Page 19 of Huck Frasier
I stepped inside. Slammed the door behind me.
She backed up, arms crossed like she could hold herself together if she just clenched hard enough.
“You don’t get to do this,” I growled. “You don’t get to light a match, set my world on fire, and walk away like it was nothing.”
“Iwarnedyou.”
“You warned me you were scared. Youdidn’twarn me that you’d quit before we even had a chance.”
“I’m not like you, Frasier. I don’t know how tostay.”
“Then learn.”
Her breath hitched.
I closed the space between us in two steps. Not touching. Justthere.Close enough for her to feel it. The heat. The anger. The ache.
“You think I came here to beg?” I said, voice low. “I didn’t.”
“I know.”
“You think I’m here to fix it?”
She shook her head.
“I’m here because you don’t get to write the ending by yourself. Not this time. You and me—we started this together. So we finish it together.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. She blinked them away, hard. “What if I mess it up?”
“You will.”
She swallowed.
“And I’ll still be there.”
Her voice cracked. “I don’t know how to be that person.”
“Then let me show you.”
She crumbled into me.“My mom is crazy, what if I’m like her?”
No kisses. No heat.
Justher,shaking in my arms like a woman who finally stopped running.
And me—holding her like a man who finally caught what he couldn’t let go.
“Your mom is alive?” That surprised the hell out of me.
“Yes, she’s alive, I guess.”
“How come she wasn’t at Lark and Axel’s wedding?”
“Did you not hear me? She’s crazy.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know. We haven’t seen her since we graduated from high school. She left and never came back. We stayed home and went to our state college. We were worried. The police wouldn’t help because she left on her own.”
