Page 170 of Did They Break You

I smile wider at his comment, flashing my teeth, and his eyes dip down to my mouth. My blood heats, and I think about what might happen in that tent tonight. “Do you?” I tease him.

“Yeah,” he says, sitting up and turning to face me more fully, one hand cupping my face. “I do.” His thumb traces my mouth and my lips part, almost involuntarily. “But I like your manners too.” He pushes his thumb into my mouth, and I suck it, my tongue ring flicking against his skin. His breath hitches, his eyes staring at my lips. “Like that,” he murmurs. “So fucking sweet.”

Slowly, he pulls his thumb out, then puts it in his own mouth, and I clench my thighs together, knees still to my chest. He drops his hand, resting it on my knee, over my leggings.

“You’re so good, you know that?” he asks me quietly, his eyes back on mine.

“Is that why you liked me?”

He tilts his head, a smile on his full lips, his lip ring gleaming in the light of the fire. “Yeah,” he admits. “And you were always in your own world. Nose in a book. Cheerleader with no friends. Lugging books around at the park on Saturday mornings.” He laughs a little as I feign offense, smacking his chest, my fingers lingering on his plaid shirt. “And I remember watching you fall.”

I know exactly what he’s talking about.

My chest tightens, my playful mood gone.

“I was coming in from practice. Y’all were in the gym.” His eyes stay on mine and I squirm a little, uncomfortable. “Maya was such a bitch.” He grimaces. “Issuch a bitch.” He looks away and I wonder if she’s said anything to him lately. I think about the texts on his phone. The broken screen. But I don’t say anything, wanting to hearthis.When he noticed me, back when I thought no one really did. “I broke up with her that night, and you were so brave.” He offers me a small smile, squeezing my arm, his still around my shoulders. “But we had a game the next day. Your ankle was swollen.”

I nod, swallowing down a lump in my throat. “And blue,” I supply.

He frowns. “And blue,” he repeats.

I had no idea he noticed.

That nighthurt.It was like a zing of electricity in the most painful way just standing on it. I did one extension the night of the game, and I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to hold my own weight above my bases.

I did. Just barely.

When I came down, I thought I might faint.

“Maya bitched at me that morning,” he says quietly. “Before practice.”

I hold my breath, staring at him as he gazes out into the fire.

He shakes his head, shrugging. “Guess she saw I was crushing on you before I even did.”

I think about her in the café. Calling me a slut. I smile faintly now, realizing why she was so bitter.

“Why didn’t you stay off it?” Cort asks, breaking through my thoughts. “Or… get an Ace bandage or something?” He smiles a little, but it’s a confused smile.

I look down between us, at my knees. Think about going home after practice, dropping my gym bag by the door and leaning against the wall, sweaty and in pain.

Silas walked down the hall, his phone to his ear, dressed in a suit and tie, as always. When he saw me, he put the phone on mute, his cold, dark eyes fixed on mine. “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

For a second, I wanted to cry. Tell him everything. Not just my injury. About Maya. How I thought the quarterback had a crush on me. That my ankle was sprained, and I needed a doctor and wouldn’t be able to cheer at the game the next day.

But Silas and I didn’t have that kind of relationship. I think I would’ve been able to tell Mom all of that, but in the years before she died, she’d been absent. Always at home, but never reallythere.

That night, I sucked it all up, straightened my spine, my palms pressed against the wall at my back. “Nothing, sir.” I lifted my leg, wearing shorts, my ankle was visible, and I had already kicked that shoe off. “I just… I think I sprained my ankle.”

He’d glanced down at it in cold boredom that sent chills down my spine, his phone held to his breast pocket. “Can you walk?”

Surprised he asked a question at all, I gingerly stepped on it and ground my teeth together, sucking in a breath. “No,” I said, shifting my weight to my good foot. “It’s?—”

“I didn’t ask if you couldwalk on it,”he said, speaking slowly, as if he were talking to a child and not his seventeen-year-oldstepdaughter. “I asked if you couldwalk.”His gaze was on mine, burning through me.

Tears welled in my eyes, but I forced them away, swallowing them down, my ankle throbbing, my legs trembling. “Y-yes, sir,” I answered him.

He nodded. “Great.” Then he put his phone back to his ear and walked away.

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