Page 84 of Break Away
The words struck hard enough that I almost stepped backward.
Charm tightened her grip on my arm. Bliss made a broken sound beside me.
Cade’s voice cracked like a whip. “Enough!”
Easton breathed hard through his nose, but he didn’t look at Cade. He stared at me like the answer still belonged to him if he could rip hard enough.
“No,” he said, his voice rough and vicious. “I want her to answer. I want her to tell me why I had to pay for shit I didn’t do. I want her to tell me why every time I got close to something that hurt her, I became the asshole for not knowing where the line was.”
The room went so quiet the bass from the living room sounded too loud.
My throat tightened.
I looked at my girls. “Tell him. You’re both so certain that knowing my damage will cure us, so go ahead.”
Then I looked at Easton. “Ask them.”
Charm stepped toward me. “Aura, please. We didn’t mean—”
“Leave me alone.”
“Aura.”
I spun around, and she stopped short. “I said leave me alone.”
Her eyes filled, but she didn’t come closer.
Bliss tried anyway because she loved like a reflex and didn’t know how to stop even when it hurt everyone involved. “I’ll take you home.”
“No.”
“You shouldn’t be alone right now.”
A laugh tore from me, sharp, ugly, and shaking around the edges. “You should’ve thought of that before you decided I needed an audience for my trauma.”
Bliss went pale.
Cade stepped toward her, but his eyes were on me. “Aura.”
I looked at him once. “Don’t you dare.”
He stopped.
Good.
At least one person in the room still recognized a boundary when it was drawn in blood.
Behind him, Easton had not moved. Briggs stood close to his side, one hand half lifted like he wasn’t sure whether touching Easton would hold him together or set him off. Rider watched me with a face too quiet to read.
Ryan stood near the island with his arms down now, no longer Switzerland so much as a man who had realized the war was already lost.
Maybe Cade needed Bliss to protect Easton. Maybe Ryan needed Charm to believe Easton’s pain mattered as much as mine.
Neither of them got to spend my trauma keeping their men comfortable.
I turned and walked out before anyone could ask for another piece of me.
The porch air hit my face cold and damp, the kind of late-night Michigan air that smelled like wet grass, beer, and approaching rain. Music continued thudding through the walls,stupid and alive, like the house hadn’t just gone silent around something none of us could fix.
