That was the closest I could get to it—the closest way to express what I was actually worried about. I wasn’t used to being a part of a family, not since I lost my grandfather. And that didn’t exactly feel like a family. That felt like a twosome, plowing our way through the world, just me and him. His funeral was the last time I even saw my mother. Her calls on my birthday (or somewhere around my birthday) were our only form of communication at this point.

This was going to be something different. It would be the first time I was a part of an actual family. I felt completely unsure of how to do it properly, how to count on Owen, how to show Bailey she could count on me.

“We’re doing the right thing,” Owen said. “We’re doing the only thing. I swear to you, on everything that matters to me, that’s how I feel.”

I nodded, calmed. Because I believed him. And because I wasn’t really nervous, at least not about him. I knew how much I wanted him—how much I wanted to be with him. Even if I didn’t know everything about him yet, I knew that he was good. I was nervous about everything else.

He leaned in and put his lips against my forehead. “I’m not going to be that asshole who says you kinda have to trust someone at some point.”

“You’re going to be the asshole who says it without saying it?”

The airplane started backing up, jolting us, before it turned, slowly heading toward the runway.

“Apparently,” he said.

“I know I can trust you,” I said. “I do. I trust you more than anyone.”

He locked his fingers through mine.

“Metaphorically or actually?” he said.

I looked down at our fingers, locked together like that, just in time for takeoff. I stared down at them, finding comfort there.

“Here’s hoping they’re the same thing,” I said.

The Good Lawyer

When we get back to the hotel room, I lock the dead bolt behind us.

I start looking around the room, our belongings strewn on the floor, our suitcases open.

“Start packing your stuff,” I say. “Just throw it all in the suitcase, we’re out of here in the next five minutes.”

“Where are we going?”

“To rent a car and start driving home.”

“Why are we driving?” she says.

I don’t want to say the rest of it. That I don’t even want to go to the airport. That I’m afraid they’ll be looking for us there. Whoever they are. That I don’t know what her father did, but I know who he is. And anyone who reacts to him the way that Charlie reacted to him is someone we can’t trust. He’s someone we need to get away from.