Page 32 of Pretty Savage: Defy

We skipped dinner to make better time, but now my stomach rumbles loud enough that Carrson hears it over the chaos.

“You check in. I’ll go get us a table,” he says, heading toward the restaurant tucked into a corner of the lobby. I watch him cross the room and out the window a beat-up truck backs into a parking spot. It has a bumper sticker with a bee on it.

Thankfully, they have a room available. King bed on the seventh floor, the top floor. I get the keycard just as Carrson walks back over. A grin stretches his cheeks.

“We’re on the waitlist,” he says. “Fifteen minutes. I told them my name.”

I stare at him, waiting for the rest of that sentence. “And?”

“And nothing happened.” For some reason, this seems to make him happy.

It takes me a minute to figure it out, then I laugh. “Welcome to the real world, Carrson. The rest of us have been waiting for tables our entire lives.”

“I know.” He practically bounces. “It’s like I’m just some guy waiting for mozzarella sticks.”

That makes me laugh harder.

“Have you ever eaten mozzarella sticks?”

“No,” he grins, “but I’m going to eat some tonight.”

By some miracle we get a booth in the corner that’s quiet enough to talk. We order quickly, eager for sleep since we still have hours of driving tomorrow. I pretend not to notice how often Carrson’s eyes drift to the tables around us. To the father playing tic-tac-toe on the children’s menu with his son. To another who reaches across the table and ruffles his kid’s hair mid-conversation. Carrson watches until the food arrives.

He’s just taken down his fourth mozzarella stick when he pauses. “I paid Jackson a quick visit today. Had a talk about you.”

I put down my burger. “What kind of talk?”

“The kind that ends with him limping.”

“Oh.” I take a sip of water. “A little limping or a lot?”

“He was slow to learn.” Carrson dips his stick in marinara, then eats it without looking over.

“You know,” I say carefully, “there are other ways to resolve a conflict.”

“Not after what he did,” Carrson growls, reminding me that his protection is possessive and brutal, anchored in pieces of him I’m not sure I’ll ever understand.

I could argue that hurting Jackson won’t undo what happened to me. Violence only creates another injury, more reasons for the Beaumonts and Ashfords to hate each other.

I believe that. So I wait for the disgust to rise the way it’s supposed to.

It’s there, but underneath it, small and unwelcome, is a part of me that’s glad — glad someone made Jackson afraid, glad it was Carrson, glad the message was that I’m not alone, not something to be traded, taken, or used without consequence. I don’t like that line of thought so I shove it down before it can start to feel like mine.

I pick up my burger again, but I’m less hungry than I was before.

**

After we eat, Carrson goes to the bathroom while I wait for the check. A middle-aged man with graying blond hair tucked under a baseball cap approaches the table.

He stops a foot away. “Excuse me, miss?”

“Yes?” I answer.

“I have the most awkward favor to ask.” He shifts from foot to foot. “I’m here for my son’s baseball tournament. My wife had a work trip and couldn’t make it, so I brought my four-year-old daughter with me too.”

Behind him, Carrson exits the bathroom and pauses, frowning. Then he crosses the restaurant in long strides, like he’s already decided this is a problem.

“Anyway,” the man continues, words picking up speed, “she has long hair, and her braid fell out. I don’t know how to fix it, so I wanted to ask if you could do it? Sorry. I know this is so weird, I—”