I need to find Ryan and make this motherfucker wish he was six feet under. I tilt her chin with my thumb. “You’re strong as hell. You’re a warrior. You enslaved your own demons. You were the hero of your own story.” I kiss her lips and she smiles at my words. “Did Ryan go to NYU?”

She nods. “He was the same year as me.”

I wish I had her courage. Logan was on the wrestling team, so when I get a chance, I’m going to hit him up and ask if he knows Ryan.

We’re quiet, and I usher her to the flimsy bed. I need to hold her. I kick off my loafers. They each go flying in different directions before I crawl into bed, pulling her tiny frame to my hard chest.

“Did you go to the police about the rape?” I finally ask.

“No, I was ashamed, and I felt guilty for what happened to me. But my old therapist told me that those are normal feelings after something like that happens. I used to blame myself a lot for it.”

I kiss her forehead and my fingers stroke her cheek.

“Don’t feel sorry for me. I’m in a better place now.”

“I’m not.”

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, like you’re in pain.”

“You just told me some deep shit, Gia. I’m going to feel something about it, and trust me, pain isn’t something I’m feeling right now.”

She arches her eyebrow.

“How do you feel?”

“Like my world is shattered, and I can’t do shit about it.”

Gia is my fucking world—no, scratch that, she’s my fucking universe, and back in college my universe was getting destroyed, and I was too fucking oblivious to see it.

“Sometimes I don’t understand why you care about me,” she says.

I don’t respond because I don’t know the answer to that myself.

“Are you coming home?” I ask, changing the subject.

“Yeah, bu—”

I shut her up with a kiss.

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

Gia

“What’s your dream?” Gunner asks. Both of his palms rest on the back of his head as we lie on a black blanket on the grass in his backyard. We just came back from serving food at a local homeless shelter. We also provided them with hundreds of hygiene products, clean clothes, and shoes. And we handed out toys to the kids. It made me hotter than the sun, watching him being so attentive toward others. How can I not like him even more after seeing him so sweet and nice to people who are less fortunate? I like that about him, that he’s generous.