A breathy laugh fell from my mouth as I sank onto the edge of a hay bale.
Norah leaned against the stack next to me, arms crossed and watching me with a smirk. “Feeling better?”
“Yeah…a little,” I admitted, wiping sweat from my brow with the back of my wrist. “Did your brothers really teach you all of those moves?”
She nodded. “That’s the blessing, and the curse, of having two overprotective brothers. I love them, but it’s…complicated.Theymake things complicated. Especially when it comes to dating.”
I frowned. “That sounds…annoying.”
“It is,” she admitted. “Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a fishbowl everyone’s peering into. No privacy, no room to figure out who the hell I am without them hovering or intervening.”
I nodded slowly, understanding more than I expected. “You ever think about leaving?”
“All the time,” she said softly, then louder added, “Not like leave town or anything, because I love it here. But just…having my own space would be nice, you know? An apartment in town or a small little house I can rent. Somewhere off their radarenough that I wouldn’t have to worry so much if I’m going to get caught doing the walk of shame and have to spend the next hour getting a full-on sermon on morality, curfews, and common sense.”
A laugh bubbled up from my chest as I stood up from the hay bale, tugging at the band barely holding my messy bun together and letting the sweaty strands fall loose. “Wow,” I mused, shaking my head as the strands tumbled down. “Doesn’t Zane have anything better to do than be a hard-ass?”
“Zane’s not the problem,” she said dryly as I flipped my head over and bent forward, combing my tangled hair and trying to wrangle the mess back into a knotted bun. “Luke, of all freaking people, is the one to givethatparticular lecture and… Shit, girl, what did you do to your back?”
I froze, feeling a cold prickle slink up my spine as I realized my tank top had slid up while I bent over. Most of the bruises from Heath’s last bit of wrath had finally faded…but that one stubborn shadow along the back of my ribs—where he’d shoved me so hard and I’d fallen awkwardly onto the entryway table, and then again into the back of the sofa—still lingered. And I couldn’t reach that one with makeup like the barely-there one yellowing around my eye. But, lucky for me, my hair was long enough to cover it while it was down…which is probably why Zane hadn’t noticed it earlier when he walked in on me. Or if he did, he was probably too busy staring at everything else to bother processing it. But now…now his sister haddefinitelyseen it…
“What are you talking about?” I jerked to a stand and yanked the fabric back down over my ribs.
Norah pushed off the hay bale stack and stepped closer, gently reaching for the edge of my shirt. “You’ve got a nasty, fading bruise back here,” she said, her voice soft and concerned as my shirt lifted and her fingers hovered just above my skin. “What happened?”
I shook my head, heart thudding painfully against my sternum. “Nothing.”
“Girl, that’snotnothing…”
My hands shot up, ripping the shirt from her grasp and yanking it back into place again, as if that could erase the moment. “It’s nothing,” I said again, firmer this time as I met her confused blue eyes and held them, silently pleading for her to just let it go.
Norah’s mouth pressed into a thin line as her eyes darkened with something fierce and quiet. She didn’t pry any further than that, but her jaw flexed enough to show she was simmering, and her fingers twitched like she wanted to reach out again, but she didn’t.
Instead, she exhaled softly and straightened, letting her hands fall to her sides. “I hope the asshole who did that to you got a taste of what you just gave that bag.”
I blinked at her, and a small, reluctant smirk tugged at my lips despite myself. He didn’t, but she didn’t need to know that. Norah’s expression softened a little with my smirk, and she nudged me gently back toward the bag. “Come on. Let’s see what else you’ve got.”
Chapter Seventeen
Zane
“Hey Andi, can I get a beer?”Luke called as he moseyed up to the bar.
“Sure thing,” she answered. “Coors, right?”
“You know me all too well.” He gave her one of those easy grins and dropped onto the barstool next to me.
My eyes darted between the two of them as I leaned in. “Can I get one, t—?”Andshe walked away. I huffed an irritated sigh and slumped against the bar. “Seriously?”
“Maybe she didn’t hear you,” Luke offered with a shrug, but I could already see the smug little tug at the corner of his mouth. “Itiskinda loud in here.”
I wasn’t convinced, but I didn’t argue. A few seconds later she returned with Luke’s beer, popped the cap, and slid it across the bar.
“There you go, Luke,” she said, all sunshine and sweetness.
He winked at her and raised the bottle like it was a toast. “You’re an angel, darlin’.”
Andi laughed like he’d just told the best joke of the night, and I swear I saw her brush her hair back a little slower than necessary.
