Page 29 of Restless
She wiggled under his arm, settling it around her shoulders. “Ryan was really mean today. He shouldn’t have said those things to you.”
CJ hadn’t felt so low on his sixteenth birthday, when Harley broke his heart.
The first time.
He couldn’t allow her to continue treating him like shit. He’d stand at her side and help her through whatever, but she had to see him as a person, instead of an ideal. For their entire lives, their parents joked about becoming in-laws once CJ and Harley married. And that was all she saw him as—her future husband. She didn’t even see him as a friend anymore.
He was a thing. A goal. She couldn’t continue,theycouldn’t continue, that way. If she wanted Nardo, then CJ hoped her the best, but she couldn’t use him to save her ass when she hadn’t even checked on him and asked if he was okay.
“You’re sending Harley photos again, aren’t you, Molly?”
“Just the fun ones,” Molly admitted with that frustratingly innocent way she had. “I’ve heard you invite her out and she turns you down more than she accepts. If she’s jealous, she might think she’ll lose you.”
“Or she might turn to another guy,” CJ snapped.
“If she does, she wasn’t that into you, dummy,” Molly sniffed. “Harls is smart, despite having a friend named Reb Elle because of some crusty Civil War dude.”
“My sister’s name is Rebel.”
“Whatever. By another guy, you mean Nardo,” she said, changing the subject.
“Fuck him.” CJ huffed out a breath and turned away. “I need to see my mom.” He stalked down the hall, to the other side of the floor, where a special wing had been set up on Outlaw’s orders, so he could remain with Mom whenever she stayed.
CJ finally understood why it was on the same floor as NICU.
“You’re late,” Slipper greeted, when CJ reached the doors to his mom’s wing. “We thought you’d snuck up the back staircase, but your old man started checking the cameras since you didn’t answer his calls. He was about to send out the cavalry.”
CJ must’ve forgotten to unmute his phone after class.
“Outlaw was going to send a search and rescue for you, boy.”
Nodding to the other brothers guarding Mom’s floor, CJ smiled and waited for the buzzer to click open the door. He placed his hand at the small of Molly’s back and guided her toward his mother’s room.
He halted at the door, afraid to turn the knob and walk in. Maybe, he’d step over the threshold andwouldwake up to the truth.
“Are we going in?” Molly whispered.
“Yes.” He didn’t move.
“When?”
“Right now.”
“Are you sure?” she asked a moment later. “Or is it this right now, instead of that right now.” Silence and then, “The door is pretty.”
“It’s just a door, Molly.”
“I like Mo better. And it isn’t just a door. Branches grow out of it.”
CJ blinked and saw the garland that he brushed by every day. “That’s not a branch. A fucking branch can’t grow out of a fucking door.”
“Yes, it can, silly,” she retorted in exasperation. “A door is wood, and wood is made from trees. As long as you water the door branch every day, it grows.”
CJ glanced at her, but she refused to look at him. Her profile belonged on a cameo; it was almost perfect. “You don’t really believe that nonsense, do you?”
Clearing her throat, she pursed her lips. “Does it matter?” She turned to him but refused to meet his gaze. “My baby won’t care.”
“You’re pregnant? Ryan’s?”
