“What?”
“Running away.”
Danny scoffed and hauled his pack up higher on his back. “What do you know?”
“I ran away from home when I was seventeen.” The words seeped out, unwanted but necessary. The crunch of Kieran’s footfall behind them screamed in her ears. He’d hear them. There was no way he wouldn’t.
“Okay, and?” Danny waved a hand up and down, gesturing at her body. “Look at you. You’re a content creator. Your life is perfect.”
A dry laugh slipped from Lily’s lips, and she offered Danny a wry smile. “I’ve been in therapy for almost a year, and I take anxiety meds. Look, I ran away from home. And yeah, I think it saved my life. But it also fucked me up for seven years. I didn’t have my own money. I didn’t have my ownhome. Anything I did was at the mercy of someone else. What you see now? This is rebirth.”
When he said nothing, Lily continued. “If you stay home, you have a lot more opportunity at eighteen. You can get loans. Go to school. Rent a damn hotel room if you have to. Work odd jobs. Whatever you need to do to keep control of yourself. You never want to hand that to someone else.”
“So, that’s what you did? Let someone else control you?” Danny finally met her gaze. Big, soulful blue eyes stared back.
“I survived.” She turned back to the trail, ignoring the twisting in her stomach at unpleasant memories. “Ideally, I’d love for you to do more than survive. I’d like you to live.”
* * *
Whether a stress nap or chronic teenage tiredness, Danny fell asleep across the back bench thirty minutes into their drive home. His chest rose and fell in even breaths.
A sad smile tugged at her lips.
“You’re good with kids, huh?”
Lily lifted her head and met with the strong jawline of Kieran’s profile. He kept his eyes on the road, his hand rigid on the wheel. The only proof he’d spoken was the mix of question and statement swirling in her head.
“Not really.” She shifted, tearing her attention away from Danny and settling down in the passenger seat. “Vovik had a little brother—Luka. He’s about a year older than Danny. I guess I see a bit of him in your brother.”
In his hurt. In his sensitivity. In those big blue eyes and the way he needed his brother’s love.
Of everything she missed surrounding Vovik, the boy who she’d called brother hurt the most.
Kieran’s gaze swept from the rearview mirror and back to the road. His grip loosened. “I’m sorry about the hike.”
“I’m not the one you need to say sorry to.” Even if he’dscared her, she didn’t believe for a second Kieran would hit Danny. You didn’t get to be a professional fighter without learning self-control. But some words jabbed deeper than a punch and took a lot longer to heal.
“I wasn’t trying to be a dick.” He glanced in the rearview again. He wasn’t checking the road; he was checking on his brother. “I thought he was going to fall.”
“He’s okay.” She placed her hand on Kieran’s thigh. “You’re both safe. Not everything has to be fight or flight.”
The corner of his lip twitched upward.
“What?” Lily flicked his leg and grinned. “Do you only know how to fight and fuck?”
“Hmm.” He glanced at her, finally tearing his attention from the road, and pinned her with the same dark gaze that had caught her off guard the day they’d met. “Lucky me. I get to practice both with you.”
“Kieran!” She shushed him and whirled about, double-checking Danny was still sound asleep. Thankfully he was. She spun back to Kieran. “You’re incorrigible, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told.”
A comfortable silence fell between them, and she settled in for the drive ahead. With her boots and socks off, she crossed her legs and grabbed her phone. While she’d already uploaded a few photos to PictureIt, she’d have to edit her and Danny’s video before posting on Hit It. Pick a trending song. And, of course, time of day for posting mattered, too.
“What’s the story behind running away?”
The question rattled through Lily like a shock wave. Her body tensed, shrinking in and tucking her phone to her chest—as if needing to hide herself away.
Fight or flight, she’d said to Kieran. Or in her case, freeze.
