He said nothing. His hand on my spine trembled as we moved closer to the podium and the sweet-looking boy, the hostess, and the mother and father, whose head turned and eyes noticed our escape, finding not my own face but the man beside and slightly behind me.

It was not an unfamiliar glance or a passing scan your eyes did out of reflex. The fleeting meet of gazes in a crowded room, that wasn’t this. Not even close.

The man saw Brian and recognized him, the shadow of familiarity passing over his face and holding there.

Those eyes of his widened. He knew Brian.

Maybe not well and maybe not enough to be friendly, but my boy was no stranger. That was certain.

Brian didn’t slow or acknowledge this man or his family. He didn’t even glance in their direction, not once, and then they were behind us and we were leaving.

I was too confused to speak.

What the hell was happening?

With unyielding fingers pressing to the right of my spine, Brian steered me left and farther forward, shoving the front door open with his other hand and then forcing me outside and into the night.

“Brian, stop! What’s going on?” I yelled, finally finding my voice, twisting away but being captured in his arms again, arms so strong they lifted me without effort and carried me when my spine went rigid with protest and my feet started dragging gravel.

“What are you doing?” I shrieked, trying to see behind me.

“Get us out of here. Then I’ll explain,” he grumbled against my hair, crossing the parking lot in quick strides with his long legs while I stayed pressed against his body.

I struggled in his grasp.

“Syd,” he said in warning, tightening his hold.

“I don’t understand. What happened? Why are you acting like this? Was it that man?”

I asked that last question but I already knew the answer.

My boy was scared. He was scared and he was running.

“Talk to me,” I pleaded, hearing my own voice shake with worry.

We reached the Jeep before another word was said, then the passenger door was opened, and because he must’ve known there was no way I was climbing up willingly without hearing an explanation first, my choice was eliminated for me and I was put in that seat like some helpless child.

“Brian, please. You’re scaring me.”

I felt tears sting my eyes and the rattle of my whispered words battering my throat.

He paused at the door, ready to shut it, then his eyes lifted to mine and I saw the panic there in his wide irises, but I didn’t know if it was because of whatever he was taking us away from or because of what I’d just said.

I didn’t have a chance to ask.

Brian leaned inside the car and reached for me, sliding his hand to the base of my neck and gripping me there, then gently tugging me forward until he was so close I could count his lashes.

If he’d been in a trance before, he was out of it now. If he’d been too focused on his own trepidation and leaving to hear my voice or feel my struggle, I was now the only thing that existed to him.

“Don’t be scared of me,” he urged in a stressed voice, putting a firm but calming pressure on my neck. “Don’t ever be scared of me, Syd. I’d die before hurting you.”

I swallowed his words and locked them inside my heart.

He would. Brian wasn’t lying. He’d never hurt me. I knew that.

“I know,” I whispered, curling my fingers around his arm. “I just need to know what’s going on. I need you to talk to me.”

“I will,” he promised. “Let me get us outta here and I will.”

“Okay.”

He heard my reply but he waited before letting go, keeping hold of me and looking into my eyes while taking his other hand and brushing his thumb across my cheek.

It was a soothing gesture. This was Brian taking the time to make sure my okay really meant okay. That I wasn’t just saying it to get answers. That I wasn’t scared.

I wasn’t. Not of him.

Of what he might tell me? Yes, but I was good at hiding that.

He let me go.

I buckled my seat belt and watched through the windshield as Brian hurried around the front of the car. He climbed inside, started it up, and pulled out onto the main road.

My hands stayed tangled together on my lap as I waited for Brian to start talking, willing my anxious breaths to stay quiet so I wouldn’t miss even the slightest sound from his direction. I didn’t know how far he needed to take us before I could get any answers, but I promised myself I’d be okay with however far that needed to be, that I could wait until he was ready because he would be ready. He promised me he’d talk and I believed him.

Five miles felt like five hours. My foot tapped restlessly against the floorboard and I cursed red lights like I hated their very existence and whoever the bastard was who invented them.

So much for patience. I was ready to crawl out of my skin and scream into the night. My palms stung from the bite of my nails and my stomach twisted.

Then it was over and the only thing I felt was relief.

I didn’t know if it was coincidence that made Brian pull over at the exact moment I contemplated throwing the gear into neutral and forcing him to stall, or if he had meant to drive us here, to this exact spot.

Brian shifted out of gear and cut the engine.

Seconds passed. The silence in the car threatened to swallow me up.

I unbuckled and turned in my seat, hoping to tempt conversation.

Brian’s chest heaved with slow, filling breaths and his shoulders pulled back while he stared ahead out the windshield, clenching his hands nervously in his lap.

I sucked on my lip and waited. He didn’t make me wait long.

“Got hit hard in February with snow this year,” he began in a low voice. “Don’t know what it was like in Raleigh, but I’m assuming it was the same as it was here. Seemed like every week we were getting slammed with another storm. Sun would come out during the day and melt it, making the roads a fuckin’ mess; then at night temps would drop and that shit would freeze.”

“It was the same in Raleigh,” I told him, remembering back to last winter. “I was scared to drive in it.”

“I wasn’t,” he mumbled tightly. “Had a truck before I got this. Made getting around easy, especially in bad conditions. I always went out. Didn’t even mind sliding a little.”

I swallowed uncomfortably before saying, “That can be terrifying.”

“I was fuckin’ stupid,” he hissed, turning to look at me then. “Had no business being out on the roads when they were like that but I wanted the rush. That feeling of nearly losing all control, the one that terrifies you, babe, I fuckin’ loved that. I chased it. It’s why I surfed. Which is why I can say without a doubt that I would’ve been driving in that last storm no matter what.”

I knew what storm Brian was talking about. It was the very one that kept me at work because of the warning of black ice. The ER was slammed that night from accidents.

My stomach knotted.

“Brian …”

He turned away with a cold laugh and resumed looking out the windshield again.

“You’re feeling sorry for me already and you have no idea what I’ve done.”

“I love you. I’ll love you no matter what it is,” I confessed, watching his eyes pinch shut as if hearing that caused him pain. “It’s true.”