“Good.”

“Why?”

“I just don’t like them. Drugs. I don’t like what they do to people and how they can change someone.”

“You’ve had experience?” he asked, his head tilting to the side, assessing me.

“My dad and his girlfriend.”

I didn’t need to see him to hear the surprising anger in his voice. “Did they hurt you?”

“Not so much my dad, but his girlfriend.”

With the same tone, he asked, “What did she do, Bailey?”

“She just hit me a lot.”

“So you ran away and ended up on the streets?”

I shook my head and looked back up at him. His eyes bored into mine the second they made contact. “I didn’t run away. They just up and left one day. They left me alone and with nowhere to go.”

Nate sat up straighter, his jaw tense and his eyes distant. He ran his thumb across his bottom lip again. “What’s her name?” he asked.

“Why?”

He responded by lifting his eyebrows, waiting for me to answer him.

I didn’t.

Finally, he let his shoulders relax. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about the shitty life you’ve been handed. And about what happened to you that night. And everything that led to you being here.”

“I’m not,” I said quickly.

“Not what?”

“Not sorry I ended up here. It could’ve been a lot worse. Besides, when you think about it, it’s kind of ironic, right? Your guys probably supplied my dad with the drugs that led me to where I was… and now you’re here, supplying me with what he should’ve been giving me in the first place.”

“That’s not ironic, Bailey,” Nate said, lying back down and linking his fingers behind his head again. “That’s just bad fuckin’ luck.”

12

Nate

She curled into a ball and fell asleep in my bed.

We spent a couple of hours talking. Mainly me asking her questions, questions about her life and her family and about the night it all went down. She answered every one and after a while, she allowed the exhaustion to take over. I watched as her eyes started drifting shut until her body gave in, her breaths calm, her features relaxed. I wondered for a moment if she could ever relax. If she were ever able not to worry about her next meal, her next step, her next decision.

At some point, I must’ve fallen back asleep because Tiny’s phone call had me startling awake. I blindly reached over for my phone and told him I’d be out in a minute. The last thing I needed was for him to come in and get the wrong idea about her being in my bed.

*

“I just need a coffee before we head out,” I told Tiny as he followed me to the kitchen.

“Did you tell Bailey about the body?”

I nodded through a yawn and switched on the coffee pot. A moment later, I heard a door click open. Tiny and I both looked toward the hallway. Luckily the bedrooms were hidden from where we stood.

Bailey shuffled into the kitchen, her eyes half closed and her hair a mess. “Coffee?” she mumbled.

I smiled at her appearance, the emotion strange even to myself. “You want one?”

She nodded and kept taking tiny shuffled steps toward me. She didn’t stop until she was next to me, our sides touching. Then she bent over and folded her arms on the counter, resting her head on them, her ass sticking out in the air.

I looked up at Tiny, but he was already watching me, a single eyebrow arched in question. “You both not sleep well last night?”

I nudged Bailey’s hip with mine. “Did you have a bad sleep?”

She nodded against her arm.

“And you?” Tiny asked me.

I shrugged. “Worked late.”

“Oh yeah?” He looked from me to Bailey. “You should take the day off. There’s nothing important on today. Nothing I can’t do on my own. Besides, I don’t ever recall you taking a sick day.”

I nodded and glanced at Bailey quickly. She hadn’t moved. In fact, she was probably sleeping again. I picked up my phone and looked at Tiny as I typed out a text.

7272: Find out everything you can about Bailey.

Tiny’s phone chimed in his hands, and I watched him read the text before his fingers deftly tapped the screen.

6590: Anything specific?

7272: Everything. Her school. Her parents. Her dad’s girlfriend. I want specifics on her. Name. Address. Workplace.

Tiny’s brow shot up, but he didn’t speak.

6590: Got it.

He shoved the phone back in his pocket and waved a silent goodbye.

A moment later he was gone.

I nudged Bailey again.

“Mm?”

“Coffee or sleep?”

“Sleep,” she mumbled, standing up and heading back to the bedrooms. I followed behind her and caught her arm as she was walking past my room to get to hers.

She turned around, her eyes wide. “What’s wrong?”

I motioned my head to my room.

She didn’t say a word as she got under the covers of my bed.

We’re just getting to know each other, I told myself.

I climbed in after her and tensed when she moved up next to me, throwing an arm around my waist and settling her head in the crook of my arm. A second later, she was asleep.

Two seconds later, I found myself relaxing.

And a second after that, I completely convinced myself that there was absolutely nothing—not a single damn thing—wrong with what we were doing.

If anything, it felt so, so right.

Bailey

I knew it was wrong to enjoy the feeling of him beneath me—to have his hand on my waist as he pulled me closer to him. To feel his exhales on my forehead as his breaths calmed. It was all wrong. I knew I’d started to have feelings for him, the same ones Steven evoked from me that one night which felt like a lifetime ago.

Wrong, I kept telling myself.

I didn’t want to feel this way, and I didn’t want to trust him enough to let my guard down. And I sure as hell didn’t want to want him.

But here I was, lying in his bed, wanting every single part of it.

He shifted beneath me, his hand moving from my waist, up my body, and to my hair. He stroked it slowly, then twisted a strand between his fingers.

“You awake?”

I nodded against his chest.

“What are you thinking?”

I exhaled loudly but refused to look up at him. “How wrong this is.”

His hand froze in my hair, along with the rest of him. “Funny. I was just thinking how right it was.” He sat up, moving me with him.

“It can’t be right, Nate. It might be for now, but when all of this is over…”

He sighed. “You’re just a girl, an incredibly pretty girl, living in my house. And I’m a guy, Bailey. Who says it’s wrong to want to be near each other like this?”

I got out of bed and stood up. “I do,” I said, ignoring the ache in my chest at his words. He said I was pretty, but he also said I was just a girl. And he was just a guy. And that’s all he thought this was. I felt stupid for thinking more, for wanting more. I left his room and showered in the guest bathroom, the entire time I fought to keep the tears at bay.