Nate’s expression changed.
Callum’s did too.
I hated that worse than the jokes.
Pity had never sat right on my skin.
Callum leaned back slowly. “I’m not lending you out.”
“Prez—”
“No.”
I swallowed the curse behind my teeth.
“You’re not running because a girl made you feel human,” he said.
I laughed once. Bitter. “That what this is?”
“Part of it.”
“What’s the other part?”
“You tell me.”
I looked at the table.
The wood was scarred from years of fists, knives, bottles, and men making choices they either regretted or bragged about later. My hands rested on it, inked and rough, the knuckles still carrying old damage.
The truth sat ugly in my throat.
“She made me want to be better,” I said.
No one spoke.
“She’s starting over,” I continued. “Blank pages, all that poetic stuff Regan said. And I kept thinking, what the hell am I doing? Same runs. Same bad habits. Same me. I don’t want to be my old man. I don’t want to wake up at forty still using where I came from as an excuse for everything I never became.”
Callum’s eyes narrowed slightly, but not with anger.
With interest.
“What do you want?” he asked.
I almost said her.
That was how gone I was.
Instead, I said the thing that had been circling me for months.
“I want a trade.”
Nate blinked.
Callum said nothing.
“I got my GED,” I said.
Nate’s mouth dropped open.
