Page 117 of Fixation
“Yeah, but I can talk.”
“Fuck, Harper.” I hear his concern over the other sounds around my block. The errant car. My beating heart. “You shouldn’t be outside by yourself this late.”
“I have you to protect me.” My chuckle is met with his groan.
“That’s exactly what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Oh.” I cut to the right, to the familiar path I take when my workload is crazy and I don’t have much time to exercise. This area is quieter. Feels safe enough too. Then again, I thought my home was safe. “Is this another one of thewhy won’t you come homeconversations?”
“Do I need to remind you that you were sick and couldn’t talk on the phone for days?” He groans, probably running his hand through his thick brown hair. “I was going crazy. I had a plane ticket ready and all.”
By the time I turn right, sweat trickles down my neck.
My cheeks heat. Leg muscles are burning.
This is my first jog since I came back from Anderson’s home.
Where I was sick.
Where I was used in depraved, sexual ways.
He kept me dazed, obedient. Drugged.
And look at me now.
Alive and better. My heart gallops whenever I think of this fucked-up man.
Then my eyebrows lower in concentration. My brother doesn’t work, so it means someone got him the ticket. Our parents.
“Mom and Dad actually said it was okay for you to step in like that?”
Strange. That doesn’t sound like them.
Throughout the years, they’ve been my biggest supporters. When I told them I wasn’t going to college, that I had other plans, they gave me their full, unconditional blessing.
“It wasn’t like that.” His concern morphs into sadness. I’m instantly plagued with guilt. “They adore you. They trust you. It was me. I asked them to come out there.”
“Nothing happened, I swear.” Beau doesn’t need to know the truth. I’ll figure it out. “I’m fine. Totally fine.”
“Okay, okay.” His sigh is a blow to the chest. My brother and I are close, and I hate lying to him. I hate that he worries. “At least promise you’ll visit before Thanksgiving.”
I’m less than a mile away from home now. I can run some more or head back inside.
What I can’t do is go looking for Anderson. I can’t ever go near a man like him ever again.
The more time I spend away from him, the faster this obsession will fade. It has to.
Home it is. Beau is right to worry. I do need to be careful, to prove to him and my parents that their trust is warranted.
I owe it to myself.
“I’ll try, I promise.”
A white Lexus pulls up into the parking garage at the end of the street, blocking the view of my home.
The windows are dark, but my soul knows who it is. The man I want. The man I should stay the hell away from.
My pulse pounds so loudly that it drowns out everything else.
