Instead, four days later, he sat outside her apartment feeling like some heartsick weirdo. But Lex and Cal were right about one thing. Her actions and words conflicted, even when she ghosted him. It wasn’t like he showed up ready to strike matches and light the place on fire—he just wanted closure, one final conversation. If she slammed the door in his face or told him they were done, he’d leave her alone for good.
His hand rested on the door handle of his Mustang, but he couldn’t get his calves to move forward, his feet refusing to listen. As much as he told Lex and Cal he was fine, he had lied. This past year had been hail battering an aluminum roof until at last it threatened to snap.
He let out a shaky breath. At the end of the day, the same words he’d told Nellie reflected onto him. When his sandcastle crumbled, his family would be there to build it back up again, even while they scattered their own messes across the floor.
He steeled himself and pushed the door open, grabbing the potted desert rose to bring along with him. “You’re my first line of defense, got that?” he told the plant as he locked the car.
Christ Almighty, the stress had him talking to inanimate objects. Adrian strode up the slate walkway toward her apartment complex, his heart thundering so loud it drowned out the rest of the neighborhood sounds. An older woman hobbled by with a little Yorkie in tow, the tiny pup yapping at thin air. He tilted his head and offered a smile. The woman’s eyes crinkled as she grinned back, her Yorkie racing up to him trying to yip him into submission.
He strode up the steps of the first floor leading to her apartment. It was a miracle he still gripped the pot since the amount of sweat coating his palms increased with every step forward. In the hospital, even though the truly shit days made him spiral, for the most part he could fall back on protocol and years of study for answers. He’d gained an arsenal of logic and knowledge to throw at problems, and every year he spent there, he attained experience as well.
Around Danny, he free fell with nothing to grasp onto. Part of it thrilled him to his core, but the other half of him needed something—anything—to steady him. The enormity of his feelings for her broiled in the back of his mind like an impending storm.
He counted his steps down the corridor until the gold 4B on her door came into view.
Judgment time.
His mouth dried as he lifted his hand to knock. The door already lay open a crack, dim rays of light spilling from it. Adrian nudged the door open instead and stepped inside, his one arm laden with the potted plant.
“Danny?” he called to announce himself. “I swung over to finalize things. We left it too open ended at my house.” He glanced around her room, a lone lamp lit in the corner while shadows smothered most of the apartment. Even though the light was on and the door open, he didn’t see her anywhere.
Adrian took another step forward, confusion settling in. “Hello?”
The creak from the left was the one warning he got.
Adrian pivoted to the side in time to spot an older man approaching, messy silver strands, haggard lines on his face, and the sort of dead eyes that didn’t belong on a person. Before Adrian could back away, the older guy’s arm descended with something big and bulky in his grip.
The last thing that flashed through his mind was how familiar the guy looked.
Until, lights out.