Page 43 of Bound

“She really is,” Claire agrees. “I’m lucky to have her, lucky she’s had my back for as long as I can remember. I wouldn’t have finished school without her, wouldn’t have the job with the team if she didn’t keep pushing me to be better, but—” She turns enough to meet my eyes, her front brushing against my arm. “My parents left me and had no problem doing so. Certainly, they didn’t have any remorse about it,” she adds dryly. “And that’s not something that just goes away, even if I didn’t have someone like Gran in my life. I’m thankful,sothankful for her,but it was hard to accept that she could love me when my parents couldn’t.”

“I can only imagine,” I say. “Sometimes kids wonder how their parents can love them, even if they don’t give them any real reasons to think that.”

“Them?” she asks. “Or you?”

I smile wryly. “We’re just gonna double down on the personal on this first date?”

A dainty shrug. “Seems fitting.”

It does.

Maybe that’s why I don’t think too hard about admitting what she already sussed out.

“Me,” I admit. “Kind of difficult to not feel a little guilty when your chronic illness is the reason that your parents aren’t getting sleep, or that money’s tight because you broke your pump or insulin costs have gone up, or when you do something stupid as a teenager that nearly costs them everything?—”

“Jackson.”

“Or be the cause of their worry, even today.”

Claire’s hand finds mine and she laces our fingers together.

“Gran didn’t have to help me,” Claire says quietly. “And she gave up so much to do it. And—” Her throat works. “When she was finally going to get to enjoy her retirement, she got sick. For a long time, I felt guilty. No—” An exhale. “If I’m being completely honest, Istillfeel guilty. She gave up so much for me, and what does she have to show for it?”

“You,” I say.

Her mouth kicks up. “And you don’t think your parents feel the same about you?”

I know they do.

The problem is that it makes the guilt worse.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Claire

Shadows in his eyes.

I hate that.

I open my mouth, mind searching for something to say that will take them away, but just then, the limo slides to a halt.

He notices too.

“Enough of the heavy stuff,” he murmurs, touching my cheek. “We have a first date to get to.”

As though he timed it, the door swings out, momentarily blinding me from the sudden burst of sunshine. I blink, feel Jackson slide away from me.

“Come on, kitty cat,” he murmurs, wrapping his big hand around mine and helping me from the car.

“Where are we?—?”

But then I freeze, eyes going wide as I take in the large open field—no, not a field. It’s a tarmac, dotted with futuristic-looking helicopters.

“What?” I whisper, spinning to see Jackson talking to the limo driver. He passes the other man a folded bill, claps him onthe shoulder, and then walks back to me. “How?” I ask when he comes back to my side and takes my hand again.

“I heard it all,” he says, drawing me toward the office that’s perched on the edge of the parking lot. “Even when I didn’t want to.”

Heard me tell Pru—Marcel’s wife and the team’s resident daredevil—that I was jealous of her adventures because I’ve always wanted to take a ride in a helicopter (though I had no interest in skydiving out of one like she had).

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