“Because of Jax? Callum?” Her eyes flash. “Are you scared of them?”
“No. I’m not scared of them.”
“Then why?”
“Because I want to do this right.”
She leans back and studies my face. “What’s right?”
“I don’t want you to regret this.”
“Zephyr.” She cups my face with her good hand. “I was the one who asked to kiss you. I wanted this. I still want this.”
“Tiger—”
“If you don’t want to, that’s fine. But don’t use Jax or Callum as an excuse.”
She’s right. This isn’t about Jax or Cal. This is about me being scared of fucking this up.
“I do want to,” I admit. “I just... I don’t know what we’re doing here. Any of us.”
She climbs off my lap and sits next to me on the couch instead.
“Then let’s just talk,” she says.
So we do.
We talk about everything. About her stress over the lawyer meeting. About my family. About things I haven’t talked about with anyone in years.
“Tell me about Marcy,” she says about my sister.
I lean back against the couch. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything. You mentioned her before, but you’ve never really talked about her.”
So I tell her about my dad’s drinking. How it got worse after our mom left, and I basically raised my little sister because our dad was too drunk to do it.
“I’d make her breakfast before school. Help with homework. Make sure she got to bed on time. I was trying to be both parents.”
“You sound like me.”
“Yeah.” I run my hand through my hair. “It didn’t last long, though, because she was only a couple of years younger than me.And as soon as she turned into a teenager, I was done for. She’d beat me.”
She laughs. “Is that why you came to UCLA? To get away?”
“Partly. But also to make money. Hockey scholarship meant I could send money home. Help with bills. Make sure Marcy had what she needed until she got out.”
Tiger’s quiet for a moment. “Did she? I mean, did she get out of there?”
I nod. “Yeah, but I think she developed a problem of her own. She lives with a boyfriend now, and I don’t know. She only calls for money.”
Tiger’s quiet for a moment and then she sighs. “I know what it’s like to feel responsible for someone you can’t save.”
I glance at her. I reach my hand over and play with her fingers.
“I couldn’t protect Zinnia from my dad.” She pauses. “Damien. I couldn’t tell her the truth about what happened that night, what I had done, and I feel like shit that she’s in a foster home. My mom would’ve never let this happen.”
“It’s not your fault.”
