AN: This EPOV is an outtake from chapter 14 of SoCal.

++The Last Warning++

When I pull up to the curb, I notice two things: Bean's barely able to keep her eyes open and Charlie's waiting for us. Every light in the apartment is on. It's a road flare, and a signal to me. I'm not welcomed, and he hopes I'm smart enough to know to stay away.

In normal circumstances, I'd mind my business and let people work out their shit, but Bean's clutching her stomach and looking a little green behind the gills.

"You need me to go with you?" I make it look as though I'm asking, but I have no intent on letting her go in there alone.

"I don't know," she says, chewing on her lip and glancing down at her phone. It kills me to see her this tore-up over Charlie. "Maybe, you can come up to the apartment and wait outside for me?"

I agree to her terms but deviate by keeping myself close when we get out of the car. She stays in step with me and allows my hand to rest on her lower back. It takes much effort on my part not to hold her too tight. Jasper's better than me with intimacy and can be gentle with her.

I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.

Bean stops right before the door to listen. I hear Charlie pacing the floor as my phone vibrates for the fifth time in an hour. It's from him. He's been calling and texting and being a fucking nuisance. The asshole knows I'm all over this.

He's known for a while.

Bean doesn't look scared, only nervous about being grounded or some shit, but my girl doesn't see the storm brewing inside.

I put myself between her and the danger. "Do you need me to come in?"

"No, I should be…" she says, but her eyes go wide when Charlie opens the door. He doesn't even see me. All his focus is on Bean. He looks relieved. That puts me at ease, and I relax. I even step away, but the shuffle of my sandals catches his ears, and now he looks at me. Bean thinks he's directing his hate at her and she shrinks under his scowl. "Hi, Charlie, what's up?"

"Inside, Isabella. NOW!"

"I'm sorry," she stammers and runs inside.

I follow her, but Charlie tries to block me. He pokes me in the chest with his stubby little finger. "Get out of my house."

"No," I put my hands behind my back and widen my stance. "Not until I know she's safe."

"I'm her father. Of course, she's—"

"You called the cops on me?!" Bean yells.

The fury in her eyes is primal and sexy. I did a lot of things, in the beginning, to piss her off. The way her beautiful browns were set ablaze when she told me off made me want her in a way I didn't believe was possible. There's only one other person who made me feel that way—Bam! The door slams, but I don't react and stay posted at the entryway.

You never abandon your only exit.

That's the first rule of being in a hostile situation.

And Charlie is fucking hostile.

"Damn right, I did. Where in the hell were you? Why didn't you pick up your phone?" He shouts, and I think it's to me, but then he pulls out some bullshit concern. "I thought you were in a ditch somewhere."

"I was in Berkeley," she says, but looks down at her feet.

Wait a minute. Was Bean ashamed? I found her response to be odd.

"Why were you in Berkeley?" Charlie asks, and I hold back a snort. The asshole knows damn well why she was there. "Jasper, right? You were with him."

"And Edward," she says.

"Edward?" Charlie plays stupid.

All right then, I'll be a part of his charade. I hold out my hand as if I was meeting my girl's father for the first time. "Right here, sir."

"I swear to God…" He looks back at her and grumbles.

"He's just a friend, Dad!" she shoots back.

I'm surprised by how that term, no matter how accurate it is, rubs me wrong. It fucking sucks. I don't want to be this girl's friend. I wanted her to see me as more than that. I wanted to be her guy.

Fuck!

"Just a friend, huh?" Charlie smells bullshit and glares. The father of the only girl I've ever liked hates me and it fucking kills. "How old are you, Sailor?"

Bean doesn't catch his slip.

I try not to roll my eyes as I answer. "Twenty-four, sir."

"Dad, it's not like that…" she whimpers somewhere in the living room, but my focus is elsewhere.

"You do know that my daughter is seventeen, right?"

"Yes, sir," I answer.

It's a problem. Not one I enjoy. How easy would shit be if Bean was of age? Could I stay away from her for a year?

