The movie was so scary I had my head buried against Stephan's shoulder half the movie. He didn't mind nor was he even a little afraid, in fact he chuckled every time I flew up a few inches and clutched his bicep, hiding my face against him to prevent from being scared again, only to sneak a glance back at the screen a few seconds later and have the cycle repeat.

It wasn't until we were exiting the theater and he momentarily unlinked our fingers so he could hold the door for me that reality of the last two hours hit me like a freight train.

"You okay?" Stephan, unfazed by the color draining from my face, took my hand back into his own. "Was it that scary?"

"No." I managed with a small smile. "I bet you'll rethink bringing a girl to a horror movie on a first date though."

He scoffed, "What? No way. I think it went great."

He nodded toward our intertwined hands with a wink.

I knew I should have retracted my hand, but my fight or flight was momentarily on hiatus as it awaited Stephan's motives.

"Are you hungry?" he asked once we were outside. As Kayla had predicted, the brisk October air nipped at me the moment we were out, and as she promised, Stephan immediately shrugged out of the leather jacket and wrapped it around me. It was so cheesy and cliché I felt a genuine smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. "I'm starving, but if you want me to take you back, I can."

I shook my head, taken back by my own reaction and response, "No, it's okay. Did you have somewhere in mind?"

**

By the time we were seated, my stomach was growling from hours of not eating anything but a few pieces of popcorn. Relief washed over me the minute the waitress set a basket of breadsticks between the two of us, setting my water and his Coke down a second later.

Once she'd left us, I snatched a breadstick and broke it in half so I could savor it, stirring it in the marinara sauce in a small cup. Once I'd taken a bite and all but moaned at the explosion of flavor in my mouth, I looked back to Stephan to find him already staring at me, smiling.

"What?" I asked, touching at my cheek. "Is there something on my face?"

"No." he answered, grabbing a breadstick for himself. "I just never realized how blue your eyes were."

I returned his smile, ready to respond, but my phone ringing cut me off. I sighed and shook my head to myself, considering the thought of killing whatever brother thought it'd be funny to call me as a joke on this date. Only, the minute I pulled my phone from my clutch it was my mother's contact that lit the screen.

"Hello?" I answered without emotion, earning a curious look out of Stephan, but he didn't speak.

"Addy, baby, oh it's so great hearing your voice."

I could hear a man's voice shouting something in the background and my grip immediately tightened around my phone. "I'm busy, what do you need?"

"What, I can't just call to check on my daughter?"

"What do you need, Mom?"

There was silence, but I didn't need a response anyway. She only ever called for one thing.

"I know you loaned me a hundred a couple weeks ago, but I need to eat and I lost my job—"

"I'll call you later." I said shortly. "I'm busy right now."

"Too busy to speak to your own mother?"

She sounded hurt. Good.

"Yes. Bye."

I hung the phone up and set it face down on my lap under the table, feeling my cheeks warm in embarrassment. Surprisingly, Stephan didn't comment on it for a while, even if he did look a bit concerned. Eventually he stirred his straw in his cup and asked, "I'm going to guess you and your mom don't get along?"

"Something like that."

He nodded. "That's why you moved here, I take it?"

"Yeah."

Not the only reason, but I suppose she was the catalyst of the decision.

He didn't speak again until our plates had been set down, and for the first time all night I wished for the ground to open up once he did.

"Look, I want to clear the air and understand before we proceed with this." he gestured between the two of us. "Is there anything going on with you and Thomas?"

Rather than be smart and composed about it, all that left me was a strangled, "Jeremiah?"

He nodded.

"No." I twisted the pasta around my fork, avoiding his questioning look. "He's practically another brother. I'm just. . . I think you also need to know that I'm not ready for. . .for intimacy."

He didn't flinch, the guy didn't even bat an eye. He had expected my response.

"Breathe." he whispered, extending a hand to rest it on top of mine. "I know, Addison. Kayla talked to me and I can. . . I suspected that you had some issues with it."

"That doesn't bother you?" I asked. "When you have any girl in school and have sex with them, you still choose to pursue me."

He laughed at that. Not even a quiet chuckle either, but a loud laugh that would have been heard out on the street if the Italian restaurant wasn't so loud I couldn't hear him unless I leaned across the table.

"Why is it so hard for you to accept that I like you, Addison?"

He didn't want the answer to that.

"Don't worry." he squeezed my hand. "I have no intention of hurting you, Addison. I enjoy walking amongst the living, thank you."

*

I don't know why, after how sweet and chivalrous he'd been all night, that I had expected him to watch me from his car and not walk me to the front door. The second we were on the porch, the door was thrown open and all four of my brothers stood there, all trying to read the quarterback shifting uncomfortably under all the intense stares.

"Jonathan." Stephan greeted with a nod in the oldest Baker boy's direction. I wasn't sure if that was why he greeted him and not the others, or because he didn't know the other three.

"Briggs." Jonthan's voice lacked emotion, but his eyes were on me, prompting me to give him the go ahead or the go to bed.

I ran a hand down my face and whispered, "Thanks, Stephan. I had fun."

"Yeah." he smiled, his fingers brushing mine. "I did too. But I better go before these guys dig me an early grave."

