the organization. Janie was the youngest of them all, followed shortly by Hoax and his friend who, for the life of me, I couldn’t remember his name.
Slowly but surely, the men that created the organization were finding people they trusted to take over. Though, I wouldn’t be one of those people.
Max may trust me and want me to do it, but I had other reasons for not wanting to stay—I didn’t want to get another woman killed.
“I have to apologize,” Harleigh said softly, jumping slightly when a loud boom of thunder shook the still night air around us. “I was the one to give your name to my father.”
“You were?” I asked curiously. “When did you do that?”
She shifted against me and leaned even more into my side, positioning her legs to rest against my hard thigh.
“When I first met you a few years ago,” she answered. “Did my dad tell you about Tray and Dre?”
“No,” I answered. “You do remember I thought y’all were married, right?”
I heard her giggle.
“Tray is Dre’s brother…” she began the story, telling me about Dre, the home invader, and the memory loss associated with their story. “The man that lives across the street.” She lifted her arm and pointed to the house. The one that had the moving truck in front of it not too long ago. “That’s Dre’s…um, man.”
I made a grunting sound in my throat.
“That just fuckin’ sucks,” I admitted. “Did Dre ever try to get in there?”
“Dre’s afraid to push him,” she admitted. “Any time Dre gets close to him, Craig starts to get agitated. As if he’s remembering something, but he’s purposefully suppressing the memories—at least that’s what I think he’s doing anyway.”
I tapped my bottom lip with one finger, thinking.
“I’ve seen him staring at your house before,” I found myself saying. “Just standing there, watching. I almost went over there and asked him what his problem was. I’m kind of wishing I did, now.”
Harleigh made a noise in the back of her throat and leaned a little farther into me.
My arm snaked just a little bit farther around her, cupping her shoulder and part of her upper arm now.
“You’re like the smallest person I’ve ever had snuggled up against me,” I found myself saying.
She snorted. “I’m vertically challenged. I get it from my mama.”
I rolled my eyes and grinned. “I would’ve never guessed.”
“I was like a pound at birth.” She yawned. “I was born prematurely. We have pictures of me with my dad’s wedding ring around my ankle. And also me in a Sonic cup. They’re framed on the mantle at my parents’ place.”
A gust of wind had some of her hair up and blowing across my face, and I absently reached over and tucked it back down but left my hand in her hair.
I wound my finger around one of her braids and slowly ran my rough fingers over the plait.
“Why do you always have your hair in braids?” I wondered, finding the hair tie that was holding her hair tightly in place with my fingers and tugging on it without any thought to what I was doing.
“I swear to God, I’m always getting food in it. Even when it’s in a ponytail. So I started braiding it to keep it out of my face and out of my mouth. Wearing lip gloss and having your hair blowing all over the damn place isn’t the greatest, either.” She paused. “But there’s really no reason,” she sighed, her breath hitching when I tugged the ends of her hair. “That feels good.”
I grinned. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “I love when my hair is played with. Sometimes I lay on the couch, placing my head in whoever’s lap that just so happens to be there, and make them play with it.”
I looked down at my lap, then at the swing.
There was still plenty of room. “Lay your head down in my lap, then.”
She didn’t hesitate. One second she was upright, and the next she was laying down.
The thunder, lightning, and wind didn’t affect her even the slightest.
“Can I take your braids all the way out?” I asked, fingering the hair tie at the end.
“Yes,” she whispered.
The whisper got caught on the wind, half of it disappearing before it could even reach my ear, but I took her nod of assent and ran with it.
Tugging both ponytails free of her hair, I diligently pulled her hair completely free of the confines she had them in. It wasn’t until they were all the way