Fucking doubtful.

"And you still have the balls to walk into my house?" Charlie walks over to the kitchen islander and picks up the phone. "I'm calling the cops."

He's bluffing to get a rise out of me, but she doesn't know that. I don't move as she springs up from the couch and rushes to stop her father. He doesn't put up a fight when she rips the receiver out of his hand.

"You can't do that to me, Dad. I'll never forgive you!"

"Isabella, I told you what would happen if you didn't listen to me."

"But you don't understand!" Bean glances back at me, and her eyes are glossy and bloodshot.

Don't cry, solider.

Don't you dare let that fucking asshole win!

"While you're under my roof, you'll follow my rules, and that's it! If you don't like it, you can pack up your shit and move back in with your mom," he threatens.

The thought of her going back to Arizona makes me do something rash and stupid.

"Or she can leave with me."

"What?" They say in surprised unison.

"Pack what you can, okay?" I say to Bean.

"What?" I see her from the corner of my eye, so tiny and fragile at this moment. "Are you sure?"

Jesus! Yes, I'm sure. I wouldn't have said it if I wasn't.

Glaring at her, I don't voice my thoughts out loud. She wipes those tears from her face, and I want to kill the fucker for making my girl cry, but she listens and scrambles to her room.

Charlie and I are finally alone. We cut the bullshit. He puts on a good act, and she doesn't know how much he knows me, but the truth will come out.

"Sailor?" I say to him. "How in the fuck is that being inconspicuous?"

"How is dating my daughter being inconspicuous?"

"It just happened," I say, but that's no excuse.

Charlie peeks his head around the corner and sees Bean's bedroom door closed. "We had a deal. Jasper knew she was off limits and goes behind my back anyway. You were supposed to end this shit. I was relying on you to set your boy straight."

I don't flinch or give him anything.

Yes, I remember the deal.

Charlie wrote me while I was in Afghanistan and demanded I nip the 'romance' in the bud, but I blew it off. Jasper wasn't the type to mix business with pleasure. Charlie was overreacting and taking his friendliness as more than it was.

That's what I wrote back in my letter and paid no mind to his growing concerns.

Besides, there was nothing to worry about, the girl was young, sixteen at the time, and our business partner's daughter. Jasper couldn't be that stupid.

He was.

But so was I.

What happened with Bean was something we both fought against and not something either of us wanted. Fuck, I hated the way she affected me. That hate and anger kept me sane and stable for a long time, but after a while, the girl gets underneath the skin and changes the game.

"Things are different now, Charlie. Where do we go from here? She's going to find out that Jasper's more than your drug dealer. Even if she wasn't involved with us."

He scoffs and throws himself on the couch. "I can't believe my daughter is screwing two guys like some…"

I ball my hands into fists and warn him through my gritted teeth. "Watch it."

"Watch it?" He's turning red in the face. "You and your boyfriend are sleeping with my seventeen-year-old daughter, and I'm the asshole for wanting to put a stop to it?"

I nod, because, through all his blustering, I know it's more about him than it is about Bean. "What's the real issue, Charlie? Business won't change. You'll still get your money and your dope—"

"I don't trust her to keep her fucking mouth shut!"

There's the man I know, but I'm thrown off by how the callousness towards his daughter makes me feel. I want to break his jaw into a million pieces and curb-stomp his fucking skull. My fists are hurting because I'm so tense and enraged. The only thing that stops me from ending him is the faint creak of Bean opening her door. I go back into my earlier Military stance and Charlie puts on his best distraught father act.

We don't look at each other, but we're both in agreement on one thing: Neither of us wants her to know what kind of man he is and the father he is not.

I catch the whiff of her perfume in the breeze that carries her before our eyes meet. She's disheveled, only has one bag, but looking so overwhelmed—like she's holding the weight of the world in that one bag.

It's time to get her far away from this fucker.

"Are you ready?"

She nods and glances over at Charlie. "I'm sorry."

