“Hold the whiskey. I have to ride out somewhere real quick,” Drew said like he was talking to a stranger he’d met in the street. Drew’s nostrils flared as he marched across the room, picked up his precious leather and slung it over his black hoodie. I didn’t miss the same bloodstains on that as I’d seen on his cut.
“Drew.”
There it was.
Now I was saying his name the same way some of the guys used mine.
I had nothing to follow, nothing to add. There were no hopes and dreams attached or even inflection in my tone. Justhis name. A reminder that I was still here, that I still cared, and that I wanted him now more than ever. I would wait for him. All of these thoughts, dreams, and hopes were packed into one word: his name.
I couldn’t stick around to see if I’d gained his attention. I also couldn’t bear to see the indifference in his eyes as they found mine, so I rushed to the bathroom and turned the faucet on as hot as it would go before shoving my hand under the stream and watching as the red faded to pink before running clear again. This finally took me back to where I was comfortable: in my denial. It was where I still had hope and where the love I had for this man was capable of fixing anything.
I dropped my stinging palms to the sink and sucked in a breath, waiting for the sound of the door to open and close as he left. I waited and waited.
But the bathroom door was thrust open in a surprise move, the clang of the wood hitting the wall causing me to flinch and look in his direction. There he stood. My tall, dark, tortured man, looking much like he had the first time I saw him, only this time he was haunted by the sadness he hadn’t accepted rather than a burning need to show his power to the world. Drew’s eyes flickered to mine only briefly before he looked away and walked forward with his usual confidence.
I hitched in a breath, and when his hand reached out to cup my neck, I held that breath in my chest and looked up into his eyes—his familiar eyes, which were now aimed directly at my mouth.
“Its just grief, Ayda. Don’t say my name like I’m a lost cause. I love you, and no fucked up situation can ever take that away from my little black heart.” His fingers flexed againstmy skin, and I watched as he swallowed like he was guilty of something. When the pad of his thumb ran calming lines against my pulsating skin, I let myself believe he was back. “Wait for me,” he whispered.
And no sooner had he given me hope, he took it away when he closed his eyes and turned away.
Without thinking, I reached out and tucked my fingers in the waist of his jeans and pulled him back to me. I pushed to my toes, taking the element of surprise to kiss the corner of his mouth with affection, and whispering, “Forever.”
I dropped back and away, releasing him with a shy smile. One day I would tell him exactly how I felt standing here in this small bathroom with him, but today wasn’t that day, and I had to let him go.
Chapter Two
DREW
Itore through the streets of Babylon, weaving in and out of traffic, running red lights, and not giving a fuck about the consequences of my actions. The world had sped up around me, and I had to get to wherever I was going fast. Faster. I was never fast enough. I couldn’t outrun the ghosts anymore.
My tires kicked up a spray of stones and dust where I half-spun into a parking spot right outside the hospital, hidden away where all the trash compartments were stored.
“So much for being discreet,” Sutton said with a smirk on his face.
I ran my tongue over my bottom lip before I raised my brows in acknowledgment and threw my leg over the bike.
Howard Sutton was leaning against his cruiser, his arms folded over his chest as he watched me approach.
“Discreet isn’t exactly my way of life,” I told him.
“No shit.”
I reached out to accept the hand he offered to me, my palm slapping against it before I pulled him towards me and tapped his back with my free hand—an embrace that had come to tell him more than I could verbalize with actual words these days.
“You look like hell,” he said when he pulled back and searched my bloodshot eyes. “Smell like it, too.”
“That’ll be the blood.”
“Blood?” Sutton raised a brow before he let his gaze fall to my cut, and then the sleeves of my hoodie. “Jesus Christ, Tucker, I’m wearing the badge. I don’t want to know. Don’t fucking tell me.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
Sutton blew out a breath, shook his head and stepped around me. I spun on my heels to watch him as he ran a worried hand over his forehead.
“You know, you damn near killed me earlier this year for teaching Ayda to shoot behind your back. You squeezed your fingers against my throat, and you were ready to make both her and me pay for lying to you.” He placed his hands on his hips and looked up at me through heavy, creased brows. “Tell me how this is different. How is what you’re doing now any different to what the girl did then?”
I blinked, staring at him like I was bored. “If Ayda asks me any questions, I won’t tell her a single lie. She doesn’t ask because, deep down in her heart, she already knows. She knows she won’t like the answers I have to give.”