Page 47 of Summer's Edge

Hawk and a couple of the others start checking our fallen enemies.

“The count’s off,” Hawk says after a while. “Some got away.”

“We regroup at the safe house and figure out what to do about them,” Cross says. “I’d sooner take out as many as we can while we’re up here than have to come back. Let’s go.”

We run back into the darkness, away from the burning house and towards our bikes. The air is full of a quiet sense of a job well done, of success, of righteous revenge. It’s the only thing I lived for before I let Summer in. But now I’m afraid it won’t ever be enough again.

Her pendant is still as heavy as a boulder around my neck. But I also know I’ll never take it off again.

TWENTY-THREE

Summer

Eden, Harper, and I are restocking the bookstore. We’ve already unpacked about a dozen huge boxes of books, and we still got a dozen left.

“I just love the smell of new books,” Harper says as she flips through one before putting in on a shelf.

“I know, right,” Eden says, but of course that’s no surprise coming from her. She loves everything books.

“So, no more online selling?” I ask her with a grin. “You’re just keeping all these beauties for yourself?”

She grins too. “That was a very exhausting little exercise. I still get a trickle of orders and I’ll fulfil them as they come, but no more advertising on social media.”

“How about you, Summer, made any wow makeup creations lately?” Harper asks.

“Not since Joker,” I mutter without meaning to and now they’re both staring at me. Must’ve been something in my tone.

I can’t stop thinking about Edge no matter how hard I try. I really laid it all on the line the morning he left, and I expected at least a text while he was gone, but it’s been a day and a half and nothing.

“I must’ve missed that one,” Harper says. “Was it one of your boyfriends in LA?”

She chuckles as she says it and Eden shoots me a look that plainly says she’s bursting to tell Harper about Edge and me.

“No boyfriends in LA,” I say. “I was too busy for anything like that.”

“So who then?” Harper persists.

“It was at the cabin,” Eden says, then clasps her hand over her mouth, her eyes very wide and apologetic as she looks at me.

“Oh, it was one of our boys,” Harper says. “Do tell more.”

Both of them are now looking at me expectantly and, honestly, I don’t even know why I’m still trying to keep this a secret. Maybe because I’m now very afraid that nothing will come of it. That once he comes back there’ll be nothing to tell anyway.

“It was Edge,” I say. “We… ummm… well, I sorta, kinda fell in love with him.”

“You’ve been in love with him for years,” Eden says. “You just got him on the same page as you are now.”

“I wish.” I place the book I’ve been holding on the shelf and sink down into one of the plush armchairs. “But he’s still trying to tell me he’s no good for me, even though I know he maybe, kinda loves me too.”

Harper sighs and sits down on the armrest, taking my hand. “I know a little something about that kinda nonsense talk. It’s so frustrating. Jax did the same to me for years.”

“But he stopped now?” I ask, hope oozing from my voice.

She nods. “Yeah, he stopped now. But it took years. You just have to be patient. And call him out on his bullshit. I wish I had better advice to give you.”

“What is it that makes these guys so damn unable to admit their feelings?” I ask. “It’s like I know he cares about me, but he can only show it when we’re all alone and even then, only when we’re not talking much.”

“It’s all the killing,” Eden says sagely. “It makes them very hard.”

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