"About what?" He plays into her guilt and lays it on thick. "Not calling your dad to let him know you're okay? Or lying to his face about everything?"

Bean's wounded. I see it as clearly as if Charlie pulled out a gun and shot her squarely in the chest. Jasper's bullshit about serenity and forgiveness and all that fucking Buddha nonsense keeps me from walking over to Charlie and strangling him to death.

"You wouldn't let me see them if I told you the truth," she says.

"Damn right, I wouldn't. You're messing around with two grown men, and you're only seventeen! A child. You're my little girl—Jesus!"

I breathe through my nose and close my eyes. Bean's leaving with me. That's all that matters. Stay calm. Don't react. Don't flinch.

"But it's obvious you're going to do as you please," he says.

"Dad…" she lets it linger there.

"Just go, Bella. Leave before I change my mind."

When my eyes open, Bean is standing in the room alone and depleted. Charlie left her there to go toke up in the kitchen. I hope it's the last bit of his 'Jasper' stash. The way he's mistreated our girl tonight, he'll have to come begging on his knees to get any weed from me again.

But I can't think about that now.

"Come on," I say, and let myself get close. My arm goes around Bean's waist as I lead her out. "It's going to be okay."

Shit doesn't get real for me until Bean walks past my front door. I watch her as she looks over my place. There's this anxiety I've never had before. Will she like it here? How will I be as a roommate? I've never lived with a girl before. It's unknown and scary as fuck. What am I doing… but then I tilt my head in amusement as Bean takes it all in… and she's…so painfully beautiful.

She closes her eyes and breathes in deep; letting out a soft hum.

That settles it for me, but I don't want her to change her mind. Grabbing the bag from her shoulders, I toss it aside and close the door.

She's moved in for good.

"So…" Bean pops her knuckles and takes a small, unsure step my way. "This place seems nice."

I'm not ignorant.

I know what it means having her in my house. We've been alone before, but this is different…and unsupervised. The weight of the situation crushes my chest, and I can't look at her in the face, but I want to be near her.

"You can sleep in my bed if you want," I offer.

It's a decent thing to do.

"With you?"

That catches my attention. The suggestion in Bean's tone implies something more. When I look at her, it's clear she means it the way I'm taking it.

"Is that what you want?"

"Yeah," she says, and I can't stop staring at her mouth. "Don't you?"

I chuckle and shake my head.

Christ!

This girl makes it impossible to be a good boy.

If I get her in my bed, sleeping will be the last thing on fucking mind, and I answer with thoughts of her naked and moaning. "No, Bean, I don't want that."

"Okay, I'll sleep on the couch then." She bites her bottom and lip, forcing a cute, but sad smile. "Or is that a futon?"

"It's a futon," I say, barely manage to get this shit out because I'm terrified and we're treading on dangerous territory.

She nods, and moves that way, but puts my world in a chaotic tailspin with that goddamned perfume. I grab her by the arm and hold her as I'm yelling at myself: No. Don't move. Just stay here and think about the consequences.

Fuck!

Jasper suckered punch me with this girl, forcing her on me, and now? She's all I ever think about or all ever see when I close my fucking eyes. I'm not her friend or some guy letting her crash on his futon. I'm her guy. She fucking owns me. The reality of the situation scars me like that damn IED.

But if Jasper was here right now, would she even consider me?

I give her a gentle squeeze and pull her back to me, but don't look into her eyes. "Tell me…" and I almost chicken out, "…I'm not a consolation prize."

"You're not a consolation prize," she whispers.

Tightening my hold on her, I need to see her response when she learns the truth. "I'm not soft like Jasper."

Bean gulps but keeps my gaze. "I don't want you to be."

Grabbing her by both arms, I push her up against the nearest wall so she can't get away. The girl is lithe, somewhat fragile, but strong, and she doesn't fight me. She looks and smells good, and I want her more than I can fucking stand, but there's no turning back once my mouth gets a taste.

I issue my last warning.

"Are you sure about that?"