Save Me(WITSEC #2)(67)

“You want to be in charge, you gotta earn it,” I said against his lips.

He seemed to like the challenge and he kissed me again. His fingers tugged on my hair a little, making me gasp, and he gained the upper hand. He’d nearly made me swoon when we heard someone clear their throat. We pulled apart and found Keelan standing just outside the bathroom, grinning at us.

“Am I interrupting?” he asked.

Knox sighed through his nose.

“What did you do about the class?” I asked Keelan.

“I canceled the class today. As an apology for the inconvenience, I gave them a month’s free membership. Derek’s crediting their accounts right now,” he explained, sounding a little irritated.

“I’m sorry you had to do that,” I said.

“It’s not your fault, baby girl.”

It kind of was.

“What did you mean earlier about the police not helping us with Jacob?” Keelan asked.

I told them what Jacob had said to me. How he had a guardian sheriff looking over his shoulder.

Both looked really pissed off the more I spoke.

“I hate to say this, but you’re going to have to call your uncle,” Keelan said.

Knox nodded, agreeing.

My shoulders slumped. I wasn’t looking forward to that.





Logan knocked on my door later that evening. I let him in. “What’s in the bag?” I asked, spotting the grocery bag in his hand.

He held it up. “Ice cream. It’s a peace offering.”

I bit my cheek and took the bag from him. “Would you like to have some now?”

He looked slightly surprised. “Sure.”

He followed me into the kitchen. I grabbed two bowls from the cabinet and took the ice cream out of the bag. He’d gotten me strawberry, one of my favorites. He watched me as I began scooping the ice cream into each of the bowls and then slid one of the bowls across the island toward him.

He just stared down at it as I picked up my own bowl. “I need to say something before you tell me what happened today,” he said.

“Go ahead,” I said and took a bite.

“I have no idea how to be a parent or be accountable for anyone other than myself. Your mother always made it look easy.” He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “When I became your guardian, I didn’t know what the hell to do. I regretfully treated this guardian role as a mission. Get you better. Get you somewhere safe. Get you trained. That was my first mistake—to view taking care of you like that. I did you wrong by looking the other way when you started drinking and again when you started smoking. I didn’t know how to help you and the one person I would normally call for advice was gone.” His eyes got glassy and he cleared his throat to regain his composure. “When I found all those empty bottles under your bed, I knew I really fucked up. I thought that if my sister was looking down on us, she would hate me. I tried talking to you about the drinking. You seemed to listen, but then you started running and I could see it was another unhealthy coping mechanism. I looked away again. Ian started calling about that time and told me about all the shit that was going down with X. I wanted to help. I wanted a chance to find X so I could make him pay for what he’d done to our family and make sure you were safe. I got it in my head that if I caught X, everything would be okay. You would be okay. When we sparred the other day, you made me realize how epically I have failed you and I don’t know how to express how sorry I am.”

I set down my almost-empty bowl and exhaled heavily. “I haven’t been handling things with you in the best way, either. Instead of talking to you, I lashed out. I’m not very proud of myself for that.”

“You had every right to lash out like you did. I responded poorly to it, especially last night. I didn’t mean what I said. I don’t blame you at all for what X did. I promise. I just want you to be safe.”

“I know you do,” I said, eyeing his untouched ice cream. “Your ice cream is melting.”

Logan didn’t remove his hands from his pockets. “I changed my mind. Now, what happened at the gym?”

I put my hand to my chest as I looked from his bowl to mine. My eyes briefly flicked to the carton of ice cream next. There hadn’t been a plastic seal on it. How hadn’t I noticed that? It took everything in me not to react. Everyone had repeatedly told me I was a terrible liar. Right now, I needed to be the best liar there was, because my gut was telling me that I was in danger. I grabbed his bowl. “Since you’re not going to have any, can I have it?”

“Go ahead,” he said.

As I dumped his ice cream into my bowl, I asked, “Can we go sit in the living room? My body is a little sore from where Jacob grabbed me.” I picked up the bowl and my cell phone off the counter.

He nodded. “Of course.”

As I came around the island, I gestured for him to walk ahead of me. He hesitated at first, but eventually moved with me a step behind him.

“So like I said on the phone, Jacob showed up at the gym…” As soon as we were passing the hall to go into the living room, I dropped the bowl of ice cream and ran toward my room. I made it and slammed my door behind me.

As soon as I turned the lock, Logan began banging on the other side. “Shi, open the door.”

I leaned against the door and clicked the home screen on my phone. I pulled up my last calls and clicked on Keelan’s name. The phone rang once before he picked up.