Lucky
"You doing okay, man?" Noah asked, joining me on the front porch of his house.
I'd come straight to South Peak Road after leaving Denver.
I had no particular reason for being here, only that I didn’t want to be alone.
I didn’t trust myself right now.
I was too fucking riled up.
I didn’t have any family to welcome me home.
Screwed up or not, Noah was all I had in the world.
"You were right," I stated calmly, flicking ash off my cigarette. "Should've listened to you, man."
Noah sank down on the step beside me and placed a hand on my shoulder. "What happened?"
"Exactly what you said would happen," I replied. "She went back to him."
Without a word, Noah reached over and grabbed the pack of cigarettes on the ground between us.
"Wish I'd been wrong," he finally said before taking a drag of his smoke. Noah exhaled heavily before saying, "Some days, I still think I could be."
I wasn’t getting my hopes up again.
Not when I'd tried fucking everything to make her come with me.
And she stayed with him.
It made me mad.
It made me fucking furious.
I was here, offering her everything she wanted from him, and it wasn’t fucking good enough.
I knew I wasn’t perfect, far fucking from it, but I would do right by her.
I would try.
Could he say the same?
"Nah." I shook my head and took another drag.
She couldn’t keep doing this do me. Giving an inch then taking another goddamn strip off my heart. I was letting her, of course, giving over more and more power to a woman who would never be fully mine.
"It was done before it started." I laughed humorlessly. "And the fucked-up thing about it is that I saw this coming." Exhaling a cloud of smoke, I muttered, "All of it."
Noah didn’t respond and I was glad.
He knew it, same as I did.
It was done.
"Gotta call from G earlier," I told him.
Noah released what sounded like a pained growl. "And?"
"I've got some business to take care of in Tally."
"Tally?" Noah arched a brow. "God fucking dammit, Luck."
I shrugged. "It is what it is, man."
"When will you be back?"
"Couple of days," I muttered. "Couple of weeks. Who fucking knows, man."
"What are you gonna do about it?" he asked, voice low, attention locked on the cigarette in his hand. "You're in now, man." He turned to face me then. "With G? There ain't no coming back from that handshake, Luck."
I knew that.
Blood would have to be shed.
I had commitments to carry out.
Lives to take.
"Hope staying with that shithead doesn’t change anything for me." Shaking my head, I rolled the butt between my fingers and stared straight ahead at nothing in particular. "I can't force her to love me, man. It's not in my control." I took another drag before adding, "But I can keep her safe. And I will."
"I can't decide if you're the craziest son of bitch I've ever met or just a plain old masochist," Noah retorted dryly. "But whatever you are, I'm down." He knocked his shoulder against mine. "Always."
"Remember when we were inside?" I asked him.
"Hard to forget."
"Yeah." I nodded more to myself than him. "Well, I'm right back there, man." Taking another drag of my cigarette, I exhaled a cloud of smoke before continuing, "That woman? She's got me in chains."
"Well shit," Noah muttered gruffly.
The only way I could escape this was to leave.
I had to go.
Put space between us.
"I'll end up killing him, man," I admitted, breaking the silence that had settled over us. "And I know I shouldn’t, I know it would ruin her if anything happened to him, but that's what I'll end up doing – if I stay."