mase grumbles.
My jaw is clenched tight, the muscles in my back rock hard. I could punch him right now and if Pippa and Shaun weren’t better parents to me than my own, I’d be having words with them too.
Lola is full of light, and I hate how much it dims around her family. I saw first-hand how she pushed against their protection, how every time they tried to rein her in, she bucked harder. Ran further. It’s why I always tried to mediate. Tried to fix things. I’d need more than ten fingers to count the number of times I picked her up from a party she shouldn’t have been at.
“Thanks for comingto get me, Ro-Ro.” Lola snuggles up against my car window like it’s her favorite pillow and I bite my cheek against the lecture I want to give because she won’t remember it in the morning.
“You’re pretty,” her drunk self murmurs.
“Go to sleep, Lola,” I reply.
“We should go after her,”Pippa says, worry wavering her voice.
Mase stabs a carrot. “Why? She’s not going to listen.”
I force a breath through my nose and work on not decapitating my best friend. He’s been in a bad headspace ever since his last mission went south and he was taken off active duty.
Pippa fiddles with her napkin. “She can’t move out. She’s not ready. I know she’s been traveling but that’s different.”
Shaun reaches across the table and squeezes her hand.
I know Lola’s better off without me, I know I’ve failed her too many times, but I can’t get those glistening brown eyes out of my head and I give up fighting my instincts. “I’ll go after her,” I say, pushing up from my chair.
“Thank you, son.” Shaun nods at me. “We didn’t mean to upset her, I just— opening a coffee shop?” He shakes his head. “Maybe you can talk some sense into her.”
I don’t tell Shaun I have no intention of talking sense into Lola but only because I know she’d kill me for fighting her battles for her. I just bite my tongue and leave the house.
Lola’s already making her escape. She’s struggling to haul a suitcase down the porch steps with a hiking backpack that’s more than half her size strapped to her back. She teeters and I swoop in before she can fall, lifting up the suitcase. She spins to face me. “I’m not going back in there.”
I hold up my free hand. “Wasn’t going to ask you to.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. “So, you’re holding my bag hostage why?”
Other than the ice cream cart incident this morning, I haven’t spoken to Lola for months, but the rhythm we fall back into feels as natural as breathing. I tsk. “Sucha drama queen.”
Her mouth drops open and the urge to bite that rosy bottom lip burns through me. She reaches for the suitcase. “You can go back inside, I’m managing just fine.”
