Page 128 of Broken Trails
His mouth between my thighs, my nails scraping over his buzzed hair. Heated skin against skin, slick and desperate, like we couldn’t get close enough, no matter how tightly we clung. It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t rough.
It was everything.
Tucked in bed now, we’re both tangled beneath the quilt, still damp and flushed from the shower. The soft glow from my bedside lamp—courtesy of Michael, because heinsistedI ‘needed’ one—casts golden shadows across the room. My cheek rests against his bare, solid chest, and his fingers trace lazy circles along my spine. Sprinkles is sprawled at the foot of the bed, unbothered by the emotional intensity in the air. She’s stretched out, her now too-big paws twitching in her sleep like she owns the damn place. “She’s too clingy for her own good,” I murmur, eyes fixed on her.
Michael shifts slightly beside me, his voice low and amused. “She’s basically a weighted blanket with a superiority complex.”
A soft laugh escapes me. “She’s also huge. Had I known she’d get this big, I would’ve given her right back. In passing, she could be mistaken for a small dog.”
He snorts, and for a moment, we both go quiet again. But not the heavy kind of silence.
Just… stillness. My gaze drifts, trailing over his features, until it lands on the faint line that cuts through his left eyebrow. A deep, pale scar, slicing clean through where hair should be. I’ve seen it before, always assumed it was intentional—some edgy, half-shaved detail.
But under this light, at this distance, I see it clearly for what it is.
A wound.
“How did you get that?” I ask, voice hushed.
He doesn’t answer right away. His body stills beneath mine. “It’s a… long story,” he says eventually, his tone carefully neutral.
“Michael.” I shift up slightly so I can see him better. “You’re always asking me to open up. Fair’s fair.”
He meets my gaze, then huffs a breath through his nose. “Touché.”
I wait, patient but steady. “Besides,” I add, brushing my fingers gently across his chest, over the short dusting of hair. “I have time to listen.”
He stares up at the ceiling for a moment, his chest rising and falling beneath my palm. Without looking at me, he says quietly, “My father.”
Just two words, and yet they feel like a stone dropped into water, rippling outward.
“When I was twelve, he threw a glass ashtray at my head.”
My breath catches, lodging in my throat, and I struggle to swallow the lump. I stare at him, but he doesn’t look back. Just keeps his eyes fixed on the ceiling like it’s safer than meeting mine.
“He was pissed about something, probably nothing. Harrison wasn’t home. Mum was asleep on the couch.” His jaw tightens, and something flashes behind his eyes. “Or passed out. Honestly, I couldn’t tell anymore by then.”
I blink at him, stunned. There’s a ringing in my ears, a pressure building behind my ribs. But before I can say anything, he lets out a soft huff of laughter. It’s raspy and so painfully out of place that it stops me cold. “You know,” he murmurs,the corners of his mouth curling in something that isn’t quite a smile, “I’ve never told anyone that before. Not even my brother.”
My heart twists. “Didn’t he ask? Wonder how you got it?”
“I told him I got into a fight at school. Typical bullshit.”
I shake my head slowly in disbelief. “And what did he do?”
Michael lets out a hollow laugh. “He marched into school the next day and beat the shit out of a group of boys.”
My eyes widen. “Wait—what?”
“They might not have been the ones to hit me, but they were assholes, nonetheless. Bullies. Had a rep for going after younger kids. Harrison knew they deserved it, even if they hadn’t touched me.” There’s something about the way he says it that’s so matter-of-fact, it makes my stomach turn. “He got suspended from school for a week,” he continues. “And he smiled the whole damn time. He was proud of it.”
I press a hand to my chest. “And you never told him?”
Michael finally looks at me again. His eyes are glassy now, unfocused. “He doesn’t need to know. He did everything he could for me back then. He was a kid, too. Just trying to protect me however he knew how. I wasn’t about to add to what he already carried.”
A silence settles over us, and it’s heavier than before. The kind that pulses with things unsaid.
His voice lowers, gaining a rasp that sends a shiver through me. “You have no idea what it’s like, Zoe,” he says, sitting up, rubbing the back of his neck like the words physically hurt, “to grow up in a house where every room feels like it might turn on you. Where love’s used to shut you up. Where silence isn’t peaceful, it’s fucking survival.”
