Page 9 of Diesel
He yanks the steering wheel so hard to the side, I gasp and brace against the dashboard. Holy fuck. The car skids, then jolts to a stop at the kerb.
I drag in a breath. Then another. My heart is thrumming like a drum beat. I barely have time to calm myself before he rounds on me.
“Don’t you ever fucking say that again.” I’ve seen Zane angry over the years, but this surpasses rage. I don’t even have a word for what this is. “You are not a fucking convenience or somewhere I park my dick when I’m bored. And you sure as fuck are not my—” He breaks off every muscle twitching like he’s a frayed thread about to snap. “Not my whore. Fuck me, Kenna. There’s no me without you. Don’t you get that? You’re the only reason I fucking exist.”
It feels like he’s driven a knife through my ribcage. He doesn’t get to rewrite the truth. So many nights I lay awake in an empty, cold bed, wondering where he was.When he came to stay, we’d fall asleep wrapped in each other, but he’d be gone before the sun rose.
“You’ve been existing pretty well without me in your life, Zane.”
“Firefly.”
“Max. I haven’t been Makenna for a while now, which you’d know if you bothered to actually talk to me.”
“You don’t want me to call you the name you scrawled in hearts beside mine?”
He might as well have ripped open my chest with those words. I’d gone through a phase when I was twelve, writing Makenna Grace Cooper on everything I owned. Makenna felt like she belonged to Zane. Max was the girl hiding from fists and raised voices. She was the way I coped when things got hard, a way to distance myself from what was happening in my life.
“I’m not a kid anymore, Zane. I don’t believe in fairytales.”
“This isn’t a fantasy, baby. This is our life.” His fingers twitch, like he wants to reach for me, but doesn’t know if I’ll let him. He sighs. “That name is armour, not your identity. You’re not that scared little girl anymore, firefly. You don’t need to wear her like a shield. Especially not against me.”
Fuck. He always did know how to burrow under my skin, how to reach the parts of me I try to hide. And I hate that he’s right. It isn’t just protection, it’s who I need to be when I’m at my weakest. She’s my protection from the world.
“I never said I was afraid.” The lie tastes bitter.
“Then you don’t need her, Makenna.” His head dips so close I can lean up and kiss him if I shifted just a fraction.It’s so tempting. I’ve missed him so much. He cups my cheeks, warm and steady. “You can’t hide from your feelings, not even by changing your name.”
That cuts deep, a wound ripping through my soul. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
It is, but I don’t want to let down my walls for him. Not when he’s been so careless with the foundations already.
“You’re hiding. Max, Makenna—they’re not different people, baby. They’re both you—” He grabs me so abruptly I squeak in surprise. His eyes are focused on my hand gripped in his like a heat-seeking missile. “Where the fuck is your wedding ring?”
I blink, getting whiplash from the sudden change in direction, then lower my gaze to my empty finger. There’s still an indent from where it used to sit, like removing it wasn’t enough to sever what we have.
“Why would I wear something that proves our commitment to each other when you’ve made it clear you don’t want to be with me?” My voice cracks. I wish I was stronger, but I’m so tired of standing tall. I just want to stop.
He scrubs his jaw, a myriad of emotions rippling through him. “You think taking that off changes anything? You think it makes you belong to me less? A ring doesn’t make a marriage.”
“It doesn’t fix one either.” I swipe my damp cheeks. “Just sign the papers, Zane. Then we can both get on with our lives.”
He slams his palm against the steering wheel, hard enough to rattle the car. It’s like watching a volcano before it blows. “You’re not leaving me. I don’t care if I have to tie you to the fucking bed.”
I close my eyes, just for a second to ground myself. “Over forty percent of marriages end in divorce. You told me that when we first got married.”
“Yeah, Kenna, and sixty percent don’t. If you want a divorce, you’re going to have to kill me, because being dead is the only way we’re no longer married.”
Dramatic, but of course I should have expected him to say something like that. But where was that intensity on the nights when I was sitting home alone, crying and missing my husband?
He starts the engine and pulls back onto the road. I stare out the window, getting lost in the flashes of the streetlights as he drives. I don’t know where we’re going. I don’t care either. I rest my head on the glass and let my eyes drift closed.
“Firefly?” I peel my eyes apart, disorientated.
Zane’s blurry face swims in front of me before he comes into focus. He’s crouching down in the open door, his brows tight, the only expression he allows to slip past his defences.
I straighten in my seat, feeling cold and groggy. Where the fuck are we?
There are no lights out here, no houses other than the stone cottage illuminated in the car headlights. It looks old, rustic. The kind of place you come to be forgotten by the world. Maybe that’s why he brought me here. To forget.
