Page 67 of Lights, Camera, Love

I don’t even trust myself, so I can’t give Evie the answer she obviously wants to that question. My silence sends her gaze skittering away and I glance down, sensing an uneasy shift in the air between us.

‘My father is a very powerful man,’ she eventually mumbles, ‘and I can only guess that he has an ego the size of a continent. I don’t want to dance the moment he decides to start pulling my strings.’

I turn to face her again. ‘Yeah. I get that.’

‘I also don’t think there would be anything wrong with turning my back on him the way he’s done to Mum and me since I was born, and just going on with my life without him in it.’

‘Of course, baby.’

The word slips past my lips like a caress, and Evie’s surprised eyes lift to mine. She doesn’t say anything; she just rests her cheek on the pillow and sets her gaze on me. My eyes refuse to part with hers.

‘I didn’t have a choice when it came to getting to know my parents,’ I confide after a while. ‘I wasn’t allowed to visit my mum in jail before she OD’d in there, and I never even met my dad. He took off before I was born. My mother once said he was a deadbeat and not worth knowing, but I really have no idea what he was like. Apparently, his name was Brayden.’

Evie’s hand stills my fingers, and I realise I’ve been playing with the brown leather strap circling my wrist.

‘Where’s this from?’ she asks. ‘You’re always wearing it.’

My throat contracts. ‘My brother made it. When we were living in different cities as foster kids, he sent it to me in the mail. I was nearly fourteen then, so he must’ve been around seven or eight at the time.’

‘Kye.’ Surprise edges Evie’s soft voice. ‘That’s amazing. How special. And you’re still wearing it?’

‘Yeah.’

I can’t get out any more words. After Jace sent me the bracelet, we kept writing to each other now and then, and having the occasional phone call; our contact only ceased when I stopped responding. Mike urged me to keep in touch with my brother, but I was just a kid, running as fast and far as I could from my abusive past, and everything and everyone connected to it. I was desperately trying to cling to things that felt safe and normal, and every mention of Jace’s name threw me right back into the trauma pit. As for Jace, I don’t know why he didn’t push harder to stay in contact after I stopped writing. Maybe he was hurt that his older brother hadn’t made more of an effort to be there for him. Or maybe he had his own demons—apparently, he was beaten within an inch of his life in his first foster home after he left the Reynolds’ and almost starved to death in the second.

I don’t even know why I’ve kept wearing the bracelet for all these years. Maybe it’s been a way to keep Jace in my life without having to confront those old wounds.

‘I’m thinking of making contact with him,’ I murmur, nerves filling my stomach.

Evie’s brows lift. ‘Yeah?’

‘I’m scared that he won’t want to speak to me or that he hates me because I let us grow apart. But here we are, living in the same city now. Even if he’s behind bars, he’s alive; he’s here. If there’s a chance for a … a relationship there, shouldn’t I at least try?’

Her face softens. ‘It’s obviously up to you, but I think that, if there is a chance, then … yes, maybe you should try.’

I want to tell her that maybe she should try with her father, too, but her situation differs wildly from mine. If anything, Evie is in Jace’s position, and Gabriel Dean is more like me. Gabriel and I are the ones who made life-changing mistakes, who now have to decide whether we’re brave enough to try to make them right.

I need to wrench my mind off this topic, so I cradle Evie’s jaw in my hand and bring her face so near to mine that she becomes nothing more than a pair of lake-blue eyes. It should be awkward as hell, staring at someone this closely, yet, as Evie and I gaze right into each other’s souls, all I feel is calm. Soothed.Quiet.

‘What are you doing to me?’ I say in a rasping voice, lowering my lips to hers.

My phone blasts from the bedside table.

Evie smiles against my mouth. ‘Answer it, if you need.’

I break apart from her to reach for the phone, and my stomach plummets. ‘It’s Austin.’

She falls silent, watching me as I stare at the screen. I don’t know if I should answer, but he might not call back, and it’ll stop ringing any second now, and—

I press the phone to my ear. ‘Hello?’

‘Hey …’ Austin pauses. ‘Thought you weren’t gonna pick up.’ Already, he sounds annoyed with me.

‘Where are you?’ I mutter, sitting up.

‘In an Uber, heading home. I flew back this morning. You didn’t get my text?’

I bristle at his assumption that all I do is sit by the phone, waiting to hear from him. ‘No.’

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