Page 166 of Play Dirty (Brooklyn Dawn 1)

“It was raining on top of it all. Pouring. I can still smell it.” I lifted my head to take in the swirling sky, filled with impatient clouds that rolled across the dark expanse. “I always loved the rain. Until that night.”

And then the night I crashed into the ditch. The night that had been so very fucked up and I still didn’t understand why.

Kyle with me one more time. My savior again. Staring down at me so dispassionately. Offering to drive me home and stay with me.

Then the next morning, he’d left with barely a word. In the weeks since, we’d barely spoken.

Had I really called him from Matthias’s and asked to meet at a bar of all things? The therapist I’d talked to a couple of times when I was at my worst after the initial accident had told me I had PTSD. I’d scoffed. Blown it off.

But maybe I’d had an…episode or something after working with Matthias. What other explanation could there be?

And Kyle just happened to be involved. Coincidence. Or more?

You’ve never had any memory lapses before. Yet they start when Kyle is around?

I’d been running low from lack of sleep and who knows what else. The rain had thrown me right into flashbacks of that night. Maybe it had all combined into a shitstorm. Maybe I was lucky Kyle was there.

Both times.

“You crashed,” Lindsey said gently, drawing me back.

I rubbed my forehead. “Yes. It was bad. Beyond. You’ve seen me. Seen Kyle. You know.” I let out a short humorless laugh. “It was all so much worse for him. He blamed me. Of course he did. I was to blame. A grown man who’d nearly killed two people because he couldn’t control himself.”

“We all make mistakes—”

“That wasn’t a mistake. It was assisted suicide, except I nearly took him with me.”

She straddled me right there on the bench and gripped my chin. “Are you using or drinking now?”

“What? No. God, no.”

The memories of the night Kyle had found me in the ditch nearly spilled free. But I hadn’t had a drink. I fucking hadn’t.

But you wanted to. Somehow Kyle knew how close you were to breaking.

“How many years?” When I didn’t speak, she gripped my chin even harder, her nails digging in. “How many years, Nash?”

“Since I’ve touched a drop of anything? A pill, a line…anything.” I exhaled. There was no room between us. No escape. “Not since that night.”

“You stopped. Completely.”

“Yes.”

“This happened in Ireland?”

“Yes, my home. And I left it. Ran like a coward and—”

“Brought Kyle with you. Who had every reason to hate you and didn’t. If he didn’t hate you—doesn’t hate you—why do you hate yourself?”

There was so much I nearly said. So much I wanted to tell her. My fears. The things that kept me up at night. How sometimes Kyle’s eyes just didn’t seem right.

That if there was madness inside him now, I’d sewn the seed. And now it was harvest time.

“I didn’t bring him so much as he followed. I would’ve holed up and withered away probably, but I still had the production end of the business to keep me sane.” I laughed again hollowly. “Relatively speaking. I invested in a few things, met a few people, came up with a few ideas that took off. Developed a few tools to help other musicians. Suddenly, I wasn’t scrabbling for money anymore. What I’d had before had been wiped out by the medical bills. And Kyle—”

“Kyle still had nothing.”

“He was in the business still. I sent some work his way, helped him gain some connections. But no. Whatever fledgling success he’d had as an artist at home was gone.”

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