Page 80 of Just One Kiss

“I should’ve stayed.”

Carly slowly pulled him close. He sank into her and cried, staining her pajama top with tears.

Moments later, he pulled away and looked at her, eyes fierce. “You can’t tell anyone, Carly. No one can know about this.”

Carly didn’t want to make that promise. Josh and his mom were in danger—shouldn’t someone step in and help them?

“She won’t leave him, and if he knows I told anyone, it’ll just get worse for her, for both of us.”

“How do you know she won’t leave?”

“I asked her last week,” Josh said. “I begged her to get out of there. She said she could never leave him, no matter what.”

“But it’s not safe,” Carly said.

Josh gently wiped his cheeks dry with the sleeve of his jacket.

“Our life would be so much better if he was gone,” Josh said.

They were quiet for a tense pause.

“You can’t stay there,” Carly said.

Josh waited for her attention. “I can handle it. But nobody can know, especially your dad.”

Her dad was the sheriff’s deputy. Of course Josh didn’t want him to know.

“Promise me you won’t say anything, Carly.” Josh forced her to look at him.

She didn’t respond.

“Carly . . .”

“I promise,” she finally said, though she wondered if crossies counted. She couldn’t imagine keeping this secret any longer.

“I don’t need them anymore,” he said. “Maybe I should just leave.”

“You don’t mean that.”

He looked at her. “I do too. I don’t have a family anymore—not after tonight.”

She wrapped an arm around him and watched as he angrily wiped his tears away. “I can be your family now.”

Now, looking at Josh across the waiting room, she could see the same trace of fear flashing in his eyes. It was much more subtle than it had been that night, but it was unmistakable, at least to her.

Carly hadn’t completely kept the promise she’d made that night. Twice she tried to tell her dad the truth about Josh’s father, but both times, Gus told her that his buddy Jim Dixon had to lay down the law with his son because his son was making bad choices. Tough love and all that.

“I’ve heard all about it, Carly, and I have to say, if Josh was my son, I’d take a heavy hand to his backside myself.”

“This isn’t discipline, Dad,” she’d said. “It’s abuse.”

“Carly, you’re overreacting,” he said. “I know Jim myself, and I know how much it weighs on him that his son is into so much trouble. He’s doing the best he can.”

Now, here in the waiting room, Josh stiffened, weariness washing across his face. His jaw twitched as he watched his parents stroll into the room like they belonged there. He didn’t get up to meet them. He didn’t say hello.

Carly drilled him with her glare, but he refused to look at her.

An awkward tension filled the room.

---