Bad Boy Brody(86)

I did.

I should’ve nodded at this part.

I couldn’t.

I didn’t want him to go, so I hadn’t let myself think about it.

I croaked, “I know.”

I was a fool.

“Morgan. Hey.” He sat back up, but he didn’t reach for my hand. His voice went back to an intimate whisper.

It sent tingles through me, and that wasn’t fair. He was manipulating me.

No. No, he wasn’t.

My head hung lower as I admitted that.

This was Brody being Brody. He was being amazing. Kind. Wonderful. Loving. He was being the guy thousands of women wanted and I got, and I was making him sit in the middle of a woods while I . . . sulked on a goddamn rock.

I jerked my head up. The words were out before I knew I was going to ask them. “Why are you with me?”

“What?” He looked taken aback.

“Why?” I gestured to myself. “I would rather spend time with a horse over a person any day of the week.”

Brody remarked, “Uh . . . most would. Have you met people? They can be monsters.”

I kept going as if he hadn’t spoken. “The only person who’s pulled me away from Shiloh is you, and you’re leaving, and I . . .” My heart was racing. My chest felt tight. It was hurting.

I was hurting.

Someone was squeezing my heart, and I had no clue what was going on. “Brody, I—you’re leaving tomorrow. What are you doing with me?” I scrambled to my feet and jumped over him. I thought about running. I looked at the brush. I could go. I could crash through that foliage and be gone in an instant. He found his way there. He could find his way home.

What was I doing still standing there?

I loved him.

My heart thumped—literally.

I loved him.

I hadn’t loved anyone since my mother. I cared. I could care, but not love.

And I loved Brody.

That was why I couldn’t leave his side. That was why I’d been ignoring Shiloh for him. I blinked rapidly, forcing tears away. I had no idea what any of that meant.

“I can’t leave.”

I paused after saying those words.

The silence was palpable.

I turned and looked at him. He was standing, but his eyes were wide and his hands were flat against his sides. He looked as if I just kicked him.

“Okay.” He frowned.

That was it?

I frowned too. “You don’t have anything to say?”

“I—” He held his hands up and shrugged. “I already knew that.”

“Why aren’t you pissed?”

“Because I already knew you wouldn’t come with me.” He gestured over my shoulder. “You replaced your mom with a horse. What’d I expect?” He seemed strained as he said that, his eyes closing and lines forming around his mouth.

“What?”

“Shiloh. Or Shoal. Or whoever else. You replaced your mom with a horse, with someone who can’t talk, who can’t walk on two legs.” He waited. “Who can’t leave you.”

I sucked in a breath.

My pulse was still racing, but it took on a whole different feel.

Anger was rising.

“Fuck you.”

He smirked, shaking his head. “There she is. There’s the girl that you want to hide.”

His words were almost mean as his mouth twisted into a snarl, but I saw how his hands trembled, felt the mixed emotions pouring off him. “I got your message via your brother. Two thumbs-up, Morgan. Way to deliver a punch. Tell the brother who’s obsessed with you your real secrets. You wanted to stick a knife in me? That was the way to go. Or”—he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a pocket knife before flipping open the blade—“here’s the real thing. Here you go.” He pretended to hand it to me. “Stick it in me. Turn it a few times. That’s what you did by telling Matthew your deepest darkest secrets.”

I flinched with the first harsh message, and I kept flinching.

He was being so mean, almost cruel.

My eyes began to water again. “Stop it,” I croaked out. It wasn’t even a raspy whisper. It was really a croak. That was all I could manage.

I just wanted him to stop it.

“Why?” He surged closer, his eyes blazing. “You don’t have feelings? Right? That’s the message you sent. You couldn’t love me because you can’t feel anymore. You shut it all off. You don’t understand humanity, how we’re so mean to each other.” He clapped and then pointed his hands to me. “But hey. You just learned your own lesson. You were cruel to me. Going to Matthew, telling him why you couldn’t be with me, and then darting off to Wilderness Land. That’s what humans do. We’re cowards. We hurt. We get pissed. We say shit to hurt other people. That’s what we do, and that’s what you did. You hurt me.”

He stopped, biting off those words.

I flinched again, my entire body jerking to the side as if his words physically struck me.

He was right.

Goddamn.

He was right.

I blinked a few times, wiped the last of the tears away, and faced him.

I had hurt him, and I think I did it on purpose. No. I know I did.

“You have to leave me.”

He advanced on me. “Fuck you.”