Page 50 of Savage Spades

Her words were like a punch straight to his gut. It was so long ago that his memory was fuzzy. He’d found the club months before his dad had gone to jail when he was just a teenager himself. He hadn’t thought about what Megan was dealing with at home. Kit had found a place that accepted him and he’d been too busy doing everything he could to stay in that spot. By the time their dad had been put away, he’d been spending every waking hour at the club.

“Megan--”

She put a hand up to stop him. “I don’t want to get into this tonight…please.”

He wanted to push her, but she was in a fragile state right now. But wasn’t she always? Megan was always one step away from falling into another bender. Instead of leaving, he took a deep breath and joined her on the couch. She inched away from him.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know Dad’s drinking had gotten that bad. I found a place that accepted me, and I was just trying to make the best of it. If I had known, I would have been there.”

She stayed silent. The only sound in the apartment was the air conditioning running.

“In treatment, they encourage us to make amends. I never have,” she admitted.

He waited for her to continue. He made a mistake all those years ago, but Megan had hurt him too. All the lying and stealing was hard to look past.

“I’m sorry for everything. I’ve been so mad at you for so long. I came back because I don’t have anybody else, Kit. When we were little, it was just you and me, and then you joined the club, and Dad got sick, and I was just so mad at the world and everyone.”

He wrapped an arm around his little sister as she cried. He stayed quiet as she let herself feel all the emotions. After a while, she wiped her face and smiled at him.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“I’m sorry, too.”

“Can we start over? I just want to put all this behind us. I want my brother back.”

“I never left,” he reassured her. Even when she’d been in California, he’d always worried about her.

“So, where are you going now?” she asked him.

“Well, now that you’re okay, I have something else I need to deal with.”

“Cam?” she asked

He raised an eyebrow at her.

“We might have talked at the hospital. I like her…a lot. Don’t screw it up.”

He swallowed. “I’m trying not to.”

Chapter Eighteen

Cam

She knew it was him before turning around. Her regulars were already sitting in their spots, and Zeke hadn’t shown up this morning. She figured the whole babysitting thing was over now that they knew what Venom wanted. She wiped a towel over the wet glass, feeling his eyes at her back.

“Can we talk?” he asked, his voice heavy. Ignoring him, she placed the dry glass down and picked up another.

“Cam?”

The way he said her name brought a heaviness to her chest. She was stupid to think there might have been the potential for something more with him. The sound of the barstool scraping across the floor finally made her turn around and face him. His hand was on the back of the stool he’d pulled out but hadn’t sat down yet.

“You’re going to ignore me?” Kit asked

Ernie sipped his beer and watched the two of them.

“Like the way you ignored me when I called you five times? Or when I showed up in your bedroom and tried to talk to you?”

She set the glass in her hand down and walked away, trying her best not to cause a scene in front of her customers. His heavy footsteps followed behind her. She got to the office and tried to close the door in his face, only for him to put a hand on the wood and stopped it from closing.

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