“Dead serious.”
“She’s going to find out, D.”
I cross the room, tension building in my shoulders. “Not if I handle it first.”
Bridger doesn’t flinch. “You don’t even know what ‘it’ is yet.”
“Exactly,” I snap. “So why scare the hell out of her before we do?”
He exhales, drags a hand through his hair, and leans against the wall. His jaw flexes like he’s biting down on everything he wants to say. “You really think keeping her in the dark is better?”
“No,” I admit. “But watching her unravel sure as hell isn’t.” She’s been on edge more and more lately, lost in her head. Like her mind’s stuck in a conversation she isn’t ready to have out loud. I have a sneaking suspicion that Vick or Taylor may have tried to contact her, but she hasn’t said anything to me about it yet. I know something’s off. I can see it in the way she moves, the way she looks at me lately like she wants to say something but swallows it down instead. I shift my weight, my hands curling into fists. And now our father is back, fresh out of prison after all these years, looking for us, for what we took from him. That’s going to light a fuse under her already-fraying nerves. I can’t let that happen. But I do need to keep her safe, just in case he finds us. “I want someone on her,” I say, my voice hard. “Full-time. Not obvious. Just someone close. If he finds us, I need her protected. No matter what.”
Bridger nods without pause. “Yeah. That’s probably a good idea.”
I hesitate. “I was thinking about something else too,” I say, clearing my throat. “About asking Neve to come stay for a while.”
He looks up, slower this time. “Neve?”
“They’re close. After everything with Joel, they’ve been talking. I don’t know what they talk about, but it helps Lo. She laughs when Neve texts. I like hearing it.”
“Trauma bonding,” he mutters, almost absently.
I watch him too closely after that. He looks unaffected. Calm. Shrugs like it doesn’t matter. But Neve’s name always lands strange between us. Not loud. Not sharp. Just present. Like a question neither of us wants to ask.
“She’d be another pair of eyes,” I add.
“Sounds good to me,” he says, tone even.
In the background, the audiobook narrator’s voice dips low and urgent.“Bend over for me, just like that. Spread your ass cheeks so I can see you.”
Bridger glances toward the bathroom door, then at me, eyebrows raised.
“Ignore it,” I say.
Bridger drops onto the couch with a groan, his hands dragging down his face. “I’m not ignoring that, but we’ll circle back to it in a minute. You think Mom’s safe in Serenity Springs?” he asks, voice low.
“We did everything right,” I say, leaning against the windowsill. "The paperwork’s airtight. Only the four of us can visit. Nobody else.” It took us a few weeks to find a decent memory care facility in our budget, but we did, and Mom seems comfortable—happy even.
“Still,” Bridger mutters. “Maybe we should've used a different name. If Clay finds her…”
“He’s not going to find her, but we’ll get someone to watch the place too.” I glance toward the bathroom. The narrator’s voice dips even lower, and suddenly he’s growling out some filthy command:"Shut your mouth and make me come like a good little whore."
“Yes, yes, give me that cock,”a female narrator pants.
Bridger jerks upright, blinking. “Circling back now. What the fuck is that?”
I smirk despite myself. “One of Marlowe’s audiobooks.”
Bridger leans to the side, trying to hear better. The narrator’s now groaning and muttering something about tongues and tightness and how wet she is. “Jesus Christ,” Bridger says. “Is she in there watching porn?”
“No, it’s a book,” I say, grabbing my bottle of water from the coffee table.
“What the fuck kind of book is that? If I knew books were like that, I’d read a fuck of a lot more.”
The bathroom door creaks open and we both turn. Marlowe walks out, wrapped in nothing but a towel, water dripping from the ends of her hair and trailing down her long legs like a goddamn centerfold. She catches Bridger staring and arches a brow.
“What book is that?” he asks, nodding toward her phone. “Sounds like porn.”
