She sounded tired. My woman sounded how I felt, and I was the selfish asshole too busy focusing on his own issues to help her with hers.
“Maybe one day we’ll listen.” I pushed my ass off the back of the bike and stood tall, stretching my legs and rolling my neck. “You should sleep,” I told her softly.
“I’d sleep much better with you here.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Concerned Ayda doesn’t sleep. Concerned Ayda isn’t still. Concerned Ayda is full of worries for everyone but herself, and she’d spend all night making sure I was okay while letting herself go to shit.” I found myself smirking, imagining the look of disgust on her face, and picturing her mouthing that I’m an asshole down the phone, or some other genuinely cute insult being sent my way. “You love too much.”Me too much,I wanted to add.You love me too much.
She huffed out another laugh, but the sound died in her throat as she pushed out her next sentence with little to no breaths at all. “Concerned Ayda sounds like a bore. FuckedAyda would sleep the night away.”
“I sure do miss that smart-ass mouth of yours.” My small smile grew as I walked around my bike and glanced up at the building in front of me again. “But trust me, the smell of alcohol and smoke on me would dirty all your sheets in all the wrong ways tonight.”
She released the breath she’d been holding. “Maybe another night then, but if you come in and I’m still star-fished in the middle of the bed, consider it an invitation. Just make sure you come home, ‘kay?”
“I promise.”
“I love you, Drew Tucker.”
I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me, tensing my jaw and working the muscles there before I looked down at the ground and spoke. “Wait for me.”
“Forever and a day.”
I hung up, my arm falling limp and my cell smacking my thigh as the weight of it seemed heavier than any loaded gun I’d ever held. Ayda was braver than she realized, stronger, too. I wanted nothing more than to go to her, but I also wanted to save her the pain of seeing me so fucked up. Yes, I’d warned her that grief changed me, but not even I’d known how this burning feeling in my chest would rise the second I took a breath in the morning, searing my skin until I somehow managed to close my eyes at night.
Burn, burn, burn, the flames licked my stomach, the growl of the heat inside me being constantly fanned by air that was so weak and faint at times, yet it somehow managed to have the effects of an almighty hurricane on my need for revenge. It only took something small to make me snap. Add the guilt I felt on top of that—the fact that it should have been me inthose cells, not Harry, as well as the guilt I felt for Ayda and all my brothers—and I was a fucking mess. The only one who seemed to evoke no emotions from me whatsoever was my father.
The man who was walking toward me from the back of one of the Navs’ buildings we’d discovered.
Eric sauntered closer, neither worry or anger showing on his face or in his controlled swagger. He looked totally calm.
“Nobody there?” I asked, clearing my throat of the softer tones I’d just used on Ayda.
“I told you, it’s been empty for years now.”
“To say you’ve been away a while, you know a lot about the shit that goes on here in Texas.”
“A good leader has eyes and ears everywhere, son—Drew,” he corrected himself.
My face fell, and the two of us stared at each other, waiting for the other to speak first.
“Don’t,” I finally said coldly.
“Sorry.”
“Let’s save son for Harry’s memory from now on.”
“Got it.” He nodded, pushing both hands into his jeans’ pockets and staring at me, cool and hard. Sometimes, when I looked at him for a certain amount of time, it felt like I was looking at a carbon copy of myself in twenty years time. His eyes were just like mine, only more assured these days. His jaw was strong. His stance was… it was all Tucker. The two of us were born with arrogance running through our veins, it seemed.
And sometimes, when he looked at me for a certain amount of time, it felt like he was looking at one giant disappointment.
He never said it, but there was an echo of something in his eyes.
A lingering shame.
I took one last glance at the building behind him, looking up at the roofing and at some of the loose tiles that were slanted out of place. The dirty moonlight of the night showed me just enough, but I was also aware of how much that kind of night could hide.
“We should get out of here,” I said quietly.
“You’re too suspicious, Drew. Of everything. Everyone. Every—”