“Hey.” He delicately cups my wounded cheek, his fingers splaying across my flesh. “Bad decision or not, none of this was your fault. He can’t put his hands on you just because he’s stronger than you. He had no right to touch you.” His throat muscles move as he swallows hard then promptly removes his hand from my face. “No one does unless you want them to.”

I’m suddenly hyperaware of how long his eyelashes are and how perfectly kissable his lips look. When did he get so beautiful? I mean, he was always beautiful, but never this beautiful.

I rapidly shove the thought from my mind. Jesus, Lyric, what the hell is wrong with you? Totally inappropriate.

“Thank you, Ayden.” I throw my arms around his neck and latch onto him. “You’re the best friend I could ever ask for. No, you’re more than that. Way, way more than that.”

For the first time ever, he hugs me back. Honestly, it’s kind of an awkward hug, because he keeps moving his hands around, unsure where to put them, until finally he decides to circle his arms around my waist.

As his warmth encompasses me, I inhale with a faint smile on my lips. I can almost feel it, the potential for a song surfacing in the back of my mind. Not about this night. Not about William. No, oddly enough it’s about this hug.

“We should get you home,” he whispers in my hair.

I pull back to look at him. “I don’t want anyone seeing me like this.” I glance down at the torn strap of my dress and the top of my bra sticking out. “And I lost my jacket, so I can’t even cover up.”

“We can fix that.” He shucks his hoodie off and holds it out for me to put on. After I slide my arms in the sleeves, he snatches up one of the hand towels, gets it wet underneath the faucet, and begins carefully cleaning the smeared makeup from my face as I sit down on the counter, letting my legs dangle over the edge.

I watch him as he works, his intense gaze fixated on what he’s doing. I notice the slightest quiver in his fingers and wonder what’s causing it. If he’s afraid, worried, angry, what? With Ayden, it’s always complicated, like trying to figure out a story in a closed book.

“There.” He moves back from me and tosses the towel into the sink. “That should be good enough to get you out of here without too many questions.”

I twist around and peer at my reflection in the mirror. Besides the welt and cut lip, my face is seamlessly clean, as if tonight never happened. As if it was erased.

At least on the outside.

On the inside, the night scorches vividly inside my mind.

Tears begin to sting at my eyes again as the shock wears off.

Ayden tangles his fingers with mine and helps me down from the counter. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.” He steers us out the door, saying something to Sage before we start toward the bottom floor.

I stay close to him, clinging to his hand, with my face pressed against the back of his shirt that smells like his cologne. I focus on his scent as we make our way through the house, counting each step, each racing beat of my heart, each unstable breath.

I only feel safe again when I’m in the passenger seat of Lila’s car and Ayden is driving down the road, away from that house, away from the party, away from William and this night.

“I’m going to think with my head more from now on.” I rest my swollen cheek against the cool window. “And not trust people so damn much.”

“Lyric, that’s not what I meant when I said that.” He turns down the stereo’s volume, so the only noise filling the cab is the humming of the engine and the softness of our breathing. “I love that you don’t always think with your head. It makes life interesting and keeps me from going crazy. And if it wouldn’t have been for you being so damn trusting toward me, I would have … well, life would have been a lot harder.”

I rotate my head toward him. “Really? You even feel this way when it gets you into trouble? Like fights. And crashing bikes. Drinking.”

His jaw clenches. “It’s not the first fight I’ve been in, or the first time I’ve drank.”

William’s blood still stains his knuckles and his scars. I’ve never flat out asked him where he got the scars from, and quite honestly, I’m afraid to after what happened with the tattoo thing earlier—afraid I’ll scare him off again—so I opt for a different route.

“What kind of fights did you get into?” I watch him through the darkness with my knees pulled up, my head resting against the leather of the seat.

When he smashes his lips together, I figure he’s going to remain silent and shut down like he normally does, but then his lips part.

“When I was fourteen, this guy from school came after me with a knife because he thought I hooked up with his girlfriend,” he starts, staring out at the winding road ahead of us. “I clocked him in the face before he could cut me, but ended up splitting my knuckles open.”

I hesitate before I ask, “Is that where the scars on your hand came from?”

His knuckles whiten as he grips the steering wheel. “No, someone else did that to me … the same people who put the tattoo on me.” His grip tightens even more. “I don’t even remember what was done to me, though, so it doesn’t matter.”

It does matter, though.

Everything about him matters.

His voice is colder than I’ve ever heard it, so I drop the subject, not wanting to push him any further tonight.

“I can’t believe a guy tried to stab you when you were fourteen.” I trace circles on the console, wondering what it must have been like for him. “I barely used curse words when I was that old.”