“Don’t start this, Pidge.”
“If we keep going at this pace, I’m going to be barefoot and pregnant before I graduate. I’m not ready to move in with you, I’m not ready for a ring, and I’m certainly not ready to settle down.”
Travis gripped my shoulders and turned me to face him. “This isn’t the ‘I wanna see other people’ speech, is it? Because I’m not sharing you. No fucking way.”
“I don’t want anyone else,” I said, exasperated. He relaxed and released my shoulders, gripping the railing.
“What are you saying, then?” he asked, staring across the horizon.
“I’m saying we need to slow down. That’s all I’m saying.” He nodded, clearly unhappy. I touched his arm. “Don’t be mad.”
“It seems like we take one step forward and two steps back, Pidge. Every time I think we’re on the same page, you put up a wall. I don’t get it…most girls are hounding their boyfriends to get serious, to talk about their feelings, to take the next step….”
“I thought we established that I’m not most girls?”
He let his head drop, frustrated. “I’m tired of guessing. Where do you see this going, Abby?”
I pressed my lips against his shirt. “When I think about my future I see you.”
Travis relaxed, pulling me close. We both watched the night clouds move across the sky. The lights of the school dotted the darkened block, and party goers folded their arms against thick coats, scurrying to the warmth of the brick and mortar of the fraternity house.
I saw the same peace in Travis’ eyes that I had witnessed only a handful of times, and it hit me that just like the other nights, his content expression was a direct result of reassurance from me.
I had experienced insecurity, those living one stroke of bad luck to the other; men who were afraid of their own shadow. It was easy to be afraid of the dark side Vegas, the side the neon and glitter never seemed to touch. But Travis Maddox wasn’t afraid to fight, or to defend someone he cared about, or to look into the humiliated and angry eyes of a scorned woman. He could walk into a room and stare down someone twice his size, believing that no one could touch him—that he was invincible to anything that tried make him fall.
He was afraid of nothing. Until he’d met me.
I was the one part of his life that was unknown, the wild card, the variable he couldn’t control. Regardless of the moments of peace I had given him, in every other moment of every other day, the turmoil he felt without me was made ten times worse in my presence. The anger that took hold of him before was only becoming harder for him to manage. Being the exception was no longer a mysterious, special thing. I had become his weakness.
Just as I was to my father.
“Abby! There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!” America said, bursting through the door. She held up her cell phone. “I just got off the phone with my dad. Mick called them last night.”
“Mick?” My face screwed into disgust. “Why would he call them?”
America raised her eyebrows as if I should know the answer. “Your mother kept hanging up on him.”
“What did he want?” I said, feeling sick.
She pressed her lips together. “To know where you were.”
“They didn’t tell him, did they?”
America’s face fell. “He’s your father, Abby. Dad felt he had a right to know.”
“He’s going to come here,” I said, feeling my eyes burn. “He’s going to come here, Mare!”
“I know! I’m sorry!” she said, trying to hug me. I pulled away from her and covered my face with my hands.
A familiar pair of strong, protective hands rested on my shoulders. “He won’t hurt you, Pigeon,” Travis said. “I won’t let him.”