I’ll be good.
I’ll be quiet.
I’ll disappear into the background until he forgets to be angry.
And maybe then I can figure out what to do next.
Zinnia’s breathing evens out after a million scenarios race through my mind. She’s finally asleep.
But I’m nowhere near tired as I stare at the ceiling.
I wonder what Jax is doing right now. My mind slips to Zephyr’s brown eyes, and then to Charming Callum. God, how can a man be that tall, smooth, and not serious? Zephyr and Jax are the opposite. They’re protective, quiet, and brooding.
I wonder if they’re thinking about me. If they know how badly I want to run back to them right now.
But I can’t, so I close my eyes.
And I pray tomorrow will be different.
Chapter Fourteen: Zephyr
Three hours.
We’ve been sitting in Jax’s car for three hours, and my ass is numb.
The Chick-fil-A bag crumpled between us stopped smelling good two hours ago. Now it just smells like grease. My phone’s at twelve percent because I forgot to charge it, and Jax hasn’t said a word since we parked.
He’s just staring.
I should be at home finishing my bio lab report that’s due tomorrow. I need to study for the exam I have in two days. But here I am.
The last time I didn’t show up—the one night I told Jax I had too much work and couldn’t make it—he went alone. Parked here until four in the morning. He missed his eight AM class and looked like hell at practice.
So now I come. Every night.
Jax is my boy, and he’s spiraling, and someone needs to make sure he doesn’t do something stupid like kick down her front door. If he gets arrested for stalking or breaking in or whatever the fuck this technically is, it’ll tank the team’s season.
I tell myself I’m here because it’s the right thing to do as a friend.
But that’s only part of it.
I’m here because I saw her face when she left Callum’s house. I saw the way she looked at us—not at Jax, at all three of us—like she wanted to stay but couldn’t let herself.
I’m here because my little sister is fourteen and if some piece of shit ever laid hands on her, I’d want someone to care enough to sit in a car for three hours in the cold.
I’m here because Tigerlily reminds me of Marcy.
Not physically. Marcy’s blonde and loud and takes up space like she owns it. Tigerlily’s quiet and careful and folds herself into corners.
But the eyes are the same.
The way Marcy looked at our dad after he came home drunk and smashed her science project because she left it on the kitchen table. The way she apologized for leaving it there. The way she cleaned up the broken pieces and never said a word about it again.
That’s the look Tigerlily had when she told us her dad hit her.
Like it was her fault.
Like she deserved it.
