"You sure you don't want to come drink with me and my friends? It'll be fun, Mila," Bradlee suggests as we walk down the sidewalk to find our cars. It was almost eight at night and we had been working on the mural all day along with sitting in through support group since it was Thursday. Andrea had come to do it like she usually did, but she had to leave pretty quickly for some meeting with George about Well Sessions.

"I'm so tired that even if I did go, I'll probably just pass out on some table. I should probably get home," I tell him, pulling out my keys from my bag when I see my car in the distance.

"Well, how about tomorrow? Isn't Julian still away until Saturday?" He asks, reminding me that I would be going home to an empty house that just held Bailey. Julian was away for a conference for PRES and has been gone since the day after his birthday. I had been doing alright with him being gone just because I've been staying at the center until pretty late, but now, I was going home early. I would probably just get some takeout and watch movies with Bailey since everyone was doing stuff today.

Ivy and Jonah hadn't answered my texts all day, which kinda worried me, but they were probably okay. Ivy was at school, I'm assuming, and Jonah decided to not go with Julian on his trip just because he had some personal issue that Julian wouldn't tell me about. Mom was going on a date with Theo to some restaurant while Bradlee was going to some bars with his friends, which I really didn't want to do. I've been with him before and it gets pretty crazy because his friends are a little... weird.

"Yeah, he's still away. I'll let you know if I change my mind," I tell him before we say bye and get into our own cars. I let him leave first as I pull out my phone to call Julian since that's what we did whenever I would drive home when he's away.

"Hello?" Julian's voice rings through the speaker of my phone as I set it on my dashboard. I put the car into drive before driving away from the support center that was now locked up since all the kids were either at their own homes or at one of the two Home Our Community houses in the city.

"Hi," I say to my fiance in a perky voice, completely missing him being there whenever I got home. I had been eating out since he wasn't here to cook for me, but I didn't mind since it was usually late when I got to the house, but maybe I'll actually try to cook tonight.

"You're leaving early, nothing too exciting for you to stay?" Julian asks in a teasing voice.

"Not really. Bradlee told me that I had to leave with him because he hated that I would stay at the center alone," I say.

"I agree, I hate you being there when it's night. People are crazy in the city," he explains.

I chuckle lightly, remembering that when I first started working for the nonprofit, Julian had people come to put in the best security cameras that he could find. He knew I would be there alone a bit since I usually got distracted with work and he was also worried about kids that would show up since the building was in the middle of the city and it can be pretty terrifying around here, no matter what time of day it is. "We have cameras, Julian. You don't need to worry so much."

"Cameras don't do much in the moment, baby. I just want you safe," he says in a serious tone.

"I know. I promise you that I lock the door once everyone's gone. You can always check the cameras yourself if you're worried," I tell him as I take an exit to get on the highway towards our house.

"I miss you," Julian says in a softer voice, which tells me that he's probably around people and didn't want to say it too loud. He really liked to keep his personal life private, so whenever we would talk on the phone, he usually left the room so no one could hear what we were talking about. But maybe he just couldn't do that today, I don't know.

"I miss you too. You still supposed to come back on Saturday?" I ask, hopeful that he'll say yes.

"I'm not sure. I have a few people that want to meet with me, so I might just have to stay an extra day, but I'm not sure. Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, it just gets lonely when you're not at home," I say and I can tell that you can hear my pout clear in my voice. I knew he had to work, but being gone for almost a week isn't something I liked too much since the house was pretty scary when you're alone. I found out that the dining room and Julian's office were very creepy at night because the lights were dim in there, so I had to stay away from that part of the house whenever Julian was gone.

"I promise that I'll be back by Sunday, okay? I'll take you out to dinner or something," he says.

"Okay," I agree. I tap my finger impatiently on the steering wheel, knowing that these next three days were going to be long and boring without him here with me. He starts asking me questions about the fundraiser along with stuff about some of our kids in the homes and before I know it, I park in the driveway of the home. I grab the phone, taking it off speaker before putting it up to my ear as I get out of the car with my bag.

"Are you at home?" Julian asks, probably hearing the beep that my car made when I opened the door. I could hear the small sounds of Bailey barking inside the house, so I hurry up the sidewalk to unlock the door and open it. He immediately jumps up on my legs as he slobbers on my pants, super excited that I was home with him.

"Yeah, I'm home," I tell him, knowing that his next words would be that he has to go since that was usually what they were whenever he found out that I got home.

"Alright, well, one of my meetings is about to start, so I have to go, beautiful. Do you want me to call you when I get to my hotel?" He asks and I can hear his heavy footsteps through the phone as he walks somewhere. I walk through the house and into the kitchen, reading over the note that Lola left me to tell me when Bailey ate before glancing up to see the dog jumping up on the couch to lay down.

