Olivia
I glance at the clock. Three a.m. greets me in a wash of big pale green numbers illuminating my room. I stare at the sheer curtains, so still. There isn’t even a hint of a breeze. I’m so exhausted. The nights seem to stretch out, longer than the days, hotter, lonelier, and my mind won’t ease. It’s been three days since Josiah left, and not a single second has gone by that I haven’t been worried sick about where he is. It’s been five days since that incredible sex with August, and aside from him comforting me when Josiah was taken away, we’ve barely said a word to one another.
Frustrated, I kick the sheet from off the end of the bed and sit up. I can’t bear this heat anymore. I can’t bear to lie here a moment longer staring at the ceiling, as if it holds the answers to my questions, so I rise and reach for the lightest robe I have. I guess it shouldn’t really matter. Everyone is asleep, there are no longer two hormonal teens occupying the house, and the only man who I should be concerned about seeing me in my unmentionables isn’t as affected by me as I am by him.
I forgo the robe, open my door, and creep downstairs. I don’t bother turning on the lights; I don’t want to wake anyone, so I navigate my way in the dark toward the kitchen. Once there, I open the fridge and pull out the milk. I press my nose to the mouth of the bottle and inhale, then I take a swig.
“Not everyone wants your cooties, you know? You should use a glass,” he says, and I about jump out of my skin. I gasp and whirl around to find August sitting at the dining table, feeding me the same lines I once said to him from that very position.
I press my free hand to my chest, breathing far too rapidly. “You scared the shit outta me.”
He chuckles and kicks out the chair opposite him. Zora lifts her head from the floor to glance at me, but relaxes and goes back to sleep beside August’s feet. I grab myself a glass and sit. August is shirtless, that much I can see in the slither of moonlight spilling in the kitchen window. It’s a sight I never get used to seeing—how beautiful he is, how every line and angle seems to be carved from marble. Solid and unyielding, just like the man within. A frisson of heat moves through me, and I remember being pressed between the hardness of him and this very table.
August takes the carton from my hand and pours the milk. He pushes a packet of cookies towards me. That bastard’s been eating my Oreos. I take one from the plastic and separate it, peeling off the creamy filling and popping it in my mouth before sandwiching the two halves together and dunking them into my glass. He watches all this closely, as if I fascinate him.
“Can’t sleep?” I ask when I’m done chewing. He shakes his head. “Me either. What are you doing sitting down here all alone in the dark?”
“I don’t know. Thinkin’. Wishing I had something stronger than milk to drink. Wishing I didn’t turn into an asshole when I did take a sip.”
“An asshole? You?” I tease.
“Very funny,” he says, pouring himself another round.
“Well, we’ve covered the wishing part, but you haven’t told me what you’re thinking about.”
“I think I’ve never been so lost, yet so found, as I am now. As I’ve been since you came barging in my door.”
I’m floored by this admission. I don’t have any idea what to say to that, so I do what I always do when it comes to August. Avoid, avoid, avoid. “Barging? I’ll have you remember, mister, that I walked away. I was content to sleep with the coyotes that night, but you practically dragged me back, kicking and screaming to your door.”
“I don’t remember any kicking and screaming. You barely put up a fight at all.” He grins, his teeth a bright flash of white in the darkness.
For a long time, we say nothing. The silence stretches out between us, yawning into the night, swallowing what little peace we’ve found in this moment. I look away, stare at my hands on the tabletop, the table we made love on. Though I suppose you couldn’t really call it making love. Because he doesn’t love me, that much is clear. If he did, he’d be suffering as much as I am right now. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to ignore the anger that twists in my gut like a worm on a hook.
“Are we going to ignore it forever?” The words are sharper than I intend, and they slice through the silence as if they were a roar, bitter and bruised with frustration.
His whole body stills. “No.”
“Then why won’t you say something?”
