Page 68 of Beautiful Lies
I told him the story and by the time I finished talking, my face was numb, and a sick feeling had settled in my stomach. Beating up Jake Masters hadn’t solved anything. It couldn’t undo what he’d done. I dumped the ice in the sink and returned to the sofa.
“Fucking asshole,” Killian said.
I grunted and flexed my hands, looking at the cuts and bruises on my knuckles. They were nothing compared to what he’d done to Ava. I remembered her at fourteen. Tiny and delicate-looking, her eyes almost too big for her face. After the day Killian had beaten up Jake Masters, Ava had chopped off all her hair. She wore baggy clothes to school. Hoodies and oversized sweatpants. Beanies to cover her cut hair. She’d wanted to hide, to disappear, camouflage her body.
“You’ll ruin your delicate artist hands,” Killian teased.
I snorted. “Does NYPD have a hotline to you? Every time shit goes down, you get a call.”
He shifted in his chair, not meeting my eyes. “After everything that went down…”
“Right,” I said, filling in the blanks. If I make one wrong move, Killian will be kept informed.
“Good to know you’ve got my back,” I said sarcastically.
“What were you doing in a club?”
“I wasn’t looking to score.”
He gave me a skeptical look. It was justified. In the back of my head, hadn’t that been what I’d really wanted?
“I went in for a drink. But I changed my mind.”
He exhaled a breath of relief. “Is it hard…not drinking?”
“Staying away from drugs is hard. Not drinking is…” I was going to say easy. But it wasn’t. “Yeah, sometimes it’s hard. It’s a social thing. Gavin and Lee invite me to parties sometimes or ask me to grab a few beers after work to unwind, but I always say no. I’ve never learned my limits.”
“Sucks to be you.”
I laughed under my breath and we were silent for a while, lost in our own thoughts. “Did you ever confide in Deacon Ramsey? About Seamus?” I asked, already knowing the answer before the questions were out of my mouth.
“No. Why?”
I shrugged. “No reason.” I had another question, one I’d been dodging for over a year, my guilt and shame preventing me from asking. But I thought about it all the time, and tonight seemed as good as any to get it all out there. “Do you ever think about that guy you shot?”
He was silent for a few seconds, squinting at something in the distance like he did before he answered tough questions. “Yeah, I do. My shrink loves me. I’ve got more baggage than the cargo container on a jumbo jet.”
I burst out laughing and he laughed with me. I didn’t know why but it was one of the funniest things I’d ever heard. My humor faded when I thought about the baggage he carried, and the part I’d played in adding to his load. “I’m sorry,” I said, hoping he knew I meant it. Sometimes words were so damn inadequate.
“Yeah. I know.” He stood and rubbed the back of his neck. “You need me to stay on the couch tonight?”
“It’s late. Go home. I don’t need a babysitter.
* * *
Tate handedme a mug of coffee and I added milk, but the color didn’t change.
“You brewing tar in that pot?” I asked, glancing at the pot on the burner in his garage. It was seven-thirty in the morning and I was operating on no sleep. After Killian left, I’d gone to bed and stared at the ceiling with too many thoughts racing through my head. Until finally, I’d hauled my ass into the shower. Then I stopped by to confess my sins to my sobriety companion.
“It’ll put hair on your chest,” he said.
I took a sip, confirming that it probably would. If it didn’t eat a hole through my stomach lining first. But I needed the high-octane caffeine today, so I drank it. A jackhammer was working on my head and every muscle in my body ached.
“You need some aspirin for that headache?” Tate asked, eying my aviators, still firmly in place even though I was inside his dimly lit garage.
I shook my head.
“Don’t be a stubborn fool. Take the goddamn pills.” He shook two out of the bottle and I popped them into my mouth and washed them down with liquid tar.
