Page 100 of Wicked Little Game
We strip my father’s bedroom and his office. The things we don’t burn, we give away to charity. We get rid of everything apart from the desk, for obvious reasons, and the Chesterfield couch, because it’s vintage and I really like how it looks.
But eventually, Dom has to leave again because his workload has increased after the recent changes.
I can’t stand being alone in this house, and after wallowing in my self-pity for a few hours, I find the courage to call Jonah.
Soon after we end our call, he knocks on my door. With booze, a bag with clothes for a few days, and a trunk full of paint and tools, because I told him I wanted to renovate.
Two days later, the house certainly looks more interesting. Tools are scattered everywhere and half of the rooms aredecorated with tape and cover sheets because I couldn’t stand all those white walls any longer.
We also ripped out the wooden floorboards in my father’s office. They were stained past any point of cleaning, but after we got them out, we quickly realized that putting new flooring in was above our skill level.
After we nearly kill ourselves trying to install a lamp, we call it a day. We get comfortable on the couch, start up the newest season of Love is Blind, and order sushi.
“So, what happened to the hot guy that dragged you out of the club?” Jonah asks as he comes back from the kitchen with two daiquiris in his hands.
We drink while we wait for our food to arrive and I wish Jonah would move in because his cocktails taste better than sad white wine straight from the bottle.
“You did what? Ruby, I love you, but you’re not right in the head,” he says when I tell him about the last time me and Sam talked.
“Call him.”
“No.”
“Do it or I’ll do it.”
“No!” I yelp, rushing to take my phone from him.
The delivery guy saves me from an embarrassing phone call and Jonah from getting slapped and we ordered so much food that it’s not that big of an issue that a part of our order is missing.
After most of my blood is in my stomach, busy digesting way too much sushi, Jonah coaxes me into texting Sam. I shouldn’t have told him that Max sent me his number earlier today.
It’s nothing dramatic, nothing sappy. Middle ground, a short “Hey, how are you?”
But even twenty minutes after I sent the message, there’s still only one check.
“Do you think he blocked me? Like, just in case? Oh God, why did I even listen to you?” I groan, hiding underneath my blanket.
There’s a knock on the door and since Jonah already did a good job of ruining my mood, I send him to answer the door. It’s probably the delivery guy, bringing us our lost California rolls.
But when Jonah calls for me, his voice sounds panicky. As if he just opened the door for the goddamn grim reaper instead of the delivery guy.
36
SAMUEL
Ireally thought going back to base would help. I had ambitions, plans, resolutions. The guys thought it was bad after Carla, but oh boy, was it even worse now.
For almost two weeks, I waited for Ruby to contact me. A call, a text, anything that would justify going back to her. But she went no contact, and I would have been worried about her if Logan and Max hadn’t heard from her nearly every day.
It was torture in a way, knowing that she talked to them but somehow didn’t want to talk to me.
I missed her so much it hurt. Missed the way her nose scrunched when I told her off, or the way she looked when she woke up. Hell, I even missed the way her goddamn cold feet felt against my body when she used me to warm them up. I missed the way she laughed, the way she cuddled against me, the pretty sounds she made when I kissed her.
After Carla, I was in the hospital for weeks, pumped full with drugs that kept me from lashing out to everyone near me but after everything that happened with Ruby, I was fucking on edge, and not even the booze was helping with keeping it under control.
Yesterday, we were on a mission; simple recon, but they left one idiot behind and that very idiot hid in a corner and attacked Max with an iron bar.
He barely touched Max, who quickly disarmed him, but something inside of me snapped. In the end, Logan had to pull me off of the guy and that means something.
