Page 58 of Safe With Me

I dropped my head into my hands and pinched the bridge of my nose before I turned my head.

“Yeah, Chlo. I really want Lila.”

Those four words had become my entire damn personality this summer.

Sure, Lila was beautiful. But it was more than that, even more than the quiet strength underneath all the fear she dealt with.

To her, I was just Mike. Not Jake Russo’s son, not someone to win to spite someone else, not a cop too “wet behind the ears”to take charge. Just me. As I was. It was as foreign as it was intoxicating.

Maybe if I’d thought it was only one-sided, I could let it go. She’d been as into our kiss as I had, but after we’d broken apart, I’d followed her home and had told her good night, no matter how much every cell in my body hadn’t wanted the night to end.

A smile broke out on Chloe’s face as she draped an arm around me and pulled me in for a half hug.

“So, once you make peace with it and separate it from the shitshow we both saw as kids…go for it.”

I laughed, leaning into her as I nodded.

“I wish it were that simple.”

“Who knows, maybe it is. You won’t know until you try.”

“I guess,” I said, scooping up my untouched egg and cheese sandwich.

Chloe stood and tossed the remnants of her lunch into the garbage can beside us.

“You came here for my opinion, and here it is.”

She bent to put her hand on my shoulder.

“You can’t let what happened to our parents stop you from something you want this badly. And, that night I saw you two together, I watched her watching you.”

I’d caught it too, not only that night but so many times when we were together. Giving in, even for only a moment, had made it all complicated as hell, but I still felt the relief after all the torturous buildup.

“She was sticking that close to me because she didn’t know anyone. A festival in our town is rough even when you do know everyone there.”

She lifted a shoulder. “Sure, a night of meeting our entire fucking town had to spook her or else she wouldn’t be normal. But I saw something between you two even back then. And dancing around it is just making you miserable.”

I laughed at the arch in her eyebrow.

“It is,” I allowed.

“So,” she started, patting my knee. “If you want Lila, go get her.”

12

MIKE

“So you’re tellingme that you’re not going to come out to see me at all before summer ends?”

My head fell back against my driver’s seat as my mother’s disappointed sigh filled the inside of my truck. This was the argument we had all the time. I had time off coming to me and could have made plans to see her in California.

But did I want to?

I loved my mother and I missed her, but I knew what would happen. I would fly all the way out there, and she’d be happy to see me for about an hour before the questions would start.

Am I really happysettlingin Kelly Lakes, and why did I ever become a cop?

Then, and for the rest of the trip, she would pry about my father—his business, hisyoungwife, and about all the things that my sister was probably getting that I hadn’t when I was a kid.

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