A wave of gratitude that again, I do not fucking deserve, washes over me. “Thank you. No arguing tonight.”
“Good. Now, you go on about your night. We got this down here.”
I reach out to shake his hand, but he wraps his big beefy arms around me instead and claps my back hard.
“Go get some sleep. Q says we’re talking shit through in the morning.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him that Q isn’t calling the shots on this, but I’m too fucking beat.
“I’ll see you in the morning. Both of you.” I shake Hal’s hand, and then I head for the door into the service station and lock the dead bolt behind me.
As I take the stairs, I can’t help but replay what the hell happened tonight. Moses at my desk. Bump with a gun to his head. Seeing the barrel pointed at Scarlett.
Fuck.I’ve dreamed it before. And in my nightmares, it ended in a bloodbath. I should at least be grateful that my worst fears didn’t come true.
I stop outside Bump’s apartment, but his voice is coming from my place, so I move down the hall. When I open my door, I find both him and Scarlett in the middle of the living room, surrounded by pillows, blankets, and couch cushions.
Bump built a fort out of two cushions and a blanket, and he’s tucked inside with his long legs sticking out. He’s smiling from ear to ear, and it stops me in my tracks.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Scarlett says from her position on the floor next to a blanket pile. “I told Bump we could have a sleepover.”
“Isn’t this awesome, Gabe? I made a cave! I’m gonna sleep in it. And you and Scarlett can have the air mattress. I just don’t know where it is. You still have it, right? From that time I slept on your floor?”
I meet Scarlett’s warm gray gaze with more fucking gratitude. “Good idea, ladybug. A sleepover is exactly what we need.”
She rises and comes to me as Bump lowers the blanket to hide himself in his cave. Scarlett wraps her arms around my sides. “I thought it’d be better if we were all together tonight,” she whispers.
The warmth of her body against mine settles some of the chaos in my mind.I could have lost her tonight.I breathe in the scent of her skin and hair, and close my eyes. “You were right. Thank you.”
She shifts, and my lids lift to see her staring up at me. “We’re going to figure this out. We’re a team. You’re not going to push me away and give me some bullshit excuse that it’s to keep me safe. I’m part of this, whether you want me to be or not. Okay?”
I rest my forehead against hers. “I don’t know what to say right now. Give me a few hours to process all this shit. We’ll sort it out tomorrow.” I press a kiss to the tip of her nose, and she nods.
“I can handle that. Now ... where’s that air mattress?”
Six
Legend
Lying in the dark,even with Scarlett’s head against my chest and the sound of Bump’s deep breathing coming from across the room, there’s no way in hell I can sleep.
Not after tonight. Not after everything Moses said.
Fuck. Me.
Him and Jorie? How is that even possible? Every time I’ve tried to think about it, my brain has thrown up roadblocks. But this time, I push through them. I have to consider what he said. Could he have been lying?
I wouldn’t put anything past him, and if he was trying to rile or rattle me, that would do the trick. But ... before I rule it out as total bullshit, I have to consider that he might have been telling the truth, and the only other person who could corroborate it—that I would believe—is dead.
God, I’ve carried the guilt of her death on my conscience every day since Bump crawled home to tell me. For me, it’s always been as if I pulled the trigger myself, because if I hadn’t jacked the truck and sold Moses’s shit, he never would have come looking for me and found her and Bump instead.
But in the dark, with the woman I love lying in my arms, I have to consider the alternative.
What if Moses was telling the truth?
Jorie, what did you do? And for fuck’s sake ... why?
No man ever wants to think about the possibility that his woman stepped out on him, but for some reason, this feels even worse.