Page 29 of Faded Gray Lines
She didn’t.
“He could have shot you, too, you know.”
“They weren’t wearing jackets.” She furrowed her eyebrows, and I sighed, forgetting normal people didn’t understand such obvious things. “If a man isn’t wearing a jacket, he’s not packing.” To emphasize my point, I lifted my black leather jacket and dropped my gaze to my gun. “No place to hide it.”
“If they weren’t armed, why’d you shoot him?” she repeated.
“That’s a question for another day, little lamb.”
She frowned. “Little lamb?”
I should’ve shut her down right there. I’d just saved her ass. However, my lips moved before I could stop them. “You looked like a lost little lamb out there, all alone in the middle of a pack of wolves.”
Her eyes lowered to my mouth, and she swallowed hard. “Are you a wolf?”
Unlike the women I’d spent the night ignoring, this girl screamed modesty. Something about her called to me, and an absurd thought began to take hold.
I wanted to keep her here forever. I wanted to hide her away from everyone and everything, taking her out only to admire for myself. She seemed pure—like an angel sent to counteract my evil. The brightness to my darkness.
I thought about her question and wondered if I should tell her I wasn’t a lamb or a wolf.
I was the man who brought them all to slaughter.
I didn’t do either. I sat down next to her and gauged her reaction. When she didn’t flinch, I extended my hand. “No, I’m just Mat—”
I thought about Emilio and how my name was finally making a buzz within the ranks of the cartel. I highly doubted she had any knowledge of my world, but I couldn’t take the risk.
Changing my mind, I created a persona just for her. “I’m just Matty.”
Tilting her head back, she glanced upward as if looking for something, then a gentle smile curled the corners of her lips as she lowered her chin. “Hello, just Matty. I’m Star.”
Ten
Leighton
Present Day
I yawned just as my ass rang. Jerking my phone out of my back pocket, I scanned the caller ID, praying for a call from Alex. Instead, my mother’s number lit up my screen, and I swallowed back a groan, silencing the call.
Nope. Not today. Not ever.
I was surprised it’d taken this long for her to contact me. Two days must have been torture for her to keep quiet, knowing the prodigal daughter had returned home and not contacted her. Even though I’d expected it, I couldn’t make it easy on her. Four years of pretending each other didn’t exist didn’t evaporate overnight because we now lived in the same city.
I held my phone steady in my hand and waited. Surely, she wouldn’t disappoint me. Right on cue, it rang again, and I smiled, reminding me that only three things in this world were certain: death, taxes, and my mother’s inflated ego.
Silencing it for the second time, I tucked it back into my pocket. There wouldn’t be another. Mother would consider that rude. Not to me, of course, but to her precious image. Third time was not the charm to Mayor Donovan. She considered it to be a strike.
Whatever. My mother was the least of my problems. I still hadn’t heard from Alex, and Brody was giving me the silent treatment. Then there was the whole issue of my past busting through a bathroom door and turning everything I knew to shit.
I glanced at my phone again, groaning to see it was already one o’clock in the morning. I’d worked a double shift and after lying awake tossing and turning last night, replaying Matty’s every touch, I’d gotten maybe two hours of sleep in the last twenty-four hours. By the time the last beer had been drunk and the door was locked, I was beyond exhausted.
Wiping down the last of the sticky bar, I eyed the cushy mat covering the damp bar floor. As disgusting as it was, I halfway contemplated curling up on it for even a moment of rest. Shaking my head, I tossed the rag into the sink and leaned over the bar, burying my face in my hands.
I’d been so focused on what had to be done that I never saw him coming. Mateo Cortes was just a name like Valentin Carrera and Emilio Reyes. Three people whose lives meant nothing to me when my brother’s fate hung on their ruin. I’d come here determined to see this through. Then he showed up and tilted everything on its side.
I knew when I met him that he wasn’t like any other boy I’d ever known. Matty took my ideal of what boys were like and shattered it. He was dangerous, unrefined, mysterious, and a rush of adrenaline to my veins that had yet to be equaled.
I came alive when I met him and died the day I left.
