Page 14 of Stay, Swear.

Kieran: Any time, Brave Girl. Down to snuggle tonight? I’ll come to you?

Brittany: It’s too soon. I need to be alone. Just give me some time, and then you can text me.

Understanding what she means, and not wanting to push her I send her a black heart emoji and finally set my phone down to finish up with my bike.

* * *

It’s been a few days since Britt left, and she’s not answering my messages except to tell me she’s alive and not ready. Rowan and Mac have both reached out to her but she hasn’t responded. She’s talking to Clara and face timing Rhett as far as I’ve been told, and everyone else has seemed to put the incident from a few days ago behind them. Well everyonebut Clara, Dec, and I. My brain can’t even compute why they acted like that, we were raised better and they know it. Da would have gone toe to toe with them about it if he was here.

Rhett found me working out about an hour ago, so now I’m in my nephews room playing superheroes. I’m powerless to those puppy eyes and that pout. It’s how I stay the favorite, Rhett has me wrapped, he’s not even sorry about it. It just is the way it is. We’re setting up a new game, checking to make sure Gotham city is set up perfectly when his iPad starts ringing.

“Oh that’s Auntie!” He jumps up and runs to answer the face time. “Hi, Auntie.” He’s smiling ear to ear when he answers.

Her voice fills the room, and my chest with contentment, “Hey, baby! What are you doing? I miss you so much”

“Playing with Uncle Kie. Look!”

He shoves the iPad in my face, giving me a front row view of her gorgeous face. Her Strawberry blonde hair is thrown up in a messy bun on top of her head, pieces falling out and framing her delicate face. Her eyes, as stunning as always, look tired. Deep dark bags sitting below them. Giving her a reassuring smile, I stop gawking at her, “Hey, Brave Girl.”

She gives me a small smile, “Mystery Man. You’re looking good.”

My lips tip up in a lazy smirk, “I’d look even better if the girl with the pretty gray eyes that I’ve been texting would give me some attention.”

She laughs loudly, “Yeah, I’m sure you’re real put out over there.” My face breaks into a genuine smile. Her spunk makes me even more desperate to talk to her.

“Maybe she’ll take pity on me, she’s really killing me over here. But enough about me. How have you been?” Bear movesover to my lap looking at Britt like she hung the moon.

Same kid, same.

“Everything’s been great over here, better now that I called to talk to my sweet boy, and got a little extra surprise.” She tosses me a playful wink.

“We’re full of surprises over here, aren’t we Rhett?” Because I’m tickling his sides his agreement is more of a screech. Sensing that our time is over because Bear is grabbing for the iPad, I cut this short much to my dismay. “Well I’ll let you talk to Little Bear. He can’t stop talking about how much he misses you.”

“Yeah okay. Goodbye, Kieran.” She seems disappointed, but that doesn’t seem right, I must be projecting my own feelings here.

“Goodbye, Britt.” Standing up I kiss the top of Rhett’s head before ruffling his hair, waving to her on the iPad, and walking out. I’m going to be so fucking busy tomorrow. I’ve got things to prepare anyway. I’ll just do them now with this conversation on repeat in my head.

* * *

Rolling up my sleeves my patience is wearing extremely thin. “Come on Joe, stop playing with me. You either have my money or you don’t. Which one is it?”

Joe’s in his mid thirties, has a nasty gambling habit, and owes my family almost a million dollars. He’s had months to get it together but did he? No. I came to check on him and he was packing up his things to flee. So now he’s strapped to his kitchen chair with a split lip and bruised ribs.

“Come on Kieran, you know I wouldn’t run out on you. Ijust need a little longer.” He tries to plead with me.

This time I actually laugh out loud. “Be serious, dude. I caught you trying to sneak out. The only question here is am I taking a finger or are you paying up?”

“You know I don’t have a million to just give you.” He practically whimpers in fear.

Pulling my bolt cutters out of my book bag my eyes look into his, “Of course you don’t, because you either drank it, snorted it, or gambled it away. So I’m going to take your finger and you’re going to get me my money in the next thirty-six hours.” Without giving him time to respond I close the tool around his ring finger and shut the cutters.

8

Chapter Eight

Brittany

Leaving work after fourteen hours, my entire body is exhausted. Honestly, I’m so mentally drained from this week and specifically today. I know it’s next to impossible for them to find me at this point, but it isn’t impossible. I’m a lot closer to Ohio now than I was when I lived in Arizona. All day I’ve felt myself in fight or flight. In that head space I spent my entire life in until two of my abusers were sentenced when I was fifteen. It feels like a hand has wrapped around my throat and is restricting my air way.

---