I shudder at the threat. Darren hasn’t hit me, but he’s hit Levi and my mom both enough for me to know he would do the same to me.

“I’m sorry,” I croak out. “It won’t happen again.”

It won’t.

I don’t care if I have to blockade the door every night while I sleep. I’m never letting that prick catch me at a disadvantage ever again.

Chapter Five

Callum

I almost crossed a line I wouldn’t be able to come back from.

It’s like I can still smell her—honey and sweet cream, so real I can nearly taste it. This is going beyond an inappropriate crush. This is a maddening obsession. When I had her alone with me in the copy room, it was wrong, but it felt so goddamn right.

I need a drink.

Or an ass kicking.

Maybe both.

I could visit my father. It’d be a good reminder of why I can’t allow myself to fall down this rabbit hole with Willa. I’ll be just like him. And I cannot be just like him.

Park Mountain Lane is quiet this late afternoon. In the spring, it’s bustling with lawn care workers as they fuss over my father’s immaculate lawn, but since it’s winter, it’s devoid of workers. Even with the flowers and grass dead from the cold, the house is otherwise perfect, custom built to Dad and Jamie’s specifications. You’d never know nearly two decades ago a different house stood—the house I grew up in.

“Miss you, Mom,” I mumble under my breath.

The fire that destroyed our home and took my mother from us also nearly took my brother, Jude.

Don’t think about bad shit.

But that only leaves Willa and I’m trying not to think about her at all. Not her supple bottom strawberry lip as she bites down on it. Not her slightly pink cheeks that flood crimson when my gaze falls on her. Not her long, dark lashes that flutter when I’m near.

I pass Dad’s house and then Hugo’s next. Even after what my father did to me, I still couldn’t escape him. Our family populates Park Mountain Lane from the turn off the main road that runs through Park Mountain, Washington, all the way to Grandpa’s old house at the base of Park Mountain itself. My house is situated between Hugo’s and Grandpa’s, where Jude lives with him. Parked out front is Dad’s golf cart, reminding me no matter how hard I try to avoid him, he’s always there.