With a snort, I grab the remote and flip through the channels. Tag likes sports, sports, and more sports. He doesn’t know other channels exist. Just for fun, I stop at the Discovery Channel. They are doing a special on apes. We watch as the dominant ape tosses a lesser ape across the jungle floor and steals his woman. Ape shenanigans ensue.

“Would you go crazy if someone pinched your woman’s ass?” My cheeks heat as the apes get it on. Even though I’m a grown-up, I still get embarrassed watching sex of any sort with Tag or my parents.

“I might. Depends on the situation. And after a fight, when the adrenaline is still pumping through your body and all your instincts are heightened, some things you just can’t let slide, especially anything to do with your girl.”

“I’m his girl.”

Tag holds up the phone. “Yes, you are.”

“Are you okay with that?”

He twists his lips to the side and sighs. “Aside from the fact that he has a secret job he won’t share and he scared you tonight, sure. After what he did for you with Luke, I’d say he’s a good guy. The best.”

My lips quiver with a smile. “So that’s a no.”

He laces his fingers together and rests them behind his head, settling in for hours of hogging my TV. His feet go back up on the coffee table. I glare. They come down.

“So what happened to your pictures?” He nods at the blank wall. “And all the art supplies you had strewn all over you dining table last time I was here. I thought you were painting again.”

My stomach clenches. “I thought it would be better to focus on things that made money, so I could help out Mom and Dad. I figured I shouldn’t have opened that door and things were good the way they were.”

“Like I said. Head. Ass.”

“You might want to tone down the language. One day you might slip at Sunday dinner and you’ll have Mom washing out your mouth with a bar of soap.”

Tag sighs. “I’m wondering if they really need us to help them out. Now I see you standing on your own two feet, learning to fight at the gym, doing so well at the tattoo parlor, and taming the Predator, I’ve started thinking I might be a bit overprotective of the people I love. Every time I offered Dad the money, he wouldn’t take it. He said they don’t need a big house anymore, and they would rather downsize and spend some time traveling. I didn’t believe him. I thought he was just being proud—just like I didn’t believe you could look after yourself. Did you know they’ve never cashed one of my checks, and those envelopes you’ve given Mom are stashed in the letter holder?”

No, I didn’t know. Just as I didn’t know Ray had so totally won Tag over. With my emotions all over the place, I can’t sit with Tag and watch football, so I pace up and down my covered balcony with a bag of potato chips. Have I really been pushing Ray away? Can I trust him despite his secrets? He is everything I have stayed away from. Everything I have feared. And yet he is everything I’ve always wanted.

I love him.

“Sia.”

Hands trembling, I look down. Ray is on the back lawn one story below me, rain drops sliding down his face like tears.

“Sia.” His voice breaks on my name, and he just stands there looking up at me, his leather jacket glistening in the rain, as if he wants to say something but the words won’t come.

My lungs tighten so hard, I can barely breathe. How many times have I pushed him away only to have him come back? He never gives up on me, despite all my hang-ups. Even when he thought he would have to leave to keep me safe, he found a way back. And if that isn’t a statement about how much he cares, if that isn’t the essence of trust, I don’t know what is.

“Talk to me.” His chest heaves.

“Go,” Tag says from behind me. “If a man like Ray stands in your backyard in the rain calling your name, he’s got something damn important to say. Plus, I’ve suddenly thought of somewhere I need to be. If you need me to come back…just call.”

Best. Brother. Ever. I give him a kiss on the cheek, grab a towel, race down the stairs, and push open the back door.

Ray stalks toward me, pausing under the overhang.

“You want to come in?” I hold out the towel, but he makes no move to take it. Instead, he stares at me, panting as if he just ran a great distance, water droplets clinging to his skin.

“You walked away.”

“You scared me,” I say. “Watching you fight for sport is one thing, but violence against someone who puts up his hands for mercy, beating a man when he’s down…those aren’t things I can handle.”

“You don’t walk away.” Ray’s voice rises above the patter of the rain. “You don’t leave me. Something’s wrong, you talk to me.” He rips the towel from my hand and tosses it on the ground. “You don’t leave.”

My body trembles, but I stand my ground. “And you don’t lose control.”

“I can’t help it around you. When you walked away from me last night and tonight…” His voice breaks. “When I saw the pain in your face…I realized I could lose you, just as easily as I lost everything else beautiful in my life. Just because of who I am. It almost killed me. I’ve never wanted anything in my life as much as I want you. You are the light in my darkness, Sia. I’m lost without you.”

A million thoughts race through my mind, but the only one that lingers is the way I feel when I’m with him: safe and protected, cherished and cared for. He makes me laugh. He makes me feel normal in a way I never thought I’d feel again. And Tag thinks I should give him a chance.