I smiled a little at that, starting to shrug out of his jacket, but he waved the action off. "Give it back Monday."

Then he rushed down my driveway and back to the safety and security of his car. I lifted my hand up in a wave, he returned it with a smile, then sped off into the night. I immediately pushed my way through my brothers with a sigh.

"You guys are embarrassing."

"Did he touch you?" Jonathan ignored my comment, shutting and locking the door. "Because I can probably catch up and—"

I shook my head. "He was fine, Johnny. Do you really think I would have stayed with him all night if he'd tried anything at all?"

"I guess not."

I made a gesture toward the stairs with my hand. "Go to bed. I'm okay."

All four of the boys muttered their choruses of goodbyes and Shane slipped in for a quick side hug before he headed down the hall. I crept up the stairs slowly, exhaustion hitting halfway. By the time I dragged myself through the door of my bedroom, I was beyond tired and headed straight for the wipes on my dresser. I was in the middle of wiping my cheeks when Jere's voice scared me far more than any scene in the movie.

"What's wrong?"

I threw a hand over my chest, the other clutching the wipe. "You scared the crap out of me."

"You asked me to be in here when you got home." he said, extending his arm toward my bed. "I'm here. Tell me what's wrong. Did he do anything?"

I finished wiping my makeup, sure I looked like a clown given I didn't try to rub the mascara off hard enough, but I didn't care. Not right now.

"Nothing is wrong, Jere."

"Bullshit."

Before he could stop me, I cuffed his right hand and yanked it forward so I could see his arm. I tightened my grip when I saw the fresh injection scare staring back at me.

"Does Johnny know?" I said through my teeth.

Jere didn't try to pull his arm back, he just stared down. "No."

"Why?" my anger and resentment for my mother took over momentarily and I slammed my closed fists against his chest. "Why are you doing this, Jere?"

He didn't respond. Maybe he didn't have one.

"You're going to wake up tomorrow morning and you're going to ask my dad and Elise for help getting clean again. You—"

"You don't get to make that decision, Addison."

I wanted to scream and shout, slam my fists against his chest, and cry until he assured me he'd do as I asked. But I had spent seventeen years with a drug addict, I knew it was more than an addiction. It was a disease.

"You're seventeen." I leaned forward and pressed my palm against his cheek. "You still have so much life to live, Jere. And I promise you this isn't it. This isn't the life you want to live."

"You don't know what I want."

I lifted my other hand so his head was between my hands, our faces inches apart, but for the first time in months I wasn't in fear of anything but the life of the boy that could slip through my fingers at any second.

"I know that I watched my mother choose them over me, her own child. I know that she overdosed when I was fifteen and I almost left her there because I thought she'd be better off." my fingers, buried deep in his hair, curled inward. "I can't, Jere. I can't watch you. . . I can't find you like that. You need to get help before it's too late. You can still escape it."

"What if I don't want to?" he said, then louder snapped. "As hard as it may be for you to accept, I'm not the person you think I am, Addy. I'm not the person you need and I left the person who did."

I watched his hardened expression soften the minute tears started to fall from my lashes. "Please, Jere. I'll get down on my hands and knees and beg you if I have to. I lost my mother to this shit. I spent my life running away from it. I can't lose you too."

He tried to turn away, but didn't push hard enough against my hand because it went right back into the same position so he was forced to look at me. "Jere."

"I can't." he pressed his index finger into his chest. "I don't care, Addy. I'm a coward, I—"

"You're not a coward!" I didn't care if my parents or brothers heard the argument, it'd help me if they did. "Jere, you did all that you could to protect her. It wasn't your fault."

He tried to push me away, gently trying to pry my fingers from his scalp, but after a moment of staring in my teary eyes he stopped. "You need to let me leave, Addison."

"What can I do?" I closed the small gap between us. "Tell me how I can help you, Jere."

He pulled me forward and before I could comprehend what was going on, I was straddling him, one of his hand on the small of my back, the other caressing my cheeks, "You can't."

"Jere." I pleaded again, but he'd realized our position and started to shift me to his left so I fell on to my bed.

"You can't, Addison. You've got to accept that there's just some things in life you can't fix."

I caught his arm before he could walk away from me and unsuspecting as he was, he didn't even have the chance to blink before I leaned in and kissed him.

It caused a quickening of my heart and I nearly tore myself away and threw myself across the room to cower in the darkness of my closet, but the longer I kissed Jeremiah, the more I felt as if my body were finally being freed from the restraints that'd locked me down the last six months.

"Jeremiah." the voice in the hall didn't belong to my brother, but my father. "Out. Now."

I should have expected someone to have heard my shouting. Jere hesitated, one of his hands still on my neck, his green eyes raking my face. Then slowly he dropped his hands and backed away, spinning to face my father. I watched in silence as my father grabbed a hold of Jere's arm and stared at it with a sad look, but it was his words that hung heavy in the air for the rest of the night.

"If you want anything to do with my daughter you're going to get yourself help. We are here to support you, Jeremiah, you know that." Dad said, his eyes sweeping across the room to me. "But my daughter's safety is my priority and if you are in any way a danger to her, you will not be allowed in this house. Are we clear?"

Jere's voice was barely audible as he shook Dad's strong grip off and bowed his head. "We're clear."