“What am I supposed to say?” he shoots back, equally as angry, and I’m stunned for a second, because it’s he who walked away, it’s he who’s been avoiding me, and he who seems to be perfectly fine, while I’m the one feeling like I just handed him my heart and he stomped all over it.
“What do you want to say?” I snap. “Obviously, you’re angry with me. You can’t even look at me. You haven’t looked at me since—”
“I can’t stop looking at you,” he hisses. “It’s all I’ve done since you got here, seen you and nothing else.”
“Then what?” I plead. “What aren’t you saying?”
“I’m terrified, okay?” he shouts, standing up and slamming his fist down on the table. I flinch. Zora sits up and growls. “I’m absolutely fucking terrified.”
“Of what?”
“Of you, of this.” He rakes a hand through his hair. Zora barks and August tells her to be quiet, but she takes off toward the front door, snapping and snarling. I stare at August with a confused expression as I get to my feet. A beat later there’s a thudding from the door, like someone has fallen against it, and we both hurry towards the hall.
“Stay here,” he commands as he walks through the entryway. Of course, I don’t listen. Instead, I run after him, breezing past and reaching the door first when he stops to flip on the light. I blink against the blinding brightness. From the porch comes a faint cry.
“Olivia,” August warns, but I pull the door open to reveal a kid who resembles a bloody pulp rather than a seventeen-year-old boy.
“Josiah.”
He falls against me. He might be half my age, but I’m half his size, and I almost topple under the weight as he collapses. August helps me keep the boy upright. He’s passed out. His young face, once so beautiful, is a complete mess. Josiah’s covered in blood.
“He needs a hospital,” I say to August in a panicked voice, but he’s already two steps ahead of me, scooping up the teen as if he didn’t weigh 170 pounds and carrying him through the open door. I don’t know how he navigates the stairs with his prosthetic, but he does.
“Liv, get the door,” he says, once we’re standing beside his truck. I grasp the handle and yank it open, and he lays Josiah’s prone body out on the seat. I run back inside for the keys, but August snatches them from my hand. “I need you to stay with Bett.”
“But . . .”
“I got him. I’m better in emergencies than you are. Just stay with Bett.”
“Wait, what about insurance?”
“I’ll deal with it,” he says, pointedly, staring at my hand on the doorframe. “Olivia, let go of the door. I’m not gonna let anything happen to him.”
I let go like he asks and step away from the vehicle. The taillights fade into the darkness, and I stand there shivering in the early Alabama morning with Zora waiting at my side.
I startle awake when the truck pulls in the drive. The TV is on, playing through its third run of Frozen. I glance at the eager four-year-old quietly singing along on the couch beside me. “You felled asleep, Wivvie.”
I yawn. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
“That’s okay. You missded Owaf’s song, but we can just weewind it if you want?”
“Why don’t you just keep watching?” I rise, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. My nightgown had been covered in Josiah’s blood, so after August had taken him to the hospital I’d run upstairs and tried to scrub it clean. I’d showered under the blistering-hot spray and then I’d about scoured every inch of the house clean before Bett woke and insisted I watch her favorite Disney film. Over and over again.
I race over to the entryway and pull back the door. August is coming up the stairs, followed by a broken but thankfully no longer bleeding Josiah. I run out onto the porch and wrap him up in a huge hug.
“Ow,” he whispers, and I pull back to stare at him.
“Sorry, I’m just . . . are you okay?” I turn to August. “He’s okay, right?”
“I’m okay,” Josiah says with a small smile that quickly turns to a wince. His face is a mess, swollen with several nasty cuts, a couple large enough for sutures.
August folds his arms over his chest. He’s wearing a T-shirt that’s two sizes too small for him, and I’m assuming it’s one given to him by the hospital. “Docs say he has a fractured arm, a couple of busted up ribs, and his cheek and eye socket are badly bruised, but not broken. He has a couple stitches here and there, too, but he’ll live.”
“What happened?” I ask Josiah.
