Harder (Caroline & West #2)(92)

You have to let yourself want what you want as hard as you can, as deep as that goes, even if it scares the f*ck out of you.

Even if your want and your need are bottomless, timeless, and your fear is so big that it’s hard to breathe around it.

Because in the end, fear doesn’t matter. Pain doesn’t matter.

You get kicked in the nose, and the disaster of the blow blooms across your face and screams through your nervous system, but then it’s over.

It’s over, and you’re on the the other side, one blow closer to the life you want.

I’ve got my life locked in. I’m right in the middle of it, my friends around me, West on the sidelines, our unconventional little family together and happy.

I’ve got that because I went after it.

I chased it and jumped it and f*cking wrestled it to the ground, and I am not ever letting go.

Ahead of me is all the work I can do in this world.

I’m not afraid.

I’ve got this.





West


“I don’t know why we weren’t doing this last year,” Krishna says. “I don’t know why I haven’t been doing this every single second since I came to college.”

We’re sitting in the grass on the sidelines, passing Krishna’s flask back and forth, sipping whiskey and watching muddy girls bruise one another. Frankie’s twenty feet down the sideline, worshipping Quinn, who’s taking a breather after playing the entire first half of the game.

Or first quarter.

I’ve got no f*cking clue, actually, how this game works, but Krish has got a point. There are thirty college girls on the field flinging themselves around, and it’s pretty much the best thing that’s ever happened.

“I don’t know how you kept this from me,” he says. “You had to know I would kill to spectate this sport. I’m going to spectate the f*ck out of it now. They won’t know what to do with me, I’ll be spectating them so hard.”

“This is the first game I’ve made it to.”

“The f*ck?”

“I always had work.”

He blows out an incredulous exhale. “And I always said, Work less. You’re only young once.”

“You also said a lot of other stupid bullshit. Including Don’t tie yourself down to one chick.”

I watch him scan the field until he locks on Bridget. She’s got to be the scrappiest, tiniest, muddiest thing out there, but she’s hanging in. I watch her fling her arm around Caroline’s neck, attempt a chest bump, and fall down on her ass.

Then Caroline’s sinking to her knees, down to her hands, her hair hanging down in the dirt, because she’s laughing so goddamn hard, she can’t keep herself up.

I was missing this. I can’t believe I let myself miss this.

Can’t believe I got here, that I get to have it now.

We’re thriving.

All three of us. Not just surviving—thriving.

And seeing that, I think about Silt. How I went home thinking I would never lay eyes on Caroline again.

How I thought nothing could be harder than walking away from her, but it was.

Hard. Harder.

Too hard to take.

I went home thinking I was the sheriff, and my fight was with my dad. But the fight I got wasn’t the one I expected. The gunplay all happened on someone else’s watch. I ended up alone on the streets of a ghost town in full daylight, with the black borders closing in on me.

Caroline’s the one who pulled me out through that pinhole, back into the light.

It’s always been Caroline, because from that first day when she groped me at the library, rode my thigh, and then told me to leave her alone—as if that was a thing that could ever happen—she saw me in a way I’d never seen myself.

She knows who she is. She knows who I am. How we fit.

I’ve been a lot of things since I met her. Guide, villain, pioneer, exile. But I’ve never been the sheriff, because I didn’t understand what it takes.

The sheriff isn’t there to vanquish evil. He’s there to keep an eye on the future. He’s the guardian of the law, the protector of the rules, the fists that keep chaos at bay.

You can’t be the sheriff if all you’ve got is someone to fight against.

You’ve got to have something to fight for.

Something like Frankie with Quinn on the sidelines of a rugby game. My sister in jeans and a hoodie that actually fits, her hands in her back pockets, talking and smiling and squinting into the sun.

Something like Caroline rolling over onto her back, flinging out her arms, laughing up at the sky.

A sketchbook full of ideas. A pile of copper tubing. A plan.

All of it easy.

All of it mine.





For Mary Ann, with love and gratitude





Acknowledgments


I always put a lot of myself in my stories. This time, I drew deeply on what I’ve learned about love, life, and what it means to survive and thrive. I’m grateful to have grown up with love and opportunity all around me, and with a life full of beauty, art, and possibility. Thanks to my parents for giving me the wide-open horizons West wants for his sister. I hope I did West and Caroline justice. I certainly tried.

As I wrote the manuscript of Harder, Mary Ann Rivers helped me figure out what to do when I got stuck. Serena Bell reminded me not to lose sight of the love story. My agent, Emily Sylvan Kim, held my hand, and my editor at Bantam, Shauna Summers, told me how to fix the parts I’d gotten wrong. Be glad you didn’t read the book without their input.