"Or you could FaceTime me," I smirk, even though he can't see it.

He freezes, probably not expecting that those would be my words. He lowers his voice to barely even be a whisper, probably because he was around people now. "Will you wear the lace shorts?"

I chuckle, realizing that he was going to be obsessed with those things now. "Do you want me to wear the lace shorts?"

"I want you to wear the lace shorts," he whispers in a deep tone, telling me that he was getting aroused just thinking of what was going to happen later tonight. We don't usually do stuff over the phone when he's gone, but this was one of the longest that he's been gone and I bet that both of us were pretty horny at this point. Getting off without him wasn't even enjoyable now and I think he had the same problem.

"I'll wear them," I agree.

"Okay, I'll call you in about an hour or two," he tells me before we say our goodbyes and hang up. I set my phone on the kitchen island, letting out a sigh as I look around at the empty house in front of me. I was glad that the lights automatically turned on whenever I stepped into a room since I started to hate the dark ever since I moved in here. I move into the living room, turning on Friends since I wasn't allowed to watch Grey's Anatomy without Julian. Bailey jumps up into my lap, demanding to be petted while trying to lick my cheek.

"Hi, buddy. Did you have fun with Lola? Oh, yeah, you did," I say with a chuckle as he continues to run his tongue over my cheek. He calms down after a few minutes and gets comfortable on my thighs, setting his chin on the back of my hand as he falls asleep immediately. I sit there and watch the TV, just waiting to get that video call from Julian in an hour or two.

About an hour and a half after hanging up the phone with Julian, there's a long ding that runs through the house that usually happens when someone was at the gate to come to this house. I grab the tablet, trying to get to the page on the security cameras that would show us who was at the gate, but I couldn't quite remember which button to press. "Oh, you stupid thing."

I reach for my phone, knowing that whoever was waiting for me would freeze if I didn't hurry to call Julian to figure out what I had to do. I press the call button on his contact before putting it up to my ear, listening to the rings as I wait for him to answer. After the third ring, his voice runs through my phone with a stressed tone. "Hey, Miles, can I call you back? I'm in the middle of a meeting."

"Yeah, just really quick, how do I see who's at the front gate? I forgot what I have to press," I say quickly, not wanting the person to get annoyed and leave, but when the ding runs through the house again, I knew that the person wouldn't just leave like that.

"Someone's at the front gate?" He asks in confusion.

"Yeah, and I need to know who it is," I demand.

"Um, the button at the bottom left should be bright yellow if there's someone there," he instructs and I hit the button, which brings up the security camera. As soon as I see who it is, I freeze, wondering if the camera was right. She couldn't be here, right? I mean, how would she even know our address? "who is it?"

"It... it's Nora," I say in disbelief as I quickly type in the gate code that should unlock the door so she could get into the neighborhood. I see her looking at the street behind her before the door unlocks and she looks surprised before walking through it. I throw the tablet onto the couch beside me since I wouldn't be able to see her anymore because the cameras don't show the street and sidewalks. I stand up, putting on my jacket as Julian probably wonders if he heard me right.

"Nora's at the house?" He asks, probably thinking of the skittish girl that he met at the center.

"Yeah, um... what the fuck am I supposed to do?" I ask, instantly nervous as to why she was here. She didn't look hurt or anything, just a bit scared. But that could be because she was standing in the freezing cold in the dark, waiting for me to allow her into the neighborhood.

"You have to take her home, Miles. She can't stay at the house, especially if her parents don't know where she is. All you can do is make her feel better and then take her home," he tells me in an even more stressed tone than when he picked up the phone. I let out a sigh as I walk towards the front door where Nora would be showing up at in a few minutes since she had to walk through the neighborhood a little ways.

"But what if she doesn't give me her address?" I ask, obviously sounding very distressed about this whole situation because Julian softens his voice when he speaks next.

"She gave you her parent's phone number and it's on file online. If she doesn't give it to you, then you'll need to call her parents and ask them where they are because she absolutely cannot stay with you," he tells me before letting out a sigh. "just don't freak out, okay? She's just another kid that needs a bit more help than the others. Show her that she can trust you and then maybe she'll tell you."

I glance out the window to see her staring at her phone while looking up at the houses that held the numbers on them, probably looking for this one. "I gotta go. I'll call you later."

"Okay," Julian says before I hang up. I take a few seconds to breathe and calm myself down before opening the front door to show Nora that I was here. When she sees me, her eyes widen and she looks a little more frightened, so she freezes in her spot as we just keep eye contact. I can tell that she's debating to either come to me or turn around and head back to where she came from.

