“Ayda.”
I glanced back and met his eyes again, but he didn’t say anything else. He just shook his head, turned, and walked away. There was a lot of that going around these days. My name had become some weird anchor that seemed to replace whatever words they felt uncomfortable saying aloud. Only I wasn’t sure I always translated them correctly.
I watched Jedd disappear into the darkness of the bar, and I closed my eyes to draw in more strength as the voices rolled from the room in a quiet rumble. Everyone was concerned. They had seen Drew break before when Pete died at the hands of an enemy. They understood that the fallout this time was going to be so much worse. Their president wasn’t quite there yet, but he was heading to that edge, and they were looking at me to derail him.
With another long draw of breath, I turned to face the direction of the path Drew had taken. There was a weight inmy stomach that had nothing to do with excitement at seeing my man. This feeling was more trepidation. It was a steely resolve to ignore the rejection that was sure to follow this encounter.
I took off before I had a chance to change my mind, each step carrying me closer to the door that was closing him off from the rest of The Hut and the men inside it. Drew couldn’t keep me out, though. He shared this room with me. It’s why I didn’t bother knocking and chose instead to push the door out of my way the same way I did every other time I passed through it.
“Hey, you’re home,” I said casually, leaning against the frame of the door.
His back was to me, his shoulders hunched, but I didn’t miss the slight flinch of them when he heard my voice before he dragged a hand down his face to wipe something away. He carefully began to peel off his gloves, tossing them into a corner of the room and letting out a heavy, weighted breath.
“Hey,” he said with no emotion at all. “Yeah. Home.” Drew cleared his throat and rubbed the palms of his hands together, keeping his chin tucked to his chest so I couldn’t see anything about him. “I need a drink. Get me a whiskey, darlin’, while I take a shower, will ya?”
I tried to hide my reaction. He didn’t even call me darlin’ the way he used to. There was no smoothness to it anymore. This had become a line in his script, and he was reading it to an audience who knew him too well to miss the subtle differences he expected me to ignore.
“I’d rather scrub your back,” I replied lightly, my teeth impaling my bottom lip in anticipation of the resoundingnohe was undoubtedly going to feed me.
Drew wrung his hands together, his forearms tense and tight. “Just the drink first, Ayda.”
He shifted across the room, not looking my way or even attempting to glance at me as he peeled his cut away from his shoulders and let it fall down his arms.
“Better than a no.”
I stepped farther into the room rather than leaving, and I closed the door with a gentle push. The last time Drew had used this excuse on me—and it was an excuse—I’d made a point of putting a bottle of his favorite whiskey in the dresser that held my underwear. I could see the tension in his shoulders as I made my way across the room unapologetically and pulled open the drawer.
“I assume you would like the whole bottle?” I held it out to him by the neck and rocked the bottle from side to side between us, the amber liquid barely moving in the neck.
He didn’t answer me. The careless drop of his cut on the floor followed by the slam of the bathroom door said everything for him. I heard the water begin to hiss down against the tiles beyond the wall, and I swear I heard Drew muttering something angry to himself, which he thought was drowned out by the noise of the water. A second later, he moved back toward the door, and I heard the lock click.
“Two minutes,” he called roughly.
“Your whiskey may not last that long,” I muttered as I broke the seal and took a mouthful of the gut rot whiskey he loved so damn much. The alcohol burned its way down my throat and sat heavily in my empty stomach, while I stared at the door willing it to open enough for me to slip inside and just… well, at this point, fucking him would be good enough. Just some kind of connection between us that I could hold onto for another couple of months while this empty man wore Drew’s skin.
I spun in a circle and looked at the bed, then the clothes on the floor, not missing the dark crimson stains that had already begun to dry. His cut, crumpled on the floor, was so well worn, Harry’s RIP patch looked stark in contrast.
“Tell me what to do, Harry,” I said, bending to pick up the cut in my free hand, and rubbing the knuckles of my bottle-holding hand over his name. “You always knew how to get through that hard, stubborn head of his.”
I didn’t know what I was expecting, but nothing happened, and when I finally gave up on getting a response, I laid the cut over the back of the chair in the corner and stared at the faint red stain that it left behind on the palm of my hand. I stared at the pink stain long and hard, the bottle moving to my mouth over and over again as I talked myself out of the freak out session that was beginning to bubble under the surface of my calm.
It was blood.
Whose blood?
I didn’t know.
Did I want to know?
Would it do any good knowing?
It sure as hell didn’t fix anything. Drew was too far away to pull back now, and I was out of ideas on how to even begin to help him. Stumbling back until my legs hit the bed, I fell back on my ass, my eyes still staring at the smear of drying blood on my palm.
I was so lost in thought that the pinging alert from his phone behind the door made me jump. The shower shut off quickly and his wet footsteps slapped against the floor. Thesilence that took over was suffocating until I heard his muted growl.
Two minutes later, with my eyes still firmly fixed on the room he was hiding in, I heard the click of the lock before the door began to open. When my fiancé stepped out, he looked as ridiculously handsome as always. His hair was wet and pushed back, beads forming at the ends and exposing his scowl, but there was no thrill of delight at his half-naked body because he hadn’t given me that option. He’d dressed in the dirty clothes he’d been wearing when he went in there, the only difference being the little patches of water that made the dark colors impossibly darker.
Drew scanned the room for his cut before his eyes landed on my body perched on the bed. They lingered, heated on my thighs, and for one fleeting moment, I held some hope that he had the same desires for me that I had for him. Then his eyes snapped to the cut on the back of the chair, and he made his way toward it swiftly, blinking back the hint of lust that had made an appearance.