Page 85 of Best Kind of Trouble
“I don’t have my car.” Defeat slumps my shoulders. I couldn’t bear to ask my father to give me a lift, and I don’t want to wait in their yard for an Uber. I’d feel like a child sitting at a bus stop, waiting for a school bus.
“Won’t be a problem,” Liam says.
I open the coat closet, and he darts a wolfish grin at me when he sees it: his two coats, hanging side by side.
“You actually wore it,” he says with a grin.
“I wanted to see if they’d say anything.”
“Did they?” he asks, pulling it off the hanger. He holds the coat open for me, and my throat clogs with emotion. It’s such a simple thing, but so few people have wanted to take care of me.
“My mother said she was buying me a new coat. So I have that to look forward to.” I slide my arms into the sleeves, feeling the soft glide of his fingers through the fabric. “Why isn’t it a problem that I don’t have my car?”
“Because we’re taking my bicycle,” he says wryly.
My pulse kicks up at the thought of riding his motorcycle with him. “But you must only have one helmet.”
“And you’ll be wearing it.”
“What about your head?” I ask as he gets his coat on.
Am I really going to leave with him?
“I’ve been told it’s harder than dried cement,” he says. “But I’ll try extra hard not to get into an accident.”
He pauses after opening the door—waiting for me to decide—and that’s what does it. I step out into the night with him. The cold wraps around me, but I barely feel it. My pulse is still racing, my blood heated, and that awful anger is thrumming through me, needing to be released.
I tug Liam’s arm, and he halts, turning toward me. He towers over me, but no part of me is intimidated by him anymore. I feel protected when I’m with him.
“Liam, I want you to take me to the boxing gym. Please. I need it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LIAM
I can’t deny her, even if the ground beneath me feels like the thin ice I crawled across to rescue our dog, Bets, when I was a kid. I fell into the pond and nearly drowned.
Don’t regret it, even though Bets fell in with me. I kept an iron grip on her, and when I was saved, so was she.
I won’t regret this, either. Or at least I won’t regret helping Briar. She just proved she’s capable of standing up for herself, but she deserves someone else to stand up for her too.
Besides, if I don’t do as she asks, I’ll probably do something rash. I’ve already had at least a dozen intrusive thoughts about beating Don Sterling bloody and burning Sterling Manor to the ground.
“You got it, Princess,” I say. “We’ll go now.”
When we get to the bike, I hand her the helmet from the top box, expecting she’ll make a fuss about accepting it. I’ll have to put it on her myself if she tries to object, but she doesn’t. She slips it on her head, then adjusts the strap until it’s as tight as it goes. Still too big for her but better than nothing, because we have to get out. Now. The need to get away thrums off her like a low chord from Cormac’sbass.
I gesture to Briar’s long dress. “How attached are you to that dress?”
“My mother bought it for me. I hate it.”
I grab the utility knife out of my backpack and hand it to her. “We don’t want it getting caught in the wheel.”
Eyes shining, she opens the knife and slices half her skirt off, revealing her legs, encased in black stockings that hug her every dip and curve.
“God, that felt good,” she says, handing the knife back to me. I return it to my bag without looking, my gaze on her legs. The loose green fabric flutters down from her fingers and gets caught by the wind. Before either of us can grab it, it ripples up and into a tree and snags on a branch. It looks like a flag, and I’ll be damned if I wouldn’t pledge allegiance to Briar’s flag.
She’s laughing, her eyes gleaming, as she climbs onto the bike after me and clings to my waist. She nestles her head into my shoulder, and an unfamiliar feeling unfurls in my chest.
