Whispers of a Broken Halo by Abbi Glines

“Did you tell Aunt Bryn about how you got to help me pick the blueberries?” Rio asked.

“No, he didn’t,” I replied. “Did Vicky help you too?” I didn’t look up when I asked it.

“No, just me and Rio,” Cullen answered. “We picked two big baskets of them. Huge baskets.”

The heat from Rio’s stare was making it hard for me to concentrate on the menu. I closed it, deciding to give up looking at it, just as the waitress appeared and took our orders. Rio gave her his and Cullen’s order, then looked at me.

“Bacon cheeseburger, medium, with no ketchup, fries, and a water please,” I said and then studied my hands in my lap while Rio watched me.

“Couldn’t find anything new you wanted?” he asked me with a smile in his voice.

Damn him. What did he have to smile about? He was going to ruin lunch. At least for me. Cullen was thrilled he was here.

“Hey, Drake,” Rio called out.

I wanted to roll my eyes. Now, we had Drake to add to this lunch.

“Y’all had the same lunch idea,” Drake said, and I smiled at him.

“Yeah, uh, would you sit with Cullen a minute? I need to help Bryn get something out of her eye.”

What? My eye?

“Sure,” Drake replied.

“I don’t have any—”

Rio took my arm and pulled me up.

“Yeah, you do,” he interrupted me, then held on to my arm and walked me toward the restroom doors.

I started to protest when he opened the door and pushed me inside, then locked it.

He forced me to back up against the sink and then placed his hands on either side of me, caging me in. “Do you have any fucking idea how damn hot it is that you’re jealous?” he asked me, then leaned in and rubbed his lips over my jawline. “Jesus, you drive me crazy,” he muttered. “As if there were any other female on this planet who could compare to you. But if you want to get jealous, then please feel free. My dick is so fucking hard right now; there is going to be a zipper imprint on it.”

I shoved him back off me before I started panting and letting him do whatever he wanted. “She was flirting with you, and you were letting her. You were encouraging it! You liked it.”

He grinned and picked me up and sat me on the counter. “Keep it up, and I’m gonna have to fuck you right here,” he said, then leaned in and ran his tongue along my bottom lip.

His hands slid up my thighs and inside the legs of my shorts.

“Do you like her?” I asked, feeling pathetic.

He stopped and looked at me, a wrinkle between his brow. “What?” he asked me.

“You heard me.”

“No man who has you in his arms and his bed is going to want anyone else.” He smirked after he said it. “There will only be me though. No other man is gonna get to find that out.”

“She was flirting with you. You were letting her,” I pointed out, although I was losing my steam, the more his fingers moved higher.

“No, I wasn’t. She might have been, but I swear, that was not how I flirt.”

“You laughed at something she said.”

He frowned, then nodded. “Yeah, she told me about Cullen coming out of the bathroom and announcing to Hazel that he had a really big poop and felt much better.”

I laughed. He grinned.

“Let’s go eat, then get Cullen down for a nap, and you can act jealous again while I fuck you in the shower.”

I laughed some more.

The ache was gone, and I could take a deep breath again.





Chapter Forty-Three

Sex tonight had been different. It was sweet, and Rio had been gentle. As much as I enjoyed the rougher stuff and the dirty things he said while we were doing it tonight, I’d felt as if he were treasuring me. He pulled my back against his stomach and held me close to him when we were done.

“I walked you home from school. You were reading To Kill a Mockingbird for English class and worrying over the book report you had to write,” he said.

I knew he was talking about the day he had found his mother. It was also the last time I had seen him until we moved here. Finding out he was gone had been devastating for me, but I knew that day must have been a nightmare he could never erase.

“You bought me an ice cream,” I reminded him.

Money wasn’t something either of us had had back then. I still didn’t know how he’d afforded the ice cream cone.

“Strawberry with sprinkles,” he added.

“You remembered,” I replied, surprised by the detail.

“There isn’t much I don’t remember about you,” he said. “Or the life we lived there.”

A sadness crawled over me.

Rio had been my savior. When I needed someone, he showed up, and for a moment in time, I was happy. He made me smile when I rarely had a reason to smile. When the world was against me, he was there beside me and often standing in the way of its hard blows.

Then, one day, he was gone. I mourned the loss of him in my life, but it was then I realized good things weren’t meant for me. They would always be taken away. Accepting that was what had gotten me through school, living with my aunt, and then life with Tory.

He had walked me to my aunt’s trailer that day and flashed me a smile that made the butterflies in my stomach go crazy. My aunt had already left for work, and it felt as if luck was on my side. But then the ambulance and cop cars surrounded his trailer. Neighbors came outside to watch, and I stood there, looking out the kitchen window, terrified yet hoping that Rio would come tell me what was happening. He’d never come.