Page 30 of Only The Strong

Mason huffs, looking up to the ceiling. “I don't know, maybe he has a high-tech, modern cave with glass walls, and generators and shit.” Wyatt and Finn laugh at Mason while Saint looks genuinely confused with his answer, and Ronan shakes his head. Even though Ronan is only about seven years older than us, sometimes I think he feels like he’s babysitting a bunch of rambunctious kids. We may fight like brothers, but we also love like brothers.

I rest my head on the back of the couch, closing my eyes. “Get the fuck out of my house before I lose brain cells because of you. The suns gonna be up in a few hours and I want to go to sleep.” I hear chairs sliding into my kitchen and feet shuffling. Saint and Ronan pat my shoulder as they pass and Finn ruffles my hair.

I hear the door open and two more sets of footsteps walk behind me before pausing at the door. “I’ll talk to the bouncer and get back to you by this evening,” Wyatt says from behind me.

Without opening my eyes I answered him, feeling less murderous now and a little more rational. “I can’t lose her.” Admitting that out loud for the first time feels wrong and like I’m telling the world's biggest secret. Reese and I haven’t talked about how we feel, I think she feels the same way, her eyes speak for her, but what if she doesn't? What if this is all one-sided?

I hear Finn laugh from what sounds like outside and I turn my head and open my eyes to see his big as fuck tattooed head peeking back into the house from the porch. “At least you're finally admitting it!”

I hold up my free hand and flip him off. “Fuck off, Finn.” I hear his loud laughter before the door closes and it’s just Red and me.

Fucking hell what a fucking night. I move out from under her body and kneel to carry her upstairs to my bedroom. The effects of the drugs had worn off about the time they got back and she was able to wash her face and change into a pair of sweatpants and one of my tee shirts, but she said she waited until I got home to fall asleep, which she promptly did on my lap on the couch.

Her eyes peek open while I'm carrying her up the stairs. “If I was drugged shouldn't we go to the police?”

I look down at her, sleepy and beautiful in my arms. “No more police, we’re taking care of this on our own from now on.”

She buries herself more into my chest. “What happened to the guy who drugged me?”

Sighing, I think of the best way to answer this. Deflecting should do. “Not tonight, Red.”

Reese yawns, her delicate hand moving to cover her sinful mouth. “Did you hurt him?”

“Yeah.” I’d say a bullet to the forehead probably hurt. Close enough.

We make it to my room and I lay her down and cover her up, then strip down to join her in bed.

“Sorry I wasn't waiting for you naked with my heels on,” Reese whispers as she moves closer to my side.

I laugh, staring up at the dark ceiling. “Next time, babe.” I open my arm and loop it around her back.

She cuddles into my side and rests her head on my chest. “I heard what you said.” I pause, hoping she’ll elaborate on what exactly she heard. She does. “That you can't lose me.”

I weigh my options in my head, but having this talk right now with her coming down from being roofied doesn’t really seem like a great time to ask if she likes me or just likes fucking me. “You’re hearing things, Red.”

She chuckles softly. “Okay, sure.” Her arm squeezes my side tighter and she turns her face so she’s almost laying face down on my chest, and soon she’s asleep again. And for the second time since knowing Reese, and the first time since my last relationship, I fall asleep cuddling, and this time there wasn’t any sex beforehand.

27

REESE

The eveningafter Callum’s “club run”, as he called it, and my drugging, I’m sitting at the kitchen island, running a credit check on a potential resident. Callum wraps his arms around my stomach and leans down to place kisses along my neck; I hum in appreciation.

Between kisses, he speaks into my neck. “Go get dressed, I have a surprise for you.” I turn around on the bar stool, my brows knitting together. “Other than last night you haven't left the house in a week, and that shit was a fail, so I’m taking you out and showing you arealgood time. Stalker or not, it’s unhealthy to be inside so much and you can't survive just off of my vitamin D forever.” He smirks and I roll my eyes, laughing. After waking up this morning I filled Callum in on everything that I could remember of the night before, which wasn’t really much. Miles and Mason are trying to figure out who the guy was, but so far, he just looks like some college kid. We don’t have any connections so they think it was random. I head upstairs to get changed all the same and he smacks my butt as I walk away, taking a seat on the stool I just left. “Wear a ball cap and something of mine if you want to draw less attention to yourself.” He yells after me up the stairs.

A few minutes later I return dressed in ripped jean shorts and one of Callum’s big black hoodies with the devil skull and snakes on the back. I braid my hair and pull on a black ball cap as he suggested. On our way out of the door, Callum pulls on his cut and I slide my feet into my nude sandals.

I have no idea where we’re going, but we head out of town and start up a mountain. The view is getting more beautiful the higher we climb, and the roar of the bike is bouncing off of the mountain beside us and echoing around us, sounding like fifty bikes instead of just us. It’s so freeing not to be confined inside of a car, you have a completely unobstructed 360-degree view of your surroundings and it’s absolutely breathtaking. We reach the top of the mountain and Callum pulls onto a small outlook. We get off of the bike and walk over to the bench sitting at the edge of the cliff. Callum hands me a water bottle. “Have you ever been to Lookout Ridge?”

I look all around us, you can see all of Merrill Hill, Mt. Rainier, and the long line of mountains beside it. I’ve been to mountain attractions and lookouts before, but none had this view. “No.” I finally answer. “This is perfect, thank you for bringing me.” I bring my legs onto the bench and cross them in front of me.

“I've noticed that anytime you’re staring at mountains you always seem to relax.” He rests his hand on my bare thigh.

I lean back into the bench, letting out a sigh. The sun is close to setting, basking the world in a light orange color. “They remind me that the world is bigger than I think it is. Sometimes we can get so wrapped up in our lives, the good days and the bad, and we forget that it’s not just us in the world. There’s so much more to live for.” I laugh, realizing how weird my reasoning sounds. “I guess they just put me back in my place.” Callum nods, looking like he's really thinking about what I said.

He turns his head to look at me. “Tell me about your last relationship.”

I really don’t want to talk about this, but I care about Callum and he deserves to know; he shared his story with me. “He broke me,” I say, trying to stay detached from the memory.

---