Page 43 of Resilient Rhythms
He frowns. “Mckenna?—”
“Maverick, after what we just did a few nights ago?” I gesture to upstairs, where Mav ravished me, made me see stars, and put some of my broken back together again.
He sighs. “I know, beauty. I just, fuck, I don’t want to blur lines when things are uncertain.”
“We’re not uncertain, Mav.”
“No,” he agrees. “I didn’t mean us.”
“I’ve never been surer about anything,” I admit. “Be with me, Mav.”
His eyes soften and a ghost of a smile trails across his lips. “Okay. Yes.”
When Mav slips into bed beside me and wraps his arm around my waist, I exhale deeply. My limbs relax and my mind shuts down the anxious thoughts it’s stuck on. Today was shitty. Terrorizing.
But with Mav’s body curled around mine, I fall asleep and sleep soundly.
The following days are tense. It’s as if I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. I study at home in the mornings. Allegra visits twice in the afternoons, bringing cobb salads followed by ice cream sundaes. Drew hovers nearby in case I decide to head to the library or run an errand.
Mav comes over every evening. We eat dinner together, watch a movie, and climb into bed exhausted. In some ways, it reminds me of when we first started falling in like. We began as roommates, but our relationship morphed into a friendship that grew into attraction.
Snuggled up against Mav each night is the calmest and quietest part of my day. For those stretch of hours, I feel whole. When I turn to him and slip my hands underneath his shirt, dragging them up the planes of his hard body, he gives in and tugs me closer.
“I want you more than air, Mckenna,” he whispers in my hair. “But I want you to be sure. To be in the right headspace. Tell me what you need, beauty.”
“You,” I murmur, shivering from the anticipation of being with him.
Mav studies me for a long beat before his mouth finds mine. And then, it’s magic and fireworks and the start of our next chapter.
Each night in our bed, Mav and I make love and it’s salvation. A homecoming.
He proves to me that even when life is a mess, I can count on him. It’s a truth I cling to. Maverick and his unconditional love for me.
And then, after days, weeks, of nothing—I seehim.
Drew and I are leaving the bursar’s office where I picked up my transcript and he’s right fucking there.
He cuts across the quad like he never left, like he wasn’t summoned back to Texas, like our fathers didn’t pull strings behind our backs to make him disappear.
“Drew.” I clutch his arm and he’s instantly on high alert.
Following my line of vision, Drew swears and relocates me to behind a tree, hiding my frame. My arm reaches out for support, my palm grazing along the rough bark, as I lean my weight onto the trunk.
Drew leans against the tree trunk casually, his cell phone already pressed to his ear. But I can’t make out his words. Sound cuts off as I stare at Bran, clocking his proximity to me, studying his features.
Bran walks with swagger. His shoulders are tossed back, his head held high, as if he has nothing to be ashamed of. As if he doesn’t need to cower.
My stomach turns, nausea roiling as my fingertips clutch at the tree.
Horror washes over me as I realize, he doesn’t need to cower. Because no one knows the truth.
The realization slams into me like a sucker punch. I’ve been living in hell, in terror, and not counting my family and closest circle of friends, no one knows the truth.
As far as the law school’s student body is aware, Bran withdrew to return home for a family emergency. Of course, many questioned it. Not many students would walk away a handful of months before graduation.
But the dark stain of his actions doesn’t plague him. Hell, it doesn’t even follow him.
Because I never came forward. I never named him. I never told my story the way I should have to ensure justice is served, to receive any closure.
