Page 2 of Shattered Hearts

“Yeah. So what?” Not gonna be celebrating anything.

“Clean out Max’s apartment, Gage. Stop throwing good money at that rent.”

I rub my eyes. “You’re right. It’ll suck doing it in the cold, but you’re right. I’ve said my goodbyes. Made my peace.”

I haven’t exactly made my peace. I’ll always feel guilty Max and I weren’t closer while he was alive, and now I’ll never get rid of the idea I stole Zarah from him and our breakup is Karma in spades.

Pop knows well enough not to ask if I’ve heard from her. I haven’t since the night she flipped out at my apartment.

Zane blamed me, said we went too fast, and I couldn’t argue because I don’t know what the hell happened that night. One minute I fell asleep holding her in my arms, the next Baby was whining and growling and Zarah’s side of the bed was empty.

I’d like to at least tell her a proper goodbye, that I understand, but I don’t understand and more than likely I never will.

“Do you want help?” he asks.

“Nah, thanks. It’s my fault I waited this long. I’ll stop by a moving company and buy some boxes. It will give me something to do until our traffic picks up.”

“If you want to talk, tell me. I’m sorry about Zarah. She’s a good girl. Doesn’t deserve this.”

I try to shake it off. “I wasn’t good for her. The sting will fade, one of these days, but I still plan on talking to Black. Zarah said something the night she broke down, that she wanted to know why. At the time, I said psychopaths, sociopaths, don’t need a why, but in his journal, Max wrote that he thought Black was in love with her. I’d just like to know. For myself. Look him in the eye when I ask.”

“A man like that doesn’t love anyone but himself. Max was a romantic. He was seeing something that wasn’t there.”

“You’re probably right. I’d still like to talk to him. Put it all behind me.”

“Is that what you want?”

His question irritates me. “Pop, I got sucked into a world I don’t belong in. I didn’t resist because unlike Ashton Black, Ididfall in love. Didn’t help me fit in.”

Pop scoffs. “You don’t feel like you’re abandoning her?”

It’s a tricky question. Of course I do. Of course I feel like I’m abandoning her. How else should I feel? But what the fuck am I supposed to do? “Maddox won’t let me see her.”

He raises his eyebrows. When he does that, I always feel like I’m disappointing him, letting something important slide. Like Max’s last wishes. I hate it.

“Since when have you ever taken no for an answer? You’re a good PI because you don’t give up. You’re tenacious to the point of pigheadedness. It doesn’t always work in your favor, but in a circumstance like this, maybe you’re all Zarah’s got.”

Angrily, I push away from the desk and the chair rattles the basket of coffee pods on the table behind me. “What do you think I should do? Drive out there, bang on their door, and demand to see her?” It’s exactly what I want to do.

I miss her like fuck.

Pop shrugs and helps himself to some of the grease he brought, Baby nosing optimistically at his side. I catch a whiff of a spicy sausage biscuit and my stomach grumbles, but I’m too sick to eat. Heartsick, that is. Though I’ve heard the flu is going around.

“I haven’t exactly been helpful with her mental health issues,” I say, and that hurts me, too. I wanted to help her, not fuck her up more. “Maddox has a good point not letting me see her.”

“Personally, I don’t see what the big deal is. She spent the night, got turned around in an unfamiliar place. You’ve neverwoken up in a woman’s bed and needed a minute to remember where you were? Maybe Zarah got mixed up, but why does it have to mean more than it does?”

“You didn’t see her. She was babbling gibberish, something about her social security number, and she didn’t know my name.” That scared the shit out of me. “Our...intimacy caused some kind of setback or something. If seeing me is going to do that to her, I’d rather keep my distance and my hands off her.” Now I understand exactly how Zane felt and why he was handling Zarah with kid gloves.

“Yeah, but you don’t know that for sure.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then before you write off that poor girl, even if you say it’s for her own good, you should find out.”

Pop’s words rub me raw the rest of the day. I’ve never been a coward. Can tackle a druggie while he points a wobbly gun in my direction. Can chase an asshole down at midnight, and I can look my stepfather in the eye and tell him to fuck off. But those are things that don’t affect me. Maybe my physical wellbeing, but not my heart. What I did to Max, I chose to bury because it’s easier than facing up to the truth—that I was a piss-poor brother.

And Zarah.

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