Rosalie was timid now as she slowly approached with a blush staining her cheeks when she noticed she had more than just her sister’s attention. Brushing her hair behind her ear, she stared at the ground while she spoke, and I almost snapped at her to pick her damn head up. Braxton would have castrated me, even if she did agree because it wasn’t my place and never would be.

Leaning back against the rental, I kept my mouth shut by blowing bubbles with my gum as Houston and Rich stood next to me.

“I know you’re mad at me, Brax, but I really wish you wouldn’t be,” Rosalie pleaded. “I’m okay. I promise.”

“And that’s the problem, Rosalie. You shouldn’t be okay. This is not what you told me you wanted.”

Rosalie finally looked up from the ground only to burst into hysterical tears when her gaze met her sister’s. They poured down her face relentlessly as she sobbed and attempted to talk through them. My heart ached for her, knowing she was being pulled in two directions and much too fragile to endure the strain.

“I know, but I was scared,” she wailed. “They were going to hate me forever, but I knew you never would, so I just did what they wanted, but I was wrong because now you do hate me, and I wish I could take it back, but I can’t.”

It took me several seconds longer than Braxton to decode and decipher Rosalie’s ramble. By the time I did, Braxton had her arms around her sister’s body as she held and attempted to soothe her.

“You were absolutely right,” Braxton told her sister. “I could never and will never hate you. I’m disappointed, and I feel responsible, but that’s my burden to bear, not yours. Take it off your shoulders because it doesn’t belong there. I told you to make the decision that was best for you, and that’s what you did. You didn’t make the one you wanted, but you made the one you thought you could live with. I get it.” Braxton took Rosalie’s drenched face in her hands and lifted her head from her chest to make their eyes meet. “And know this…no matter what, no matter when, every time you look in your corner, I’ll be right there, babe. Gloves up.”

Rosalie giggled, her eyes even bigger than Braxton’s, as her big sister attacked her sweet face with kisses. Our girl seemed reluctant to let go of her sister when she finally did pull away. Each step backward seemed weighed down as their hands held until the very last.

Their parents stood several feet away, watching their daughters closely but not intervening. I really didn’t know what to make of them. Obviously, they were devout, but that didn’t necessarily make them cruel. I guess I had no choice but to wait to hear the full story before forming an opinion, and I wouldn’t need both sides since I only gave a fuck about Braxton’s. There were still pieces of her missing, and I was eager to complete the puzzle.

“Braxton!” Rosalie called out again once the four of us were in our rental.

Rich was in the driver’s seat, ready to take us to the airport since our bags were already in the car. It was a good thing, too, since Houston decided to break the clerk’s nose before we left this morning. No one bothered asking him why, and he didn’t enlighten us.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t you want to know if you’re having a niece or nephew?”

Braxton simply smiled when words failed her. There was a strain to it that she fought like hell to hide from her sister. She didn’t want to cause her any more anguish, and it only made me love her even more.

Fuck.

I never even heard the gender baby sis shouted out.

I was too busy freaking the fuck out.

I was silent the entire drive to the airport, but everyone was trapped in their own thoughts as well, so no one noticed. I was completely still as I watched the scenery pass through the window and let my mind turn on itself.

Did I love Braxton?

I felt my heart lurch in answer.

We were back at the airport and boarding the plane to Seattle before I knew it. We had a show tomorrow, but our gig was the last thing on my mind. I was tripping all over my feelings and Braxton’s.

Whatever hers may be.

I wanted to sit her the fuck down, take her hands in mine, and ask if she loved me too. Even with my zero experience, though, I was smart enough to know I’d only look like a lunatic, so I refrained.

Thankfully, Houston was around to distract me by being a dick per usual. When he spoke, I sat back in my seat as we waited for the plane to take off and pretended I didn’t want to make demands of my own.

“Start talking, Fawn.”

