Page 57 of Secret Love

“She’s a person. Not a Barbie doll.”

I hold my breath. Never in my life have I ever thought to talk to my father like this and yet, here goes Fox, saying everything I didn’t even know I was thinking.

“Bennett,” Cora coos. “Let’s all just calm down—”

“No, Cora. I will not just calm down! You might let your kid do whatever the hell he wants, but I’m not going to let him corrupt my daughter!”

“Don’t yell at her like that,” Fox says, his voice harder than before.

“Last I checked,” my father says, “this is my house and I’ll yell at whoever I want to!”

I wince as the sound of him echoes up to me. If Fox keeps pushing him…

“I don’t care whose house this is, speak to my mother like that again and I’ll put you through the fucking window.”

My jaw drops. I wait for my father’s inevitable screaming. He’s ruined people’s careers for a whole lot less than that. I don’t want to picture what he’d do to a kid living under his own roof.

I realize I’m trembling. My heart races, sending goosebumps up and down my arms and legs. I’m worried about Fox, genuinely concerned for him in ways I never thought about before.

Why do I even care?

Come on, Dani. You know exactly why.

“Fox…”

I flinch. It’s just Cora. My father didn’t scream or shout at all. What the hell is happening down there?

“You go on upstairs, honey,” she says, calmly. “We’ll talk about this later.”

Fox doesn’t hesitate. I hear his feet against the marble floor, stomping quickly toward the stairs. I shuffle in a panic and turn toward the nearest door, taking one step inside before I realize I’m walking right into Fox’s bedroom. Not mine.

“Shit,”I say to myself.

I back out and bump into Fox’s wide shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to…”

I pause on his expression in the dark. It’s cold and hard, a far cry from the devil may care jock who usually wanders the halls of Belle Academy.

“Fox?” I ask. “Are you okay?”

He shifts his stance and carefully walks around me into his room. “Yeah,” he mutters.

I follow him, staying several paces behind. “What happened?”

“You heard it just fine,” he says as he plops onto the edge of his disheveled, unmade bed.

“Okay, yeah. I did, but…”

“So, what do you want?”

I hesitate. What do I want?

Why haven’t I ever asked myself that before?

Isn’t it about time I started?

I take slow steps toward him, each step sending a flurry of heat through my cheeks. He tilts his head up to look at me as I approach, the hard lines of his face softening. Somehow, I manage to turn off the voices in my head, the ones that sound just like my father. Don’t do this. Don’t do that.

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