Page 91 of False Start

“Spectacular at it,” she said, tugging me in to collect the kiss on the cheek I always had for her before I headed in to see Lilith.

Two hours passed before I was finally able to head to my truck. Of course, I would have stayed overnight if that’s what Lilith needed. Or even what she wanted. A urinary tract infection—I’d never been so damn relieved to hear those words. They’d keep her overnight, giving her antibiotics through an IV and monitoring my nephew while they did, and if everything went according to plan, she’d be able to go home by lunchtime tomorrow.

She was tired and uncomfortable, but my nephew was strong.

The sound of his strong heart echoing through the monitors gave me a smile after a spectacularly shitty night.

I’d never heard his heartbeat before. He wasn’t even mine, but I hoped I’d get to hear it again.

Jordan was missing so much being overseas.

And my sister was missing the experience of having her husband right there for everything.

Having me wasn’t the same… She missed her other half and I missed him for her.

Or maybe I missed mine.

Or what could be mine…for now.

Mayhem and I skipped friendship and tipped right over into acting on our feelings. And we’d barely had time to do that before we ventured into coach and player only to have me fuck it all up only an hour into that.

Now I didn’t know what we were. Or even what we could be.

Because in the end, I still planned to walk away.

If Lana went through with it, told the truth—the whole truth—I wouldn’t necessarily be so welcome on the police force.

I knew what she’d done and said nothing despite my obligation to uphold the law, something that still didn’t sit well with me all these years later, but she was a dumb kid who’d done dumb kid shit. Something that cost her huge. Reporting it seemed like acid in the wound.

They couldn’t do anything to her any worse than she’d done to herself.

“Hey.”

I glanced up to find Mayhem leaning against her car, dragging the toe of her shoe on the damp asphalt, her eyes anywhere but on mine.

“Hey.” I stopped before her and slid my hands in my pockets so I wouldn’t reach for her.

“I tried to leave. I even made it out of the parking lot, but I couldn’t go without seeing if Lilith was okay.”

“She’s okay. UTI. She’s staying overnight.”

“The baby?”

“He’s good.”

“I threatened to put a woman in a hospital bed tonight,” she mumbled, her brows knitting together.

I chuckled and kicked the toe of her boot. “You did.”

She glanced toward the glass doors to the ER. “I’ve never done that. I don’t—why did I do that?”

“You’re angry.”

We both were. Angry, stuck, and scared.

“But I didn’t even know that woman. I just—I could see Lana jerking in that chair like she wanted to stand up and be seen and I just—her mother didn’t even see her.” She ground her fingertips into her temples and shook her head. “God, I never want to see that again.”

“You’re a protector,” I said quietly, knowing I was about to make one more assessment she wouldn’t appreciate tonight, but also knowing if something didn’t give, we’d stay here. Stuck right here, just spinning.

“I guess,” she said with a shrug.

“At least when it comes to everyone but yourself.”

She stilled, her lips twisting with scorn as she glared up at me. “How are you any different with how you just stood there and let her treat you that way?”

“Lana’s mother can’t hurt me. She can rage, she can make me uncomfortable, but she can’t take anything from me.”

She pushed away from the side of her car and shook her head with her keys clenched tight in her fist. “If she’s part of the reason you don’t stay…she already has.”

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