“Sorry. Sorry, Lara. Did I hurt you?”
Obviously he hurt my foot, but I know he’s not talking about now. He’s talking about last night. “I’m fine. It’s...fine.” A perfect eighteenth birthday present, him pounding into me and then going drinking with the ‘boys’ after. I wish he wouldn’t have even come home for the summer. “And ah, you didn’t have to come by. I’ll see you at UT Austin in two weeks anyway.” I’m just not sure I want to now. “Unless you seniors are above us freshmen.”
“Did I seem like I was above freshmen last night?
He really isn’t going to like my answer to that. “It’s one in the morning. If my mom catches us, she’ll be furious.”
“She’s sleeping. You said so when I called.”
“I also told you not to come.”
“You’re upset with me.”
“No, I--” Tires grind on gravel behind me, and I jump, spinning around to watch a black sedan pulling into the driveway. Luke’s hand settles on my waist and he leans in to whisper, “Your mom got a little something something going on the side, or what?”
I grind my teeth, wondering how I never noticed what an asshole he was until last night. I open my mouth to tell him so, too, when the front door flies open. Luke yanks me back into the farthest, darkest part of the porch, and not a moment too soon. My mother appears and I’m shocked that she’s fully dressed in shorts and a tank top like me, when I’m certain I saw her in a white gown not an hour before.
Holding my breath, I watch as she pads down the stairs. her flat sandals slapping against the wood. The car pulls further up the driveway and disappears at the side of the house, and she follows it.
“I’m out of here, babe,” Luke says, but I barely register his words, tuning him out and rushing toward the steps. Luke catches up to me on the grass, grabbing my arm. “What are you doing?”
“I want to know who’s here.”
“Lara, be real. It’s the middle of the night and your dad and brother are out of town. Who do you think it is?”
Does he know? “Who? Who is it?”
“It’s a booty call.”
I gape at the crass comment. “Booty call? Is that what you hoped tonight would be for you? My mother is not cheating on my father.”
He snorts. “If you say so.”
I shove him. “Go back to Austin, Luke.” Moonlight washes over his shocked expression and I turn and head down the line of the house to squat beside a large row of neatly trimmed bushes.
Steeling myself for what could come next, telling myself whatever this is, is innocent, I peer down the driveway and suck in a breath. The car’s lights are dimmed now to a glow and my mother is standing at the open driver’s door. Yelling. She’s yelling at whoever is inside. She never yells. Except that day I came home to tell her I’d been accepted into the University of Texas, and overheard her fighting with someone.
“You told me it wouldn’t be like this,” she shouts, seemingly forgetting she might be overheard. She sounds too freaked out to think logically, out of her mind with emotion.
A deep, male voice says something, but I can’t catch the words. I think he’s being cautious about his voice carrying, though I can’t say why I think that. I just do.
“You said--” my mother starts, but the man pushes out of the car, turning her to press her against the trunk, his big, suit-clad body framing hers. My heart is racing and I want to call out for him to let her go, but I’m not sure I should. Shadows hug his profile, making it impossible for me to make out his face and he doesn’t seem familiar. He just seems like a monster.
“Don’t touch me!” my mother hisses, and the man leans in low to her ear and then pulls back to look at her.
I gasp as my mother slaps his face, the bite of her palm on his cheek clapping in the air.
He grabs her arm, moving her with him, and then yanks open the back door of the car. His back is to me and they exchange more incoherent words before I hear him clearly as he orders, “Get in.”
And she does. Oh God. Oh God. Why is she getting into the car? I stand up as he follows her into the backseat and shuts them inside. He’s going to hurt her and I think about calling the police or my father, but there isn’t time. I burst from behind the shrubs to help my mother, only to be yanked back behind the bushes.
“Don’t,” Luke warns,
I turn on him, grabbing his shirt. “Let go. I have to help her. I have to.”
“She doesn’t need help. She’s getting naked with that man.”
“She slapped him.”
“You didn’t hear his reply?”
“No. What are you talking about?” I jerk on my arm. “Let go. Let me go.”
“He promised her he’d fuck her until she apologizes.” He grimaces. “Just like last time.”
My throat goes dry. “No. No. That can’t be.”
“It is. Just stay here and I promise you she’s going to get out of that car looking well fucked and smiling like a well-fed cat.” He grabs my hand and pulls me around the house and I dig in my heels.
“Stop, Luke. Where are we going?”
“You aren’t watching this. It’s upsetting you.”
“I have to stay.”
“Just do what I say and it’s going to be okay.”
He starts pulling me away from the side of the house and I let him. I shouldn’t let him. I should do something. “Luke--” Blackness flashes in front of my eyes. I can’t see Luke. I can’t see the yard or my mother or who the man is. I have to turn back. I have to see who the man is. But I can’t. It’s too dark and Luke is pulling me. He keeps pulling me. No! No! No!
“No!” I jerk to a sitting position, gasping into flickering shadows, water pellets hitting a window, a storm all around me, and I yank the clip from the back of my throbbing head. “Where am I?”
“Easy, baby,” I hear, a moment before I’m pulled back into the cradle of a hard body and a car door behind me.
“Liam?” I whisper, unsure what is real, only that my cheeks are damp and there is a tangled mess of images in my mind. My mother fighting with the stranger. Liam and I fighting behind the diner.
“I’m here and you’re safe,” Liam assures me, swiping the dampness from my cheeks. “You blacked out for twenty damn minutes and scared the hell out of me. Is that normal? Do you always black out that long?”
“I...I don’t know. I think...I…maybe.” Nothing is normal. Nothing is right. My fingers ball around his shirt, and the murky dark waters of what remains of my flashback threaten to pull me under with guilt. “If I’d done something that night. If I...If I’d told someone-”
“What night? Told who what?”
I blink and snap my lips shut. What am I doing? What am I saying to Liam who I cannot dare trust? “Nothing,” I say and try to pull away from him.
His arm shackles my waist. “Talk to me, Amy. Let me help.”
My hand goes to his wrist where he holds me captive, the heat of his body radiating into me, arousing me, confusing me. I am alone without him, but I am tired of lies. From me. To me. About my life. “You shouldn’t have looked for me.”