Lie to Me Read Online Free PDF Page A

like…man, I don’t know how to tell it. It was like she took this unfair bullshit and treated it with the seriousness it deserved, which was none at all. Like she took that humiliation you feel when someone treats you like less than what you are and disarmed it with just a silly face.
    That’s not something I knew how to do. She taught it to me. I didn’t know it then, but I think that’s when I started to fall in love with her.
    And then she looked at me and smiled as we walked back out, still trying to hide that disappointment. She said, “He’s never heard of feminism?”
    I wasn’t the most educated guy in the world, but I at least knew enough to laugh at that idea.
    “Maybe I should go back and burn my bra,” she said.
    I stopped and held the gate open for her, and, I admit it, I looked down. Maybe she wasn’t grown into her limbs, long arms, long legs, and all that, but damn she was grown into that chest. Jesus.
    “I’m not gonna let you do that,” I said gruffly.
    She smirked up at me. “Maybe I should go back and burn his bra.”
    For the second time that day, I smiled wide and laughed. Pops had let himself go and had grown himself some man-titties, as the other fighters called them—but never to his face.
    Then she got real serious. Softly she said, “Thank you.”
    Right then, my heart cracked open a little bit, and she got in. She got right in. And I opened my mouth and said, “I could train you. You come in the mornings, no one else is here but me, I could train you. Just don’t tell anyone.”
    And she said yes.
     
    ***
     
    That’s what I’m thinking about as I run across that bridge in the rain, my eyes locked on the back of that bus like a goddamned heat-seeking missile, refusing to lose her again, even if it’s only temporary. This is where I draw the line of screwing up, of losing Harlow, and that’s why I’m running. And I’m thinking about the first time she cracked open my heart, and then the last time, which was just a few minutes ago, when she danced in the rain with a little girl and then looked at me like she missed me. After how I left her, after what I’ve done and what I’ve failed to do, she still feels for me. My heart is broken open and filling with happiness, or the memory of happiness, for the first time in five long years. My rotten, withered, crusted over heart is warm again, and it feels good. And I know I don’t deserve it, but I don’t care: I want more.
    I yell out into the rain, glad to feel the burn in my legs and my lungs, dare my body to fail me, and run harder. I will catch her. I will.
    And when I do, she gives me the greatest gift she can in that moment: She shows me she’s still got that fight. Harlow looking me in the eye, telling me she doesn’t talk to ghosts? I’m happier than I’ve been in months. Years.
    Until I get the text from Mr. Alex Wolfe, professional ruthless bastard: “Take care of Harlow Chase. I don’t need to spell out the alternative.”
     

chapter 3
     
    HARLOW
     
    Leaving Marcus on that rainy street corner is harder than it should be. Every step farther away from him feels like pushing against a current, like the whole world is screaming at me to go back, to finish this. To get some answers. I still can’t think straight; my mind just a jumble, my body aching to turn back. I have to fight the whole way.
    The worst part is that it’s physical. Being near him, thinking about him? It’s awakened something. It’s awakened memories, physical memories, and now it’s all I can do to keep walking forward away from him, with the ghost of his touch all over me. Remembering what he smelled like. What he tasted like.
    It kind of shocks me—I thought this part of my life was over. And why should this be the thing that stands out? Why don’t I think about the nights I couldn’t sleep from crying, wondering why he’d left? Or hell, why not even think about the good times, the times he was there for me emotionally? I know why,