"What's going on, Nora?" I ask, remembering to keep my voice as soft as possible to not scare her off or anything. Once she hears my voice, she turns her head away from me as she starts to bite on her fingernails. I take a slow step towards her like I was trying to come closer to a cat without it running off. She glances up at me, her skin turning paler than I've ever seen it.

"I... I just..." she starts to say but ends up closing her mouth when she doesn't know what to tell me. I settle down on the small step on the porch, patting the spot next to me to ease her into talking. After a few seconds of mental debate, she nods her head before sitting down with me.

"What's going on? Are you hurt?" I ask in a whisper-like tone. I can hear Bailey barking from inside the house, but I ignore it as I focus on this teenage girl next to me that's obviously not doing too well. She looks absolutely terrified. Of what? I don't know. It could be me or it could be her guardians or could even be of herself, I had no idea.

"No, I'm... I'm not hurt. I'm scared," she whispers so low that I almost don't hear her.

"Scared of what? Did someone threaten you?" I ask her, noticing how my tone got a sort of an edge to it when I realize that someone might be hurting her. I had no idea what her home life was like and it could be bad, which is something I knew I needed to handle before I even thought of taking her back to her house.

"No one threatened me. It's just... my dad's mean, Miles. I... I don't like my house and I want to stay somewhere else. My mom is amazing, don't get me wrong. I just-" she says, but then she suddenly stops talking when a car starts driving down the road. I notice that she starts to shake a bit and I wrap my arm around her shoulder, which brings her some comfort.

"Do your parents know that you come to the center?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "They can't."

"Okay, then they don't know where you are. They can't get into the neighborhood without a code, so don't worry. You're safe right now," I whisper to her, which seems to help a bit because her trembling stops as she looks up at me.

"I'm sorry, I know this isn't right. I know I shouldn't be here. I just didn't have anywhere else to go and-" she starts before stopping when a tear runs down her face. For some reason, instead of feeling bad, I got this sense of danger for myself, but I didn't know why. This was a harmless teenage girl that looks like she couldn't even hurt a fly. I would be alright.

"Has your dad ever touched you? Ever hurt you?" I whisper to her. She debates for a second with a confused look before she shakes her head to tell me no. I let out a sigh, knowing that he probably mentally abuses her, but there's nothing that I could do tonight that would help that situation. I could call my CPS worker that helps with all of the Home Our Community stuff, but I didn't know if Nora wanted that. "Do you want me to call someone? They can place you somewhere temporary until they figure this out."

She immediately shakes her head, starting to tremble again beside me. "No, no, please, no. I can't go back. I can't go back into foster care. Please, Miles, please."

I tighten my grip on her as she starts to sob into her hands, seeming much worse than when she showed up. I suddenly feel guilt run through my body as I realize that I made this worse, so I turn in my spot to hold her in my arms. "I won't call anyone, Nora. I won't. But you can't stay here, I'm so sorry. Your parents are probably worried sick if they don't know where you are."

She sniffles, picking her head up to look at me as she wiped her eyes. I give her a soft smile as she nods her head, realizing that I'm right. "I know, but you can't take me home."

"Why not?" I ask in confusion. She hesitates for a second before standing up quickly and grabbing her bag. I stand with her, watching as she starts to move towards the sidewalk again as she clears her throat.

"Miles, you can't come to my house. They'll know who you are and they'll-" she starts, but I interrupt her by lightly grabbing her arm with a nod of the head. I hesitate myself because I get that same feeling of danger, but I push it out of my mind.

"Then I'll park a little bit away from your house and you can walk from there. They don't have to know I dropped you off or anything. But I'm absolutely not allowing you to walk home at this time of night, okay?" I tell her, looking into her eyes to show that I was serious. She nods her head before I motion for her to wait right there. I rush inside the house to grab my phone and keys before going back outside. I take her to my car, opening the passenger side door for her to let her get in.

Once I get in, I turn on the car and make my way towards the gate as I pull out my phone to tell her to put her address in. When she does, I start the GPS and drive towards her house. "I'm sorry."

"Why're you sorry?" I whisper, glancing at her for a second before looking back at the road in front of me. Her house wasn't too far away from mine, which made me feel better that she didn't walk too much in the dark. People can be a bit crazy around here, but we were in the rich part of the town, so I guess that was better.

"Just showing up and everything. I know that that must be a scary thing, so I'm sorry," she whispers, but I could tell that there was more that she wanted to say, but she didn't.

"Don't worry about it. But how did you get my address?" I ask her with curiosity.

"I just searched up Julian's name and it came up," she tells me and I knew that she didn't want to talk anymore, so I shut my mouth. I just focus on the road and try to figure out how to help her. She obviously had been through a trauma before in foster care and was going through the same thing with her adopted parents, well, I'm assuming she's adopted. She said 'mom' and 'dad', so I'm pretty sure they had adopted her.

