“No? What do you mean no?”
“Do you want to hear it in a different language?” I quipped. “You are under my protection now. Giving you a gun wouldn’t do anything but piss me off, because despite what you may think, I do know you. I know the second you have a gun in your hand, you’ll get a wild hair up your ass and go after Gordon yourself. Just like you went after your brother.”
“Hayes—”
I pointed at her bruise. “This will never happen to you again. That is my promise to you, but in order for me to keep that, you have to let me do what I need to do.”
There was a stretch of inflated silence, both of us staring at each other as she weighed her options. She was either going to push back on this or give me another shred of mercy. Mercy I wasn’t afraid to beg for. I’d get on my knees for her if it meant I could protect her and keep her safe from the dangers of her past and the ones we had yet to face.
“Okay, Superman,” she finally said softly. “You can move in.”
Chapter Seventeen
Margo
“Your apartment is nice,” I said to him as I stared out at Portland. Raindrops hit his floor-to-ceiling windows, the soft pelts filling the strange silence that seemed to have taken over from the moment he opened the door. He was behind me, in the kitchen, typing on his laptop as he muttered a “thank you.” Then I heard him move down the hall, into his bedroom.
His apartmentwasnice. One of the nicest ones I’d ever stepped into. It was a stark reminder of how different he and I were, how the worlds we came from had shaped us in different ways. With my arms wrapped around myself, I snuck a peek over my shoulder, taking in his white marbled kitchen, stainless steel appliances, and barstools. There was no color in this space. Everything was cold, hard, and unwelcoming. Hell, even his couch looked like stone. A shiver trickled down my spine as I wondered what he must’ve come from to live in such a cold place. Moving my gaze back to the window, I came to one conclusion: this apartment wasn’t Hayes’ home. It was a place for rest and sleep, nothing more.
A wave of sadness hit me then, knowing how beautiful his life could be with warmth and color.
My mind drifted back to the colors splashed all over my apartment, the warm and welcoming organized chaos of it all. I came from pain, but what kind of pain did he come from not wanting any warmth in his life?
“Margo?”
I blinked, shaking my head as I snapped out of it. “Yeah?” I called back, turning around. He was standing at the mouth of the hall, a large black duffel back over his shoulder, laptop tucked by the opposite thigh. He’d changed into a fresh pair of jet-black tactical cargo pants and a gray thermal. My eyes dropped to the gun on his hip, a lump forming in my throat as fear coiledaround my neck. “You ready to go?” he asked when I lifted my eyes to his face.
Slowly, I nodded. “Do you have everything you need?”
“Yes.”
“Just one bag?” I inquired.
“Don’t need much, Temper. Come on. We need to get on the road before the second wave of storms hit.”
Twenty minutes later, he swung his Jeep into the front parking space of a little Italian restaurant, the rain coming down harder now. I looked into the building, noting the red and white checkered tablecloths and bright, smiling customers, their coats draped over the backs of their chairs, steaming plates of food in front of them.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, looking at his profile.
He was on his phone, thumbs moving over the screen. “Picking up lunch,” he answered, popping open his door, leaving his phone on the dash. “Sit tight for a second, baby.”
The butterflies in my stomach swarmed in a heated frenzy as I watched him go inside. “He has to stop calling me that before I fall in love with him,” I grumbled to myself, watching him smile at the older gentleman standing at the host stand. “Damn him for being so perfect.”
My brows furrowed as the words I’d just said hit me, along with the blaring truth behind them.
Before I fall in love with him?
I swallowed, twisting my fingers together in my lap, the rain hitting the roof of the Jeep in rapid succession. Hard, cold drops of the harsh reality trying to get to me, to soak me, isolate me. Yet I was covered by him. He surrounded me, protecting parts of me I didn’t have the strength to. My eyes stayed on him, my nails digging into my skin as he took the bag of food from a server, nodding in thanks as he flashed them another dazzling smile.
This wasn’t me before the fall.
I was already falling.
In fact, I’d been falling since the moment he kissed me after my shift, his hands cupping my face, my back against the Buoy, the taste of rum on his tongue…
“Dammit, Margo,” I muttered with a sigh, too tired to be angry about it. There was no stopping love, and I knew better than to fight this. However, neither of us was in the right place to discuss it. Not with my ex stealing my money.
His phone vibrated three times on the dash, the force of it making it fall into his seat. His screen lit up with a picture of a younger version of him and a woman who had his eyes.