Page 319 of Face Off
The question is inevitable. It is also exactly what I expected him to use to avoid himself.
“I’m driving.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I know.”
“Bliss told me what happened after you left.”
My grip tightens around the steering wheel before I loosen it deliberately. “Bliss talks too much.”
“She said you told Charm when you fell in love with her.”
“Yeah.”
“She said you showed her the tattoo.”
“Yeah.”
“She said you asked her to fight for you.”
I keep my eyes on the road. The memory of my own voice breaking around that request lives too close to the surface, and Briggs knows it. He saw me breaking, he just couldn’t hear it. Luckily Bliss got my breakdown verbatim and decided to share it. “This group needs boundaries.”
He studies the side of my face while I refuse to give him somewhere else to direct his concern.
“She said she’d show me.” I finally say because he isn’t ready so I’ll respect it.
“That sounds better.”
“It is.”
“So what happens now?”
“She either does or she doesn’t.”
Briggs turns toward his window again. “That sounds healthy.”
“It feels fucking terrible.”
“Yeah.”
I look at him briefly. “We aren’t doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Using my shit to avoid yours.”
“I asked if you were okay.”
“And I answered. I’m home, alive, and functioning. That is all you’re getting until we deal with why you’re wearing sunglasses inside my truck.”
Briggs’s mouth tightens. “The sunlight bothers it.”
“There is no sunlight.”
“Cloud sensitivity.”
“That isn’t a thing.”
