Page 137 of Down & Dirty

“Talk to him, Sky.”

I shook my head.

“He fucked up. But who hasn’t?”

When I opened my mouth to argue, he held up his hand. “I understand you wanted to do something different. I’ve known that for a while. Youshouldbe doing more. Lord knows you’re capable. But modeling? This move didn’t make any sense. So, whatever else is going on here, you owe it to yourself to figure it out, before you end things with someone you clearly care about.”

I didn’t just care about Cory. I loved him. Still. That hadn’t changed.

“And who clearly cares about you. That prenup puts him on the line for a sizeable portion of his assets. That hardly seems like a move someone would make if they didn’t have your best interests in mind.”

The look in his eye was all I needed to see; my father respected Cory. Not necessarily because of who he was, but for how he’d treated me. How he’d tried to protect me, and take care of me.

That prenup had been signed before Cory and I knew each other. We’d barely begun to peel back the layers of who we were, who we wanted to be, the life we could have together. And yet he’d made sure, way back then, that I’d be okay—even without him.

But he was wrong. Because no amount of money could ever make that okay now.

CHAPTER 45

CORY

Cory: baby, please talk to me

Cory: God, I miss you so much. Please come back to me

Cory: Sky I can’t do this without you. I don’t want to. Give me another chance.

Skylar’s silence had been killing me. She’d removed her stuff from my apartment and her presence from my life. And it was breaking me.

The team was flying out to Arizona tomorrow, and I didn’t know if she was planning to go or not. She’d been absent from the OTM offices, and Ronnie hadn’t had much to say. He’d just shaken his head every time I looked at him, the same guilt and regret in his eyes.

“You gonna eat that?” Billy asked, looking down at my sandwich with disapproval.

“You want it?”

“No, I don’t want it. I want you to snap out of it.”

I shoved my plate away. “She won’t even talk to me.”

Billy blew out a breath, leaning back in his chair. We’d gone over this. “Ellis, you have to give her time. She feels betrayed. And while I don’t doubt your intentions here, you went a little extreme. Sky was never going to be the type of woman to play Jane to your Tarzan. Beating your chest like that...You knew better.”

I eyed my friend, hating how every word out of his mouth stung. But I was willing to own my mistakes. She just wouldn’t let me. I didn’t know how to handle that, because the one thing in my life I couldn’t stand was uncertainty. And right now, I was starting to think there was a chance this waiting for Sky might not end. That she might not forgive me, or talk to me, or see me again.

And that drove me out of my mind.

Closing my eyes to stem the rush of panic, I gripped the arms of the flimsy plastic chair outside the sandwich shop. “I just want to make it right.”

“And hopefully she’ll give you a chance. But this is going to be on her terms.” He leaned forward, slanting his head to the side. “In the meantime, you might want to work on how the hell you’re going to handle a woman like her without being a bull in a China shop. Cause if by the grace of god she takes you back, you know this will happen again. And if you think you’ll get another chance after this one, you’re not as smart as I’ve always given you credit for.”

The idea of having to just watch as Sky went down any road that was this wrong for her nearly set me off. But Billy had a point. If I wanted things to work with us long term, I was going to have to learn to let shit go.

Since the day my mother had died, my focus was never on winning or proving myself to anyone. It was on testing the limits. Because I never really cared if I made it out in one piece. What difference did my life make when I’d seen just how easily it could all be taken away? When I knew how painful it was to care about something or someone and have them ripped away from you?

Motocross had been my way to turn that apathy into a livelihood. It wasn’t even a passion, not really. It was a means to an end. Risk everything, every time. Because nothing else had been worth staying alive.

But that all changed with Sky.

Now, I knew better. There were things in this life that were worth sticking around for. Big things. Little things. Things with long blond hair, and things with chubby fingers and floppy curls on his head. We had a life now, a family. And if I’d never cared about coming out of a race or trick alive before, I sure as shit did now.

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