Ignoring her has been harder than I thought possible. Who would have fucking guessed that? Even if I know her every move, I try my best to make sure she never sees me, and so far, I’ve done just that. Not once has she seen me in over two months. I’ve avoided her on her shifts and stayed in my office like I used to before she was even hired.

No more sitting at the bar pretending to work so I can watch her. No more making excuses so I can be near her. She saw what I was and decided it was best to run the other way. It was a smart thing to do.

I don’t blame her, even if the guys do. But they don’t know what she saw, they think we just stopped. D, though, he seems to know. Even if he hasn’t voiced it yet. And Falcon’s taunts on me about her haven’t been working. I haven’t been biting because if I do, he’ll just chase her more. That I can’t have. She can’t fall for him because if she did, I might kill them both myself.

“You been doing our dealings quietly and longer than necessary, Creed.” Echo and D sit down in front of me. Elicea’s here, I know she is. I watched her as she walked in to go behind the bar. She is a beautiful fucking creature.

“Snap out of it, and fucking listen.” D slaps his hand down on the desk hard, making me look up to him.

“What?”

“Did you hear anything I just said?”

“I’m not sloppy.”

Echo shakes his head.

“D never said that. Open your fucking ears and listen, Creed. That girl has you all kinds of fucked up, and you don’t even love her. Imagine when you do.” My teeth grind hard as I watch him. He’s not one to know about love, he’s the one that gets fucked over all the time, not me.

“Am I fucking up any of our fuckups?” I question them. I’ve been taking pleasure in killing the ones who have been fucking us over. It’s been my outlet for a while now. It’s not like I can taste what I want right now, no, she’s currently having a better life now that I’m not part of it.

“No,” they both say in unison. “But you’re taking on more then you should,” D says looking at me.

“Well, our next fuckup I’ll let you kill and dispose of. How does that sound?”

Echo starts shaking his head at my words. “You need to go and talk to her. It’s been long enough. And I’m sick of your fucking attitude.” He stands, pushing his chair back so it falls to the floor when he leaves.

D leans over, picking it up and looking at me.

“You want to have a go, too?”

He shakes his head. “You’re almost better than me at this job since you’ve been ignoring her.” His lip quirks up. “And I can’t have that. I am the best. So, I agree, go and at least speak to her. Before Echo does something he shouldn’t. You’ve been an ass to everyone lately. I don’t care, I prefer it that way. It gets my work done, makes it lighter for me. But they aren’t used to you being that way. Go and fucking fix it.”

I tap my knuckles on my desk. “I don’t fix things, D, I fucking break things.”

He chuckles as he leaves. “And you do it well. But maybe this one thing—you do need to fix.” He walks out, leaving me sitting there. Looking out my window, I see she isn’t there, but Echo and Falcon are both at the bar in a huddle. Walking over, I slide in next to Falcon, who doesn’t say a word just pulls out a bottle of bourbon and starts pouring.

“He doesn’t want to talk to you right now,” Falcon says nodding to Echo who’s currently slamming too many shots down. The night is close to ending, so I look up searching for her but don’t see her.

“Stop being a bitch, I’m here, aren’t I?” Echo grunts at my words.

“El,” Falcon cheers, looking up. She stalls where she’s walking out with a bottle of alcohol in her hand. She drops it as her eyes go wide, then quickly bends down to clean up the mess.

I walk around to help her. She looks up at me and shakes her head, brushing me off as I try to do so. “I’ve given you your space,” I say standing.

She doesn’t get up, just keeps picking up the glass. “Thank you,” she whispers. When she doesn’t look up at me, I look to my left to see the guys staring at me, eyes wide in wonder. Walking away, I step out into the cold air which hits my skin. I get in my car and start driving, I need to clear my head.

Her smell consumes me, I can still smell her just from standing near her.

Driving to the nearest bar isn’t wise, because I might kill the first person that might piss me off. So I go to the one safe place I know that can calm me down, and who can talk rationally to me all in one go: my Ma’s house.

She steps out the front door as soon as I pull up. Wiping her hand on her apron she waits for me to make my way up to her. When I do, her hands wrap around me and I fight the urge to pull back, not from her, but from the emotion that’s somehow taken hold of me. She must have put it there, it’s the only way it could have seeped inside me.

“What’s wrong?” She knows me well. Pulling away, we walk inside. I can smell her famous stew cooking in the kitchen on the stove.

“Nothing,” I answer as she brings a freshly baked loaf of bread over to me.

“I saw Elicea the other day.”

My body tenses at her words.

She carries on not noticing, “You two aren’t seeing each other? I thought you just haven’t brought her around because you’ve been busy, but she looked away when I said your name.”

“We were never seeing each other, it was just a fling.”

Ma tsks at me. “Don’t bullshit someone who got paid to sniff shit out, Creed. You know me better than that.”

“Two different directions, Ma.”

“I don’t think that’s all, it has to be more.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. If you do, I can leave.”

She places a bowl in front of me, her hand coming to rest on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, but if it’s any consolation, she misses you, too.”

I don’t reply. Instead, I eat the whole fucking bowl of food while she talks about her day.

And I try real damn hard not to think of Elicea.

But like a snake, she slithers into my thoughts.