“Three guesses and the first two don’t count,” he mutters, shaking his head, but it looks like even that hurts. “I stayed with my aunt for all of a day, and then my dad came to collect me.”
“Why? I thought he told you not to come back.”
“He needed someone to sell his drugs for him.” Josiah swallows, his gaze cast down at our feet. I clasp my hand over my mouth and glance at August. “The bastard’s too fucking lazy to do it himself.”
“I’m so sorry.” Before I’m even finished saying the words a police cruiser pulls into the drive, and I see red. “Go on inside, Josiah.”
“Olivia,” August warns. Josiah glances between us and steps inside, no doubt being accosted by an overly excited Bettina while August stares down at me with a knowing expression.
“What?” I demand, folding my arms across my chest.
“You can’t beat up the sheriff. You know that, right?”
“She should never have taken him away from us.”
“I agree, but she had to. You know Josiah’s daddy would have just shown up here if she hadn’t.”
“Yeah, but we would have been here to protect him,” I hiss, and then frown with the worried look he gives me. I know it’s not fair of me to take my anger out on him. No. The person I should be angry at pulls to a stop in front of the house and opens her car door.
I glare at her through the windshield.
“Is he here?”
“No,” I snap, racing down the stairs before August can stop me. “You do not get to set foot in this house, and you are not coming anywhere near that boy. This is all your fault. You said you would keep him safe. He’s lucky to be alive right now.”
“Miss Anders, calm—”
“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down. That boy showed up on this doorstep at three a.m. with a beat up face and broken bones. He walked three miles to our door, because he knew you wouldn’t protect him, and we would.”
“I know, I shouldn’t have taken him, but it’s the law. He’s still a minor, and if my brother wants him back, there’s nothing either one of us can do about it unless it’s court mandated.”
“Your brother should be locked up. If you were doing your job properly, he would be, and that boy wouldn’t be sitting on our couch with a fractured arm, broken ribs, and a bruised eye socket.”
All the fight seems to go out of her body. She looks to August, and then back at me. “Is he okay?”
“Physically, he’ll heal, but you can’t even begin to imagine what this has done to him mentally.”
She swallows hard. “I know you won’t let me in to see him.”
“You’re damn right I won’t,” I snap.
She lets out a loud exhalation. “Just tell him I’m here if he needs me.”
“Don’t hold your breath.” I stare her down. It’s the first time I’ve seen any remorse in her eyes, and for a brief moment, I feel a pang of regret. Then I remember her nephew’s face as he collapsed into me last night and the blood that soiled my clothing, a stain I couldn’t remove no matter how hard I tried to scrub it out, and any shred of pity that I had for this woman vanishes.
She climbs into the cruiser and starts the engine, then backs down the drive and turns onto the main road. I let out a ragged breath. My hands shake, and my heart hammers out an uneven staccato rhythm. I glance at August, who’s watching me with an awed expression. Awe and something else I can’t put my finger on. Respect, maybe?
“You done good, princess,” he murmurs, and slides his hand into my hair. It’s the first time he’s touched me since Josiah was taken away. My heart kicks into overdrive. He moves a fraction of an inch closer, and I think he’s going to kiss me, but his lips find my forehead and my stomach sinks as he presses a chaste kiss to my hair. “You done good.”
All the air leaves me in a rush as I melt into his touch, the adrenaline of facing off with the sheriff burnt away by my longing and need for this man. A man I clearly can’t have because I’m here, waving a damn white flag in front of his face, holding my heart out with desperate hope, begging him to take it from me, but he doesn’t. His refusal to acknowledge me—acknowledge us—cuts so deep that there isn’t a doctor in the world clever enough to suture me back together.
He walks away, and I deflate and wrap my arms around myself as the heat wave finally breaks and the first drops of rain spatter against the front porch. The heat wave is over, but the flames scorched everything in their path, and the devastation will smother us in smoke and ash.