Page 87 of Little Bird
Because I don’t want it to come between us.
“And if I want to love you both, that has to be okay, too. I want each of you as my own. And I don’t want to have to pick one or the other. I don’t want to leave either of you behind.”
I pause, waiting for either of them to say anything, but I’ve never seen them so quiet or docile.
It’s like they both know how much we all have to lose.
In the end, we come to some sort of mutual agreement not to ruin the moment with any further words. Or maybe none of us wants to talk about what just happened or what it might mean.
Maybe we just needed to lay down the rules once, so we can all live by them.
“I’ll go get to work on the driveway,” Gunner says finally.
He turns and walks out, leaving me surprised and pleased.
“God, if I knew it was this easy to order him around, I would have started a long time ago,” I murmur.
Gabe chuckles, then grabs my arm and spins me toward him. “He might be. I’m not,” he murmurs.
I lift a single eyebrow. “Is that so? Because five seconds ago you were shouting at me in the pantry, and now...”
He grins and ducks quickly to place a soft kiss on my mouth. “And now, I’m going upstairs to get dressed, just like you told me to.”
God, this guy. One kiss and I’m ready to melt into a puddle at his feet.
“Good boy,” I whisper.
He leans toward my ear. “You have no idea what a good boy I can be. Come to my room later and I can show you, though.”
He’s gone before I can respond, and I’m giggling helplessly at his antics. The smile grows when I look out the window and see Gunner shoveling snow with a dreamy smile on his face, his movements quick and sure. Gabe is humming on his way up the stairs, and I already know that when Gunner comes back in, he’ll be in a better mood.
And as I turn to get the ingredients out for pancakes, and the eggs out of the refrigerator, I have a matching smile on my face.
Because this is starting to feel a whole lot like home.
And I’ve never felt safer in my life.
Taryn
I’m in my room working on the marketing plan when the next text comes in.
And this one is worse than any of the others.
You stupid, stupid little girl, it reads. You actually think you can hide from me, hide from your stepfather, with something that belongs to me? You think I’m not going to come after you and take it back? Or do you just think you have more right to it than I do? You’re wrong, Taryn. You know you are. You know there’s nowhere for you to run, nowhere for you to hide that I can’t find you. I own you. I always have. And when I get there, you’ll pay for making me work so hard. And Gunner and Gabe will pay if they try to stop me.
I drop the phone, my hand shaking too badly to hold it, and clasp my hands together, pressing on the scars in my palm and trying to focus on the pain. That right there. That burn and ache. That’s something I can count on. Something I can understand and stop. The moment I stop pressing my hands together, the ache goes away.
And when I stop cutting, the burn fades.
I can control those actions, control the sensation that comes with them.
But nothing will stop the pain my mother creates.
Nothing.
I get up and start pacing, unable to sit still any longer, and try to go through what she’s said so far. She believes I’ve taken something that belongs to her, and it’s easy to figure that part out. She thinks I belong to her, body and soul. She always has. Even when I was little, she didn’t have patience for me being anything but beholden to her. It was always her way or the highway, so much so that my father and I had a joke that we were going to escape her one day. Take our things and our laughter and get away from the woman who was constantly trying to keep us down.
We never got that chance, as he was killed before we escaped, but even when I was a kid, I think a part of me knew that he would never run. He was too bonded to her, too attached to her brand of toxicity. He hated it, but I don’t think he would have run away.
