Page 57 of Safe With Me

“Trouble?” Chloe stilled, squinting at me.

“Lila. Dad’s new office manager,” I started, running a hand through my damp hair. “She was with me at the festival.”

The heat and humidity were brutal today, and I’d sweated through the night shift, but that wasn’t the reason my skin was so clammy.

“I remember. You like her.” She said it like a statement, not a question.

“So much for keeping that to myself.”

“Oh my God,” she breathed out, giving me a slow-motion eye roll. “I saw it in two seconds at the festival. You’re usually nice to girls but distant enough. You were stuck to her side like glue.”

She laughed and leaned forward, turning her head to me in my periphery, while I kept my gaze on the grass.

“Why is this bothering you enough to bring me my favorite sandwich? Is it because she works for Uncle Jake?”

“No. Well, yes. I think Dad has an idea of how I feel, but it’s a little dicey to date someone who works for my father.”

“Mike,” she sighed, putting a hand on my shoulder. “In a town this small, everyone has dated everyone’s employee, brother, ex.” She splayed out her arms and shrugged. “The list goes on. Unless you go on one of those apps to find someone out of town, the dating pool here is limited.”

“I guess. I don’t think she’s in a place to date anyway.”

“Is she coming off a bad relationship or something?”

I tensed at my cousin’s question, not wanting to give away anything Lila had told me, even though I knew Chloe would never say anything.

“Something like that.”

“And it bothers you that you can’t because of that…” she prompted, tapping her foot. “I want to help you, but I only have twenty more minutes to figure out how.”

I sucked in a long breath through my nostrils and fell back against the bench.

“I’ve never wanted someone enough to scare me.”

The words came out in a rush after swirling around my head for the past few weeks. That incredible kiss we shared, the one I knew I shouldn’t take but just couldn’t help my damn self, made it that much harder to stop thinking about her every fucking second of the day.

Chloe’s face softened. “I get it,” she said, scooting closer. “It’s something I fight against too, despite all the therapy Mom sent me to after my parents divorced. I try to remember how sickeningly happy she is with Leo, but the bad memories are hard to shake.”

Aunt Kristina and her ex-husband had had a rough divorce, and Chloe had seen and heard all the ugly fights between her parents before her father had moved out.

My younger cousin Emma had been too little back then for it to mess with her head like it had—and sometimes still did—with her older sister’s. But years later, their parents had learned topeacefully co-exist and their father had turned out to be a mostly decent guy.

He’d never intentionally put his kids in the middle or made them suffer—back then or now.

Chloe and Emma could move on from what the divorce did to their parents because they hadn’t had to actively see it on a consistent basis like I had.

“Even though you feel like shit, I’m happy for you. I’m glad you found someone to make you feel like that.”

She crumpled up the waxed paper and stuffed it into the paper bag.

“And maybe get my friends off my back to set them up with you.”

I let out a chuckle. “I’ve had a few cops ask about my hot nurse cousin.” I cringed.

“Oh yeah?” Her brows shot up. “Which ones?”

“None that I’d tell you.” I bumped her shoulder. “I know it doesn’t have to be like that. Dad and Peyton are that sickeningly happy too. And I realize that my mother has her own issues?—”

“That you deal with enough. Far too much than you ever should have had to. So don’t let this be another concession you make because of her. You really want Lila?”

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