“What’s wrong?” Nash asks when I barge into his room later in the afternoon, after another line-reading session with Chloe. “Were you crying?”
I shake my head, biting my lip. “Not yet, but I’mthisclose.”
He sets his laptop aside, making room on his lap, and takes my wrist, tugging until I straddle him, my head in the crook of his neck, first tears stinging my eyes.
“I don’t know why I’m this upset. I knew he was lying the whole time,” I mutter, sniffling pathetically. I kept it together all day, but the moment the last bell rang, I folded under the weight of Dad’s confession. “It’s just... I could hear the fear in his voice and it dawned on me how bad things must be if he’sthisscared. He’s never scared.”
“You called your dad,” Nash guesses, brushing my hair over my ear. “What did he say?”
“That the accident when I lost my memories wasn’t an accident. That I’m not safe, that—”
“You’re safe,” he cuts in, pushing me away enough to cup my face. “I keep you safe, pretty girl.”
“You don’t even know what’s happening.Idon’t know what’s happening. I keep trying to remember but it’s not coming back. Nothing important has come back since I saw your gun.”
I sit up straight, eyes wide, an idea striking me like a stone dropped in a well. Swatting my tears away when Nash’s hands fall to my thighs, I scrunch my nose, wondering if he’ll agree.
“You want to see my gun again?” he asks, inching his fingers higher under my skirt.
“Could I? It’s the only tangible thing that’s triggered any memories. Maybe if I see it again, I’ll remember more. Something important, not meaningless cuddles and kisses.”
A muscle feathers his jaw, eyes darkening faster than I can blink. “I fucking hate that he touched you first.”
“He didn’t,youdid.”
He lifts his hand, brushing his thumb over my lips. “He kissed you, Hailey. He held you, touched you, spoke to you.”
“He wasn’t first,” I blurt out like that’ll help. “I had my first kiss when I was sixteen. It was bad.”
Nash closes his eyes briefly as if reining his flaring temper, and I take the opportunity to distract him with a kiss.
He moves his hands to my hips, yanking me closer, and he takes. He pours his frustration into the kiss, his hot tongue tangling with mine, every lick and nibble a statement. A claim. I’m his and he knows that, but it doesn’t tame his territoriality.
If anything, it grows more vicious every day.
As much as I want to keep going and let our clothes fall away, I close his lips, skimming my nose up his cheek until I press a soft kiss on his forehead.
“The gun?” I whisper, tangling my fingers in the short hair at the back of his head. “Please.”
“Only if you promise you won’t ask questions about it.”
I nod, sliding into the seat beside him.
“And you do as you’re told,” he adds. “Close your eyes.”
A small eleven crawls onto my forehead. “Why?”
He cocks an eyebrow. “You need me to spell it out? What happened last time you saw it?”
“Okay, closing my eyes.”
He waits until I do, then moves about the room. He makes sounds all over the place, a rustle here, a faint tap there, a muffled thump near the door. A maze of noises designed todisorient my sense of direction, so I can’t pinpoint where he keeps the gun. I didn’t think he had one here.
Is it the one from the glovebox or does he have two?
Andwhywould he have either in the first place?
I push the question away when Nash stops opening drawers and banging the closet door.
