Page 18 of After All The Wreckage
“That was a stupid move,” I told her. “I had it handled. You didn’t need to step in and risk getting hurt.”
Her chin went up. The stubborn fierceness I’d once admired in a teenager suddenly looked extremely sexy and utterly enticing in a grown woman.
“Believe it or not, Gage, I probably know how to handle myself in a fight better than you do. If I hadn’t had your back, that guy would have taken a cheap shot at you from behind.”
I found so many things wrong with those statements. Her knowing how to fight. Her protecting me. Damn. Did her parents really know she was doing all of this? Chasing cheaters and breaking up bar fights? Had she taken her hero worship of a television character and turned it into reality?
None of that sat well with me. My worries increased, adding to the pile of concerns I already had boiling inside me. But she wasn’t my responsibility. There was no way I could add Rory to the list of things I needed to take care of. She had family and friends. They’d have to look out for her.
“In my bar, the only people who break up fights are me, River, and Crank.”
She snorted. “I never took you for a misogynist.”
I just stared at her for a moment. The statement and her attitude were so typical of the tween I’d once known that my lipstwitched. It loosened the tightness inside me, allowing a chuckle to find its way out. A strangely weird and unused sound.
“Misogynist,” I repeated, shaking my head, and her lips quirked in response.
We stood there with the dim light of theexitsign coating us in neon as if we’d entered an alternate universe. As if we were actually on an episode ofVeronica Mars. That thought made me grin, and I uttered the surprising truth, “It’s really good to see you, Pipsqueak.”
She returned my smile with her own. As a young girl, she’d had a vibrance that almost made her glow. But now, as I took in those full pink lips pushed upward, I realized some of her light had dimmed. Her smile didn’t have the full strength it’d once had.
She had dark shadows under her eyes, reminding me of Monte’s, and her aura flickered with pain and loss instead of sass and attitude. Grief clung to her, and it made me almost as furious as the bruises on her wrist and the hit she’d taken to her cheek. I didn’t want her sad or grieving. I wanted the flirty badass who’d stuck her arms into the air on the back of my motorcycle and dared the lightning to strike her.
I closed the distance between us again, desperate to know the truth of what had really happened to her, when just two seconds before I’d been equally desperate to walk away. “What’s wrong?” I demanded.
Her eyes widened, her look darting away and then back. And at first, I wasn’t sure she’d respond.
A quiet “Everything” escaped her lips. She immediately stiffened as if regretting her words. She spun around, adding over her shoulder, “Coming here tonight was a bad idea.”
Worry spread through me all over again as she headed into the crowded bar with me right on her heels. “Rory,” I called, willing her to stop, and she did for half a second, pushing ather eyes. When her fingers came away, her makeup was slightly smudged, and it made her look like a watercolor version of the brilliant oil painting that she’d always been.
“I’m sure I’ll see you around,” she said before fleeing.
Her boots were sure and steady as she weaved through the crowd. I was so stunned by all of it, by the difference in her, by the fierceness that had turned almost tortured, that I hesitated too long. By the time my feet followed, she was already back at the booth with Shay and the academics. As I strode toward them, she grabbed her bag and flew out the door.
All that remained was the taste of ozone and regrets.
? ? ?
For the rest of the night, my body and brain were stuck in overdrive, thinking about a brown-eyed firecracker who’d lit a fuse inside me I’d thought had been burned out. I couldn’t seem to escape the scent of Rory, the softness of her cheek, or the energy vibrating off her.
She was still on my mind when I stumbled into the apartment after closing the bar, exhausted and revved up all at the same time. I ached to touch her again. My thoughts seemed wrong and right and badly timed. Because even if I got over the fact that it was Rory—a girl I’d once basically babysat—I still couldn’t have her. It would be wrong to bring anyone into my life when I had so little time to give. I barely had time to shower, let alone date, and I certainly wouldn’t just sleep with her and leave her. Not her. Because even though I hadn’t seen her in years, there was too much between us already for a casual hookup.
So there would be nothing. And my body would just have to get on board with it.
I took an ice-cold shower, determined to wash away the lingering heat of my thoughts. After stepping out, I pulled on a pair of pajama bottoms I’d forced myself to get accustomed to once Ivy had moved in with me. Then, I made my way into our shared room. Her little feet were outside her blankets, her arms and legs sprawling in all directions on the toddler bed, and her stuffed otter covering her face. My heart lurched at the sweet sight of her, and my mind finally landed where it should have been all night. On Ivy and Monte.
I tucked Ivy back under the covers, moved the otter to the side, and then took the five steps to my full-sized bed shoved against the opposite wall of the bedroom.
I’d get a few hours of sleep before she woke, demanding the Sunday morning breakfast and cartoons that had become our new tradition. Monte would come home. Life would return to normal.
But even as my eyes drifted shut, I wasn’t sure I believed it.
? ? ?
Ivy’s tiny hand prodded me awake, and I’d barely registered it from the depths of my sleep-filled haze when she said, “Monte’s scared.”
I sat straight up, noting the fear in her eyes before I pushed aside the covers and went in search of my brother. Had he come home and I hadn’t known? The alarm would have beeped. I would have heard something. I scrambled into the hall, looking inside his room before darting into the living room. Ivy followed me, dragging her stuffed animal behind her.
