I wanted to skip to my next class I was so excited. I was running a little behind, so I almost ran over Dovie when our paths crossed as I was racing across campus. She looked windblown and rumpled, and her shirt was buttoned all cockeyed. I stopped for a second and pointed it out to her while babbling about the newest development in my academic drama.
She blushed, her fair skin turning pink as she straightened out her appearance. Her green eyes glinted in humor.
“I ran into Race and Bax when I got here for my first class. Bax wanted to say good-bye properly.”
She shoved her orange-ish-colored hair back and asked me if she looked presentable. I told her she did, but I was stuck on her words.
“Why were Race and Bax here?”
It could be any number of reasons, none of them very pleasant I was sure, but then I remembered that the TA hadn’t even been able to look at me. In fact, he had seemed terrified to let his eyes even land on me, as if there would be horrible consequences if he did so.
She lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “It was one of those things Bax didn’t feel like sharing with me.”
I had a sneaky suspicion that I might know exactly what they’d been up to. “That doesn’t bother you? It doesn’t make you crazy that he keeps things from you?”
She lifted both her copper-colored eyebrows and grinned at me. “No. If I asked him to tell me what he was up to, he would. Most of the time I feel better not knowing. Bax has a scary and dangerous life, but he leaves it in the Point when he comes home to me, and that’s where I want it to stay. I trust him to keep himself safe. I trust him to keep me safe, and that’s all that matters to me.”
Wow, that was either highly evolved or very shortsighted. She continued in a steady tone.
“The same thing goes for my brother.” I flinched a little at that because she was looking at me like she knew exactly what I had been up to with her gorgeous, golden sibling. “These guys will take everything you have, Brysen, but in return, they will give you everything they’ve got to replace it. That’s a huge commitment to make and you have to be willing to let them and that life fill you up.”
I blew out a breath that sent my hair floating up around my face. “I don’t know that I’m in a place where I’m comfortable offering anyone anything, let alone offering a guy like Race everything. His world terrifies me. My dad owes him a lot of money, Dovie.”
Sympathy flooded her face and her freckles stood out across the bridge of her nose.
“It’s not just his world, Bry. It’s mine. It’s Bax’s, and if your dad has been gambling, then it’s kind of yours too. The Point doesn’t discriminate, it will taint whoever touches it to some degree. The trick is not to fear it, but to embrace it and make your own place in it.” She nudged me with her shoulder. “It sounds to me like you think your place might be next to Race.”
“Sitting next to him on his tarnished throne? Would that make me the queen?”
She laughed and moved past me now that we were both really, really late for our next classes.
“A tarnished throne for a tarnished king in a tarnished kingdom. Can you handle being a tarnished queen? He likes you enough to let you in, Brysen. Either you like him enough to do the same or you don’t. Hey, I’ve got to run, but think about what I’m telling you.”
I liked Race; that wasn’t the problem. I hated everything that came with him, and I just didn’t know that I could separate the two. But I also knew no one else in my life had stepped up to the plate and helped me handle any of the seemingly insurmountable problems that had been piling on me lately, and that alone made the decision to at least tell him thank you a no-brainer.
Now if only I could quiet all the tingly parts of my anatomy that were screaming at me that in order to properly show my appreciation we both needed to be naked and wrapped all around each other, it would be superhelpful.
I might have a ton of apprehension and a million reservations about Race’s world and his hand in keeping it running, but it seemed like my hormones didn’t share any of those very valid concerns and that my silly heart was caught firmly between the crosshairs of the mixed signals my body and brain were firing at it.
Chapter 12
Race
I WAITED IMPATIENTLY FOR Bax to finish mauling my sister and leaned against the fender of his car. It still surprised me after all this time, the way they were with each other. Bax was so dark, so entrenched in everything violent and unpredictable that came from the place where he had done whatever it took to survive. Dovie was sweet, and even with the hardships she’d been forced to endure, she hadn’t let anything poison all the goodness that was inside of her. I knew they loved one another, that nothing on this earth, nothing the Point could produce, would ever tear them apart, and that was beautiful. It also made them a force to be reckoned with. Dovie had given Bax something to live for, to fight for, and Bax had given her something that was completely her own. Not a day went by that I wasn’t grateful to have both of them on my side.