After about a 15-minute car ride, I pull into the neighborhood and let out a big sigh when I see the bright red and blue flashing lights. Nora goes rigid next to me before she blindly grabs my arm as I park behind the police car that was talking to two people that I couldn't quite see. The police officers turn around when they see my headlights before making their way towards us. I turn to Nora really quick to give her some support. "It'll be okay. Your parents don't need to know that you've been coming to the center, but they're going to know that you know who I am now, but don't freak out. Everything will be okay."

Before she can respond, I jump out of my car, smiling at the police officers that were now waiting outside my car. As soon as they see my face, their faces clear of all confusion, which just confuses me more because did they know who I was or something? The blonde officer steps towards me with a look of admiration. "Miles Brigg?"

"Miles Brigg, yeah," I tell them. They instantly look worried before they glance to the man and the woman that was hugging Nora with scolding words while also sounding like they loved her. The man took a step back a bit with his arms crossed as he watches his wife hug their daughter to her chest, kissing her head. I feel like I recognized them from somewhere, but before I could think it through, the officers get my attention again.

"Did Nora show up at your house?" His deep voice asks me as he took out a notebook to write down what I was saying. I clear my throat before crossing my arms over my chest since I was starting to freeze.

"Uh, yeah, she did. Please, don't tell her parents, but she's been showing up to the support center that I run for LGBTQ+ youth and I've been trying to help her. She showed up tonight, completely scared out of her mind, but I convinced her to let me take her home," I tell them, but don't go into too much detail about what she told me since I knew she didn't want me to.

Before either of them could say anything to me, I hear heavy footsteps on the ground before a hand clamps on my shoulder. The officers weren't quick enough to react and a fist hits my nose so badly that I was sure that it was broken. I let out a yelp before staggering back, being caught against someone's chest as the man in front of me is restrained before being slammed against the hood of my car. "You pervert! I bet you tried to rub your gay off on her too, huh? You probably told her horror stories about us or something, even though you know nothing! Absolutely nothing, you faggot!"

I'm immediately confused as I watch the man try to break free from the police officer's hold. The officer that was holding me made sure I was okay before going to help his partner restrain the man. As soon as he gets over there, the man fights even harder, ending up hitting the men a few times. I just watch them as one of the men pulls out handcuffs before he struggles to put them around his wrists. "Mr. Caldwell, just calm down!"

It's like a bucket of ice water pours over me when I hear the name. Of course, they were Julian's parents. Of fucking course. Nora specifically wanted to talk to Julian, knew where our house was, didn't want to tell me who her parents were, didn't want me to meet them. There were so many clues that I didn't even take the time to see. It was almost glaringly obvious now that I realized it. I should've seen it earlier because now, I just created this whole mess that would probably tear Julian apart.

I look over at Nora to see her crying into her hands as her mother just stares right at me, looking completely confused. I take a step back, hating how she was looking at me. But... she didn't look angry. Or upset. Or distraught. She just looked confused as she looked at me. Mr. Caldwell was obviously very angry by the way he was screaming at the officers as he was forced in the backseat of the police car. Once they made sure he wasn't going to get out, they started to walk towards me, sweat gleaming on their foreheads.

"I'm so sorry about that, Mr. Brigg," one of the officers said, now speaking to me in a remorseful tone. The police officer that was talking to me reaches into his pocket to grab a tissue before carefully pressing it to my nose to stop the blood that was gushing out into my hands as I held it. I didn't even realize that it hurt like a bitch because I was so focused on the events that just unfolded in front of me.

"Um, so," the other officer states, looking unsure about what to do in this situation. "you'll need to go to the hospital and get that checked out because it could be broken. We can just take your statement there. Would you like us to call your husband?"

"Fiance," I tell them, sounding distracted as I watch Nora's mom usher her inside. The officers notice that and one of them leaves me to go over to them, probably also needing a statement about everything. "but, um, yeah. I'll go to the hospital."

"Do you feel well enough to drive or would you like me to contact an ambulance?" The officer asks.

"I can drive," I say before we both go to our vehicles. I get in my car while he gets in his own to probably call for back-up to meet me at the nearest hospital. I debate whether I wanted to call Julian, but I decide against it as I put the car in drive.

Nora's my sister-in-law. She's my fucking sister-in-law. How could I not recognize that? I mean, yeah, she's adopted, but she's probably acting the same way that Julian acted when he was growing up. Scared and skittish of every little thing. Growing up with a father like that would definitely do that to you. I push all of those thoughts out of my mind as I put down the tissue since my nose wasn't bleeding as much anymore and focus on getting to the hospital in one piece.

The night's not even over yet and I'm already so overwhelmed and ready to go to sleep.