Harleigh
“I’m stuffed,” Chloe let out a satisfied groan, patting her stomach. “You’ll have to tell your dad the steak was—”
“Dad?” I sat up and twisted around to glare at Nix. “You stole the meat off your dad?”
“Thanks a bunch, Clo,” he grumbled, hooking his arm around my neck and pulling me back down so that my back was against his chest.
“Nix,” I sighed. I didn’t want him doing anything that could cause trouble between him and his father, especially not for me.
“Relax, B,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to my shoulder. “It’s not a big deal.”
Zane scoffed at that. “Tell us that after he’s—”
Nix must have sent him a hard look because Zane swallowed whatever he’d been about to say.
A sinking feeling spread through me and it was on the tip of my tongue to ask Zane what he meant. But I knew. I’d always known, back from when we were kids growing up in The Row, just trying to survive. Me, my mother and her addiction to liquor; Nix, his father and his unpredictable temper. Over the years, I’d lost count how many times Nix had turned up on my porch with a black eye or split lip. He hadn’t liked to talk about it back then, but I’d known.
I’d always known.
My stomach churned, but Nix’s arms tightened around me. “Stop overthinking it,” he said quietly. “I’ll be fine.”
“We’re talking about this, Nix.” I twisted to look at him. “Not here, not now, but soon.”
Intense gray eyes stared back at me, full of vulnerability and pain.
There was so much we had yet to talk about. Things we’d been through, things we were still going through.
“I like it out here,” Celeste said, cutting through the heavy tension around us.
“It’s an abandoned mill. What’s to like?” Zane muttered.
“I don’t know.” She shrugged, refusing to meet his eyes. “It’s peaceful and it feels off the grid.”
“Off the—”
“She’s right, bro.” Kye added around a teasing smile aimed right at Zane. “It is kinda cool.”
“I bring my girl to all the best places,” Nix said, letting his lips brush my shoulder again, making me shudder.
His girl.
His girl.
The words spun around in my head, giving me a warm fuzzy feeling like a hit of dopamine as Kye started telling Celeste the history of the mill, much to Zane’s annoyance.
I was only half-listening, too busy soaking up Nix’s solid presence behind and around me. One of his hands had slipped inside my t-shirt, stroking the skin there.
“First game of the season next weekend. You gonna come support your guy, B?”
“You all play football?” Celeste asked.
I rolled my eyes at her attempt at playing dumb, and Zane snorted, seeing straight through her.
“What?” She glowered at him.
“Does this little act usually work?”
“Act? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”