She caught me staring and winked.

Maybe I should’ve been flustered. Maybe I should’ve been embarrassed. I wasn’t. I grinned back and then caught a beer that was tossed in my lap.

“Jeezus, Hunt. Your date’s probably parched by now. Good manners.”

His fingers dug into my skin, but a low chuckle was his only response.

I risked a peek over my shoulder, but found myself in my own riveted state. His gaze had darkened and smoldered down at me. My throat went dry. My legs began to throb in answer.

I didn’t know who moved first. It might’ve been me or it might’ve been the shift in his fingers, but we moved as one unit. I was transferred from the ground and into his lap. As I laid my head against his chest and his arm wrapped around me, one of the guys asked, “Hunt, you ever going to introduce us? This is the second time you’ve brought her around.”

His arms tightened. He growled, “You’ve got a girl in your own lap, Emerson. Pay attention to that one.”

“Yeah, pay attention to me.”

“Fine, Hunt. Rude, but fine.”

I grinned as I settled in Jesse’s lap. Bri sent me another wink from across the fire. She lifted her beer can in salute. Reciprocating the motion, we both broke out in grins. Jesse’s chest lifted up and down underneath me in a big yawn. As the night wore on, we didn’t talk much. I remained on his lap and the guys continued to talk for the rest of the evening. Bands changed for background music and every now and then, one of the guys would disappear from the group. They’d come back with a tray full of food. I realized each campfire made their own food and people were encouraged to share with each other. It wasn’t until the end of the night, after I’d had too many beers, that the guys began to grow restless. A break in bands started and they stood, one by one.

It was their turn.

Jesse pressed a kiss to my forehead and soothed some strands from my forehead.

And then Braille took to the stage.

It wasn’t fast and energizing like most of their usual music. When Luke gripped the microphone and started singing, this was new music. His voice was a smooth and gravelly. It was caressing and seductive in the same manner.

His eyes were trained on our camp, on Bri, who was looking down at her lap the entire time. Her eyes were closed tight and she was biting her lip. She glanced up once, saw me staring again, and brushed away a tear before she turned to the side in her chair.

In that look, I understood. It resonated deep in me for reasons I didn’t want to acknowledge. This girl was in love and it was haunting her.

I drew in a shuddering breath and Marissa’s voice came back to me. “I’m sorry about your parents. I knew what they were doing to you.”

Pain sliced me and then I heard Luke’s voice in the background.

With tears streaming down, I look up with my head tilted to the sky. Looking, searching, eyes on a quest, but I’m unseeing, the clouds everywhere. Where are you? I wondered.

Closing my eyes, I tried to stop my own memories. Marissa’s voice came back, though. “She’s going to contact you, just for her conscience probably.”

“She’s hardcore, like your brother.”

My heart started pounding. It wanted to push its way out of my chest and I drew in a gaping breath. I pressed a hand there to keep it in, as if I could do that. I tried to stop from hearing more.

“He was going to turn you against him.”

I failed. They kept coming at me.

“I was a shitty friend to you, no matter what you think. I wasn’t loyal and I didn’t stand up for you.”

I was curled in a ball on Jesse’s lap as the memories assaulted me. She’d only said those things to me, but they stemmed from the years before. The history was my undoing. I couldn’t hold up against the past. It was weighing me down.

“Hey?” Jesse nudged me with his shoulder.

I didn’t look up. I couldn’t.

“What’s wrong? You okay?”

With tears streaming down, I looked up.

My heart was reaching out in pain, in anguish, in agony. Wondering why, wondering the reason. Where are you? I wonder.

Luke’s voice picked up again. I felt those words and looking over again, I saw a mirrored torment in the girl across from us.

I shook my head and sat up. “I have to go. We have to go.”

“What?” Jesse cast a cursory look to the stage. “I wanted to stay and chill.”

Scrambling off his lap, I shrugged. I tried for casual, but it was freeing to be away from his touch. He opened the can of past haunts. His touch was all it took for my ghosts to be released. I drew in a calming breath. I couldn’t have that so I ignored my pounding heart. “You can stay. Whatever. I can call someone to pick me up.”

He scowled at me and shoved up from the seat. “Don’t be dramatic, Alex. I brought you here. I’ll take you home.”

I ignored the avid audience we had around the campfire. In the distance, the band had paused and a new song started. It had the same haunting melody. The words were different, the notes were altered, but its meaning was the same. Pain. Whoever had written that song and the last was in under a mountain of the same agony I held inside.

I couldn’t be there to hear any more of it. “Are we going? I’m leaving.”

Jesse was grumbling behind me, but I left and didn’t wait. As I walked up the hill, I realized that I didn’t know where he had parked the car so I went to the playground instead. Taking a seat on one of the swings, I felt him coming. I heard the soft thud on the grass, but my heart was thumping so loudly in my chest—it wouldn’t stop.

He waited in front of me. His voice was chilling to hear, so soft against the harshness inside of me. “Are you going to tell me what that was about?”

I jerked a shoulder up. My head remained in a fixed position, looking down. There was no way he was going to see the tears threatening to spill.

“Fine. Whatever. I’ll go and get the car.”

Good.

I meant to say that out loud, but my throat failed me.

I was primed and ready for the fight. When Jesse was like this, when I was like this, we always fought. Okay. That wasn’t true. We never fought because I had been too weak and too sad to stand up for myself. During that first year, I let him treat me how he did. I never said a word against him. The only thing or the only person I ever stood my ground for was Ethan.