Chapter 190
Summer's POV
The cash scattered across the polished floor like confetti at a funeral—crisp hundreds and fifties I'd ripped from my Birkin in fistfuls and hurled at her face. Now the bag hung empty and useless from one finger, my chest heaving, my vision tunneling until all I could see was that woman's smug face dissolving into shock, and Kieran beside me frozen in his ridiculous vest with his name tag reading "Cyan" like some kind of sick joke.
"I can give him MORE than you ever could," I heard myself say, and my voice didn't sound like mine—it was cold and sharp and steady in a way I'd never managed before, not even in my past life when I'd learned to armor myself against the world. "And one more thing—he's MY boyfriend. He will NEVER give you what you want. NEVER."
The woman's mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping on dry land, her face flushing an ugly mottled red, and I didn't wait to see what venom she'd spit back because I was already moving, my fingers wrapping around Kieran's wrist and dragging him through the crowd of gawking socialites and trust fund babies who'd probably post videos of this meltdown before we even made it to the door.
Three blocks. That's how far we made it before I yanked him into a narrow alley between two brick buildings where the streetlights barely reached and the air smelled of damp concrete and restaurant grease and old garbage fermenting in dumpsters, and when I finally stopped and turned to face him, all the rage and hurt and terror I'd been holding back since I saw those photos on The Whisper came flooding out in a wave so powerful it nearly knocked me off my feet.
"This is what you call not pushing me away?!" The words tore out of my throat raw and ragged, and I shoved him hard with both hands against his chest, felt the solid warmth of him stumble back a step, his shoulders hitting the brick wall behind him. "This is your promise, Kieran?! You could have come to me! You could have ASKED me for help instead of—instead of getting a fake ID and working in a place where women pay to touch you like you're some kind of—"
"Summer, I—"
"You're a MINOR!" My voice cracked and echoed off the alley walls, bouncing back at us from the darkness. "You're seventeen years old and you're serving alcohol to drunk women who think they can buy you, and you think that's okay?! You KNOW what kind of people go to that bar! You KNOW what they want from boys who look like you!"
His jaw clenched, that muscle jumping beneath his skin the way it always did when he was trying not to say something he'd regret, and his eyes in the dim light looked almost black, pupils blown wide with something I couldn't name—shame or anger or exhaustion so bone-deep it had hollowed him out from the inside.
"I didn't have a choice," he said, his voice low and strained like he was forcing each word through broken glass. "The cochlear implant deposit is due in two weeks. Ten thousand dollars, Summer. The police can't get the money back from Drake fast enough—he's already fled to God knows where, and the bank won't release the frozen funds until the investigation's complete, which could take months. Lily can't wait months. She's already falling behind in school because she can't hear the teacher properly, and every day we delay is another day her language development—"
"Who got you that job?" I cut him off, my hands balling into fists so tight my nails bit crescents into my palms. "Was it Logan? Because I swear to God, I'm going to find him right now and—"
"It wasn't him." Something in Kieran's voice made me pause, made me really look at him for the first time since we'd left the bar, and what I saw in his face made my stomach drop. "I found it myself. Craigslist. They don't ask questions if you have a fake ID that says you're twenty-one and you can smile pretty for the customers."
The casual way he said it—smile pretty—like it was nothing, like he was talking about serving coffee at Starbucks instead of pouring drinks for women who probably imagined all the ways they could corrupt a beautiful boy with damaged hands and desperate eyes, made something inside me crack wide open.
"You have tutoring jobs," I said, and I hated how my voice wavered, how weak I sounded. "You work at the library. You're making money from—"
"Do you think I'm dirty now?" he interrupted, and the question came out sharp and sudden like a knife between my ribs, his eyes searching my face with an intensity that made me want to look away but I couldn't, I couldn't because if I looked away he'd think I was answering yes. "Is that what you're thinking? That I'm disgusting because I let those women touch my arm when they order drinks, because I smile and flirt and pretend I don't notice when they slip their hotel room keys into my vest pocket?"
"No!" The word exploded out of me desperate and fierce, and I reached for him but he pulled back, his shoulders hunching inward like he was trying to make himself smaller, his damaged right hand curling protectively against his chest in that gesture I'd learned meant he was bracing for pain. "God, Kieran, no! How could you even think that?! I don't care about—I just thought you were studying for the IPhO! You just made the national team! You're supposed to be preparing for the international competition, and instead you're—"
"Who told you I was working there?" His voice had gone cold now, flat and emotionless in a way that scared me more than his anger ever could, and I could see the walls going up between us brick by brick, that careful distance he'd spent so long building before I'd finally convinced him to let me in.