Read Online Falling Under by Jasinda Wilder - Free Book Online Page B

It’s a fucked-up place to be and, at almost eighteen, my daughter is still impressionable. I don’t want that for her.
    I can’t overreact, though. I know better. I’m not that kind of dad. She’s a good kid, and I trust her judgment, but I also know what it’s like to be her age. In the end, I let them head down the stairs together, and I keep my worries to myself. At some point, though, I’m going to confront the kid. It’ll piss Kylie off, but sometimes as a parent your duty to protect means angering your child. Just the facts.  
    When they’re gone, I notice Nell is staring at the door to the basement with a worried expression on her face. “You saw his arms?” she asks, not looking at me.
    I lean on the counter beside her. “Yeah. I saw.”
    “He’s a really nice kid,” Nell says. “‘Yes, ma’am’ and ‘no, ma’am’ and all that. But those scars. They scare me, Colt.”
    I sigh. “Shit, don’t I know it. Thing is, babe, we’re more like that kid than we are like Kylie. We’ve both got scars we gave ourselves.”
    Nell’s palm skates up and down her forearm, smoothing over the fine white lines engraved on her creamy skin. “Yeah, we do. And that’s what scares me. Because we both know the kind of hell it takes to make someone do that.” She looks up at me, pleading. “I want to tell her to stay away from him. So bad. I freaked when I saw his arms, Colt. Freaked . But I can’t tell her that, can I? She won’t listen.”
    “No, we can’t, and no, she won’t.” I wrap an arm around her shoulders and hold her against me. “She’s smart, Nell. We have to try to trust her.”
    “But we can’t ignore the warning signs.” Nell’s hands are rubbing at her scars, almost obsessively. Nell almost never does that anymore, especially around Kylie.
    “No, you’re right. But listen, babe. Oz having scars doesn’t mean he’s still doing it, and she sure as hell isn’t doing anything like that.” I grab her wrists and hold them.
    “I know. I just…I don’t even want her to know what scars like that mean, Colt. I want to protect her from everything we both endured.” She turns into me, face against my chest.
    “We can’t protect her from life, Nell. You know that. She’s going to get hurt someday. All we can do is love her, and be there when it happens.” Smooth words, easy to say. Not so easy to do.

FIVE: Acoustic Melodies and Old Pain
    Oz

    I’m freaking out, hardcore. Like, totally losing my shit. Kylie’s house is fucking dope . Huge. Nothing is flashy or gaudy, just tastefully, subtly expensive. They’ve done well for themselves, really well. And they’ve done it on their own, as indies. It’s impressive. And this studio? Jesus. Intensely impressive. All the best equipment, racks of guitars, a piano in one corner, several top-of-the-line recording mics.  
    And then there’s the fact that I’m pretty sure both Nell and Colt saw my burn scars and knew exactly what they were. I don’t know what to do with that.  
    I’m standing in the middle of the recording room, gaping like a fish, frozen in place. Kylie comes up behind me, and I flinch at her touch on my back.  
    “Oz?” She moves around in front of me. “Are you okay?”
    I shake myself out of it. “Yeah. Just…your house is pretty amazing. I’ve never been in a house this big.”
    She frowns. “This? This isn’t all that big. One of my friends is the daughter of a major label exec. Now, her house is massive. Like, I actually got lost once. Wandered around totally lost for literally twenty minutes before I called Lin on my cell phone. She had to, like, get landmarks so she’d know where I was. It was ridiculous.”
    I can’t fathom that. “I don’t know why anyone would need a house that big.”
    Kylie shrugs. “You don’t. It’s totally unnecessary. Lin actually kind of hates it. She says she gets tired just walking from her bedroom to the kitchen. There’s really no point to a house that big.”