Page 140 of Hate So Deep

I’m in daze, which is why I don’t protest as we wind down the path and onto another before he stops at one of the bungalows and produces a key card.

Once the door is open, I step inside, turning back to him as the door slams behind us and he approaches, a particular gleam in his eyes.

“Dirk? What’s going on? When did you get out?” I ask, backing toward the couch facing a flat screen television on the wall.

Adjacent to the small living space, there’s a table with two chairs leading to a small kitchenette no doubt stocked with the essentials for a weekend vacation.

“Well?” I ask, stepping around the couch to create much needed distance between us.

I mean the last time I saw him he was giving himself up to the authorities. Now he’s hanging out at a restaurant, drinking a fucking beer?

What gives?

His sigh fills the silence but I’m immune as he runs his hands through his hair leaving the strands adorably disheveled before saying, “A month ago. The murder charges were dropped.”

“Wait…what?” I whisper, touching the pounding pulse in my throat.

I’m afraid to speak, afraid to feel the hope wrapping around me like a warm blanket because if it’s been a month, where the fuck has, he been?

“C’mere,” he rasps, and I shake my head, until he holds out his hand. “Please, I need to feel you.”

Of course, I can’t resist the plea, and I move back around the couch before stepping into his arms.

When I tilt my chin, he pecks me on the lips. Before this can devolve any further though, I poke him in the chest and he steps back, leaning against the back of the couch.

Perhaps he’s trying to give me the space I need to process this shit, but I feel the loss of his warmth acutely.

That’s where it always leads with Dirk. I crave his warmth and he’s always leaving me cold.

Is that what’s about to happen again?

I don’t know if I can do this if that’s the case. I feel brittle enough already.

“Look,” he says, “as it turns out, Buck was playing with shit that he shouldn’t have been and offended the wrong assholes.”

“I don’t understand,” I mumble, touching my chest. My heart is beating so fast that I’m afraid I might have a panic attack, while my soul burns to hear the words I’ve needed since this fiasco began.

I choose you. I love you.

“Well,” he says, scratching his chin. “I still may have to face charges but they’re more worried about the fuckers who did the dirty deed. Either way, I’m sorry, Lauren.”

“That’s it? I’m sorry,” I bark, waving my hands around. “You left me. You wouldn’t talk to me.No onewould talk to me.”

“I know but until I knew you were safe, I wasn’t risking anything,” he says, and I simultaneously want to knee him in the nads and jump on him to continue what we started. Neither is an option until there are no more lies between us.

“So, you did hurt my brother?” I ask and his brows flicker before he nods. “But you’re not responsible for his death?

“Look,” he rasps, grabbing my hand. “It’s not…he…fuck, your brother was buying and selling the date rape drugs. In the end, he messed with the wrong fucker, and they sent someone to fuck him up. It makes sense now. When you kept asking questions about him, the assholes got nervous.”

“Oh Buck,” I murmur, dropping my head to his chest.

Once again, it’s not surprising that Buck was into something stupid, but I feel a trickle of sadness anyway because somewhere along the way, my parents took a sweet, happy boy and turned him into a monster.

“And you?” I ask, searching his eyes.

Buck was not a nice human being, and, in the end, he got what he deserved, although I wish it hadn’t been Dirk who contributed to his death.

“I ran into him that night. Fucked him up but he was alive when I left,” he says. “Later, when I heard he was basically comatose, I assumed it was me. I’m sorry, baby, for hurting you.”

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