Page 50 of Wild Side
She sinks her teeth into her bottom lip. “I’ve never seen you so happy.” I wait for her to expand on that, but she doesn’t. Her hand falls from my arm, and she walks away. I don’t watch her go. I reach for the knob of Goose’s door and slip inside.
He’s sitting up in bed, his back against the headboard, the sheets pulled up to his hips, and a cigarette dangling from his mouth. My lips twitch into a smirk as he reaches for the pack of smokes next to him and a lighter, tossing them over to me.
Catching them, I take a stick out and light it. After the day I’ve had, I realize how badly I need this. Closing my eyes, I inhale deeply before I let the smoke slowly roll out of me.
“You good?” Goose asks.
I open my eyes and flick my gaze to meet his. “I’m good. What happened with Sable?”
Something in his expression shifts, but only for a moment. Almost as if his eyes darken before they return to their regular color.
“I sent her home.”
I snort. “Liar.”
He smirks but doesn’t respond. He takes a drag from his cigarette, wasting time before he finally speaks. When he does, his eyes find mine, searching, and then he clears his throat before he finally does talk.
“Seriously. I sent her on her way. Watched the plane take off and everything. She’s so fucking scared after watching Halo’s throat being slit, I doubt she’ll say a goddamn word. Plus, her father was told to be at the airport to get her. She’s got a whole other can of worms to deal with when she arrives. She doesn’t need me being an asshole, too.”
Deep down, I know who my brother is. I know where his heart is. He jerks his chin, a silent nudge for me to say whatever the fuck I’m going to say so he can get to sleep. Taking a drag from my own cigarette, I prolong my full reason for being here, mainly because I’ve missed this, just hanging out with him.
I know it’s only been a few months since I’ve been lost inside my own head, but now that things seem to be working out the way they were meant to, I’m coming out of my self-imposed fog.
“I want to find Zadie’s mother,” I state.
His brows lift as he sits up a bit straighter. “What do you mean, you want to find her mother?”
“I know what Halo said about her, but I don’t think that’s true. There has to be something more to the story. She doesn’t even know her own mother’s name. That’s fucked up.”
Goose nods once, then juts his chin upward slightly before he speaks. “You know I’ll help you. Everyone deserves to at leastknow their parents’ names, even if they’re a piece of shit. Halo was a fucking piece of shit, but she knows exactly who he is. She needs this, too.”
“You’re a fuckin’ softy,” I point out the obvious.
He snorts. “Yeah, so are you.”
I am. I know I am, especially for her, for Zadie. There’s nobody else in this fucking world for me but her. I knew she was before, but I realize it even more now. She was brave as fuck coming here. This all could have gone so badly for her if we were a different club, if I were a different man.
Thanking Goose, I hang around and finish my cigarette with him. As I begin to leave, I stand at the doorway, looking over my shoulder at him. He’s lying back against the wall again. He’s got his cell phone in his hand, his gaze cast down at his device.
“We’re good, right?” I ask.
His eyes flick up from his phone to meet mine, and his lips curve up on one side of his mouth. A moment of silence passes between us as I wait for my brother to break it. Thankfully, he doesn’t make me wait too long.
“Yeah, we’re good,” he says. “I still need to get to know her better, but I’m good with this for you. I always knew you’d be the first to fall.”
“And you’re never going to fall?”
He shrugs a shoulder, his eyes almost sparkling. “Doubtful.”
I know that’s a big fat fucking lie. A huge one. He’s going to fall. I know he is. It’s just a matter of time. And it’s going to be when he least expects it, because that’s how it hit me. I wasn’t expecting it, didn’t want it, and yet, here Zadie is, and she is exactly where she’s supposed to be, and that is mine.
Goose will find his own Zadie.
ZADIE
I feel the bed dip, then his arms are around me, and I drift off to sleep again. I don’t know what it is about this man, but he comforts and calms me. I may not know much about him, but my body knows everything it needs to know—he is my home.
When the sun pours into the room, beaming on me, heating me up, only then do I open my eyes. I’m not sure what time it is, but I feel like in this place, there is no real concept of time.
