Better When He's Bold

I saw Brysen’s eyes flicker to her sister and then tear back up. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding on to.

“Should you be this cynical at sixteen?” I asked it as a joke, but I kind of really meant it.

Karsen snorted into my side. “I’m not cynical. I’m realistic.”

She could call it whatever she wanted. She was way too perceptive and way too aware of the ways of the world for a pretty young thing from the suburbs.

The ambulance rolled to a stop and they wheeled Brysen into the emergency room. I trailed after them and noticed Karsen frantically looking around the busy unit.

“They probably had to take him into surgery.”

She blushed bright red and fiddled with her hair just like Brysen did.

“Don’t you want to know if he’s going to be all right? He got shot trying to keep us safe.”

I didn’t know Booker well, but I knew the cloth he was cut out of. It was the same unbendable steel that Bax was hewn from. Guys like Booker didn’t take a bullet because they were chivalrous, or because they were altruistic and brave. Guys like him jumped in front of hot lead because they thought they were going to end up there anyway. They took that risk every time they left the house and hit the streets, it was a living, breathing part of who they were, but I wasn’t positive I could explain that to Karsen in a way a sixteen-year-old with an obvious crush would understand. Or that she would believe me if I did find the right words. I could see her tender heart shining out of her dark eyes when she talked to me about the big brute.

“I’m not going to leave your sister but I’m sure she would understand if you took a minute to go check on Booker. Don’t be gone too long, all right? Once we know Brysen is all right, I have to get in touch with Titus so you can give him your statement about what happened.”

I was pretty sure it was a clear-cut case of self-defense, but I guess when there was a dead body I could see why Titus felt the need to handle the situation by the book. I had no worries that he would draw it out, not with Dovie right in the center of another shooting. There was no way Titus would risk pushing Bax back out onto a ledge by messing with my sister. Karsen nodded her agreement and took off toward the busy nurses’ station.

I went into the little area where they had stashed Brysen and pushed aside the privacy curtain just as a nurse was jabbing a needle in her arm. She winced and jerked her gaze up to mine.

“I have to get my brain looked at again.”

“That’s probably a good thing.” I walked up next to the bed and grabbed her chin in my hand. I brushed my thumb along her battered cheek. “He smack you around with the gun?”

Her blue eyes flashed and got stormy. “Yeah, and I couldn’t do anything to stop him. My little sister had to get him off of me and my best friend had to save me. How pathetic is that? I just did nothing and let everyone else ride to my rescue.”

She sounded disgusted and I let go of my hold on her face to brush the backs of my fingers across the nasty purple-and-black ring of bruises around her neck. I swore that if I looked close enough I could see the indentations of that asshole’s fingers in her delicate skin.

“You stayed alive, and when I got into that room, it was pretty clear you put yourself between him and your sister. You did what you could and you made it out in one piece. That’s all that matters.”

She caught my wrist and pulled my hand up to her mouth so she could put a little kiss on the back of it and then curled it back around her cheek.

“Then that’s all that gets to matter to you too as well. It’s not your job to save me, Race, and it’s not your job to save the Point. I know you nominated yourself for both those roles, but it isn’t required.”

I sighed. “I keep telling you that I’ll take care of you, and yet I seem to be doing the exact opposite. I’m never there when bad shit happens.”

She rolled her eyes and it made her wince. “No, but you rushed me away from gunfire and took me home and cleaned me up so I wouldn’t freak Karsen out, you bought me a new computer, you got my situation at school handled, you fixed the BMW, you got my mom the help I never would have been able to afford, you found me a place to stay, and you make me feel normal and happy, which no one else has managed to do in a very long time. I don’t need a hero, Race. I just need you to want to be with me and to love me. I need someone that will be there for me when all the little things start to add up, because that’s what real life looks like. There isn’t always going to be a stalker or a major crisis for us to navigate, but there will always be hiccups and bumps because that’s what being together looks like. We just have to want it bad enough to make it work.”