Braxton rolled her eyes when Houston ordered her to talk, but then her gaze landed on me when I leaned forward to listen, and somehow, I made her soften. It could have been the orgasms I’d given her this morning when Morrow left her hanging, or it could have been my desperate need to know that I didn’t bother to hide. Either way, she gave us what we wanted.

“Did I ever tell you how I learned to play?”

“No,” we each said at the same time.

Deep in thought, she nodded absently as she fidgeted with the ends of her red hair.

“Faithful isn’t the kind of place that grows, you know? It closes in until you feel like you’re trapped in a box with no escape and no air to breathe. The only people who stay long enough to be buried are the ones who were born and raised, unless they get out and don’t look back.”

“Like you,” Loren filled in.

Braxton nodded. “Seven years ago, I met a stranger named Jacob Fried. He was on the road with his band, and they were passing through our town when their drummer fell asleep behind the wheel. The van was totaled and everyone died except Jacob. His injuries were so bad that he slipped into a coma while the doctors were fighting to save him. When he woke up six months later, Father Moore claimed God had delivered him to Faithful, and the reason for it was why he was spared. Jacob believed him.”

Braxton fell quiet, but I could tell her mind was still sifting through her memories.

“In hindsight, I realize now that he was a broken, grieving man desperate to understand why he’d lost all his friends in one night and was left to bear it alone. He needed to believe there was a higher purpose to keep going. He stayed in Faithful, but it wasn’t to find his calling like he thought. He couldn’t bring himself to leave the last place he’d seen his friends alive.”

Braxton studied each of us, and I knew she was wondering if we would have done the same.

Yes.

“Did he ever find his calling?” Houston asked. His eyes narrowed as he tried to piece together Braxton’s memories for himself. He was anxious to understand her. We all were.

“Eventually,” she said with a shrug. “Despite being the pious Christians they claim to be, Faithful isn’t welcoming to strangers or strange people—even if we’re all His children.” She rolled her eyes. “Jacob was left utterly alone in a strange town for weeks until a sixteen-year-old girl decided to befriend him.”

I stopped breathing.

I tried to fill my lungs, but it was like I’d forgotten how.

There was only the hope that this story wouldn’t take the turn I knew it would.

“I was on my way home from school when I heard him play. He’d gotten a place, and when I walked by…I don’t know why I turned in…or why he never sent me away. We didn’t speak. I listened until he had nothing left, and then I went home. It was the same the next day, and we continued like that for a week before he finally spoke to me. He asked me if I played. I told him maybe one day.”

She stopped speaking for a while when the plane began to take off, and she didn’t speak again until we were in the air. “It started with him just showing me a few things. Once he realized how quickly I was catching on, he started to challenge me. I adapted, and Jacob found his calling. He never talked about himself during those times, and neither did I. We never stopped being strangers. I was his student, and he was my teacher. That was all we were to each other…at least for a while.”

“What happened?” I heard myself ask.

“He fucked her,” Loren blurted bitterly. His eyes were angry when his gaze met mine briefly, and then he slowly turned it on Braxton. “Am I right?”

“It was my idea,” she argued as if it made a goddamn difference. Her eyes were wild and determined as she met each of our gazes. She didn’t want to be a victim. “I came on to him.”

“Oh, was he just a kid who mistook gratitude and adoration for love and attraction too?”

Loren and Braxton stared at each other, neither willing to concede. For once, I sided with Loren, and I couldn’t recall the last time that happened. Braxton might have been the aggressor, but it didn’t change the gut-turning truth that she’d been taken advantage of by someone she not only trusted but idolized.

And what about you?

I tried to shove the thought away, but it kept coming back.

I wasn’t ready to face the truth that I’d waited too long to tell her about Emily. I wasn’t prepared to accept that Braxton may never forgive me. My betrayal would hurt her more than Houston or Loren’s ever could because she never expected it from me. I could see the unshakable trust in Braxton’s eyes each time she looked at me.