Page 28 of Say it Ain’t So

“Oh my God.” I covered my face with my hands, trying to hold in the laughter so I wouldn’t egg her on. “You’re horrible, you know that?”

“But that’s why you love me.”

“Yeah, it is. I don’t understand it, but it is.” I reached for my water bottle, only to find it empty. I tossed it in the back seat and let out a sigh. “I’m scared, Chey.”

For a beat, there was nothing but silence. My friend knew me. That’s what happened when you’d grown up together and gone through all the crazy shit we had. She’d seen the truth about Peter even though I’d been unwilling to admit it to myself. She’d stayed by me even when Peter had turned everyone else in my life against me in order to keep me by his side.

My friend may have been small, but you’d never know it by her tenacity and her heart.

“I’m bringing Dakota.”

“What?” My hands shot to the sides, nearly tossing my phone from the center console as I tried to hold on to something firm.

Dakota was Cheyenne’s brother, and one of the people Peter hated most. His father had had Dakota thrown in jail more than once, not because of any criminal activity, but because of who he was. Peter used Dakota’s record as a reason for me to stay away from him, and he’d been vicious to me any time I’d even mentioned him.

Peter may have scared me, but what Peter would do to me if I associated with Dakota was what put the fear of God into me.

“I don’t think⁠—”

“It’s already done, Joss,” Cheyenne interrupted. “I texted him. He’s on his way to Peter’s now and asking me if we want him to bring friends.”

“No!” I grabbed my phone, bringing it close to my face, as if my whispering into the speaker could somehow keep the words from reaching Dakota’s ears. “Don’t let him bring his friends. Chey, he doesn’t need to come. We’ll be fine.”

“Will we, though?”

I didn’t want to answer. I didn’t want to contemplate what I was about to do.

I was leaving the man who I’d been dating since I was a teen.

The same man who had beaten me down, both mentally and physically, for over five years.

The fear that coursed through me threatened to consume me, and if it weren’t for one thing, I would have been overwhelmed.

That one thing: thoughts of Rylan.

I snagged our marriage license off the passenger seat and pressed it to my chest.

Maybe, just maybe, if I could move on from this, if I could get out from under Peter’s hold and take control of my life…

Maybe, one day, I might be able to find Rylan again.

Maybe then, my heart could be whole.

10

JOSS

Where Cheyenne was tiny and somewhat wild, her brother was the exact opposite. The man towered over me, and the darkness in his eyes was the only thing wild about him. It had been years since I’d last seen him, and I’d almost forgotten Dakota’s immense calm.

He stood over me just as he had when Cheyenne and I were kids, staring down at the two of us like she’d just done something to get us in trouble. That familiar fear zipped through me, but this time it had less to do with Dakota’s presence and more with what he was about to say.

Dakota never failed to surprise me. When Cheyenne forgot to tie up their horse and it ran away, I had expected the tongue-lashing I would have gotten from my parents had it been my horse at my house. When Cheyenne left the back door open one day when she went to school and a family of raccoons came in and ransacked the kitchen, Dakota hadn’t torn her to shreds and told her how he expected better out of her, like my parents would have done.

This man’s response was always calm, and it only made things worse. In that quiet, there was no stopping my brain from turning over all the wrongs I’d chosen and all the things I should have done.

I should have listened to Cheyenne and stayed far, far away from Peter.

I never should have let him take me out on that first date.