15
Harlow
One hundred and thirty-five pounds of teenager sprang at Harlow. One hundred and thirty-five pounds of teenager hit the living room floor. Harlow didn’t so much as break a sweat. Shep wasn’t ready to protect Evie—he was barely ready to protect himself.
“Dad!” Evie shrieked. She launched herself from her seat and wrenched at his wrist, but it was unnecessary. What Shep had done was stupid, but Harlow had been a stupid teenager once, too, and he knew what it felt like to be so in love even insanity seemed feasible. “Dad,stop!”
Harlow turned his head toward her, intending to reply, when movement stopped him. Simon, who seconds before had stood paralyzed by the couch, now stood between himself and Shep. Harlow hadn’t caught him bolting out of place, but it was clear that he had—his chest rose and fell with the telltale exertion of rapid movement, and his body was tensed from a run. Where fear had once shimmered in his eyes, determination shone instead.
“I can’t… I can’t l-let you do this,” Simon stuttered. He held his arms out, barricading Harlow from Shep. “He’s… he’s just a kid, H. He’s younger than I am. He doesn’t know any better.”
“But here’s the thing… he could.”
The storm had passed. Harlow reclaimed his arm from Evie’s hold and moved toward Simon, keeping his eyes on his face. His lips and chin were crusted in blood, and his face had taken on haggard traits as bruises began to stretch beneath his eyes. Still, he held firm, and although he flinched like he expected to be hit when Harlow approached, he didn’t back down.
Harlow had never seen an act so heroic from a civilian.
He’d also never seen something that tore him apart quite like Simon’s devotion did.
“Kid?” Harlow asked uncertainly.
“I’m going to stand up for my brother no matter what.” Simon’s lips trembled, but he held Harlow’s gaze and refused to let his fear overwhelm his determination. “If you… if you need to break my nose again, fine. If you need to knock me out, or break the other bones in my body, or k-kill me, then do it, but Shep’s just a kid, and he doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into.”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Harlow told Simon, but it wasn’t enough. He frowned and added, “And I’m not going to hurt your brother, either. I have no intention of hurting anyone right now. All I want is to see him learn.”
“Learn what?” Simon squeaked. Like a lion cub practicing his roar, it was meant to be ferocious, but emerged kittenish instead.
“Learn what she needs him to so she can stay safe. Danger comes in all shapes and sizes, and that means that sometime, somewhere, he’s going to come up against someone like me.”
There was nothing Harlow wanted less than to admit that he’d made a mistake—that somewhere along the way, he’d lost sight of who Evie was, and what she wanted from life. But confronted with the fact that her escape had been voluntary, he couldn’t bury his head in the sand anymore. Evie was growing up, and while he’d spent his life protecting her, there’d come a time when he wasn’t there to do it anymore. For her, he’d move mountains and rewire the stars. If she was serious about wanting to leave Hollywood, then he had to help her. She was his only teammate—all that remained of the family he loved. Harlow would respect her wishes if it meant she would be happy—it was his job both as her bodyguard and as her father.
If that meant educating both her and Shep on how to keep her safe, so be it.
“Like it or not,” Harlow said, “if these two are serious, we can’t hold them back forever. Whether it’s tomorrow or at eighteen, they’re going to do what they want. And if that’s the case, and Shep’s who Evie ends up leaving with, then I need him to be prepared. I’m not going to let my own predilections get in the way of what’s best for her… and the way I see it now, what’s best for her is making sure I do what’s best forhim.”
The look on Simon’s face changed. Terror still twitched on his lips, but some of the steadfast determination in his eyes had turned into curiosity. Gradually, he lowered his arms while he kept his gaze locked on Harlow. “What do you think is best for him?”
“Not just for him—for both of them.”
Evie approached on delicate footsteps and placed a hand on his arm. This time around, her nails didn’t dig into him, and she didn’t fight to keep him restrained. “Dad?”
“I don’t know who you think I am,” Harlow murmured, his voice barely loud enough to carry. “And I don’t know what it is you think I’d do, if I found you here with Shep, but I love you, Evie. When you were born, I made a promise to you and to your father to keep you safe and to keep you happy. I’m not going back on my word now.”
Evie’s hand fell from his arm. Simon, eyes glistening, stared at him in disbelief. The color of his irises and the depths of their emotion destroyed Harlow—tore from him the last of his anger and disarmed the instinct Shep’s attack had woken inside.
Who had given him the right to have eyes so expressive?
Harlow’s gut clenched.
They barely knew each other, yet those bottomless blue eyes had never failed to make him feel.
“If this is what you want—if this is your final decision, and it’s what’s going to make you happy—then I’m going to be here to support you.” The gravity of what he said weighed on him, and while Harlow’s mind chastised him for making a hasty decision, his heart had never felt so full. “I’m going to stay and give you and Shep the self-defense training you need so you can both look after yourselves in my place. And then, if you decide that you really do want to fade into obscurity and take the world on all by yourself, you’ll be ready… and he’ll be ready, too.”
Shep picked himself off the ground and peered around Simon’s shoulder, his eyes narrowed and his lips set in a hateful sneer. He hadn’t lost his fight with fear—that was good. With a drive like his and an urge to protect beyond all else, training would go smoothly.
“You’re going to let me stay?” Evie asked in disbelief.
“You got it, kiddo… but on one condition.” Harlow looked not to Evie, but to the eyes that had so quickly learned how to dismantle him, seeking permission. “… that I get to stay, too.”
