Seven
“Ah, bloody hell…” Walsh muttered.
Yes, bloody being the operative word.
Mitch and Marcello were always hounded about being brothers, though they clearly weren’t, in a physical, genetic sense. One was lanky and blonde and rat-faced; the other was Mexican and heavyset. They worked as a team, long-standing dealers for the Lean Dogs, peddling weed and the occasional baggie of coke east of Knoxville, two of the most profitable and trustworthy dealers working under the club. They worked out of a duplex that, though sad in its age and wear, was normally tidy and clean-smelling, despite the neighborhood full of weed-choked yards and rusted heaps of old cars lining the streets.
It was a routine stop-by, to collect cash and make sure things were running smoothly. But what Mercy and Walsh found was anything but expected.
Front door ajar, swaying in the breeze. Copper scent of blood flooding their lungs as they stepped inside. That sudden burst of heat fresh death always left behind.
Mitch had fallen first, face-down on the carpet, back torn apart by a blade of some sort. Something large and sharp. Marcello had been gunning for the kitchen, but must have turned at the sound of his friend going down – he was face-up, the carnage warping his familiar face and form into something pulpy and revolting.
Walsh’s English face went white all the way up to his hairline, eyes ice-colored and glittering as he surveyed what had been done. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. He was suffering an Afghanistan flashback or something.
Mercy was more angry than disgusted; he’d seen worse than this. Done worse than this. It was the violation of their associates, the killing of their employees that turned his stomach.
“I gotta clear the house,” he said, stepping over Mitch, drawing his Colt.
“Right.” Walsh nodded and seemed to gather himself.
The rest of the small semidetached was tidy and uninhabited. The radio was running in one of the bedrooms, and Mercy clicked it off, the silence rushing up to assault him afterward. He’d never liked being in other people’s bedrooms. That was where people allowed themselves to be vulnerable.
This was Marcello’s room, he saw, judging by the framed photo of ‘Cello and his madre on the dresser. A drawer was half-open, a knotted pair of socks sitting on the top. The scent of cologne hung heavy, like he’d just sprayed it, before… He’d been going out. Socks, and body spray, and one last check of his slicked back hair in the mirror.
“It’s clear,” Mercy said heavily as he rejoined Walsh in the main room.
The VP had pushed back the knitted throw that veiled the lockbox kept beneath the end table. The key had been found – probably on one of the boys’ bodies – and used. The box was empty, all the cash and stash cleaned out.
“Ah, damn it,” Mercy said.
“Just like Fisher.”
They took the box, and left out the front door; no sense hiding. The neighbor had seen them go in.
Walsh sat down heavily on the front step, and Mercy followed suit. “The knife was smart; no one will have heard anything.”
“Yeah,” Mercy agreed. “Which means we’re gonna have to do cleanup.” He gestured to their bikes. “Otherwise, we’ll be suspects one and two.”
Walsh’s hands shook as he pulled a pack of smokes from his cut pocket and lit one up, holding the smoke in his lungs a long moment before dispelling it in a rush.
“This is bothering you,” Mercy said, stating the obvious, fishing for an explanation as to the Englishman’s unusual breach in calmness.
Walsh nodded and took another drag. “Emmie wants to have kids.” He shot a sideways glance toward Mercy. “Just what I always wanted – to bring a kid into the world while someone’s trying to bring us down.”
“Bit dramatic.”
“It always starts small,” Walsh insisted. “You never expect the big explosion until the bodies are flying.”
~*~
Reaching blindly into the Fritos bag, Aidan frowned when he came up empty. He set his binoculars down and checked the bag to confirm that – yep, all gone. Damn it.
He wiped his greasy hand on his jeans and picked up the binoculars, arm twitching in protest as he fitted them to his face again.
In the passenger seat, Tango said, “Look, I’m all for catching this guy, but you’ve gotta admit, this isn’t getting us anywhere.”
Aidan glanced over at him sharply. “You’re gonna puss out?”
“Puss out of what? Sitting here? Not clocking hours at the shop?” He looked like hell: bags and shadows beneath his eyes, bristle on his cheeks. He looked tired and pale, like he was slowly fading away. Aidan was half afraid he’d look over one day, and his best friend would turn into vapor, ghosting off on the wind. “I need to work. We both do.” His lifted brows were meant to drive the point home, but fell short of convincing, the way his whole face sagged with exhaustion.
“You don’t have to sit here with me,” Aidan said, only half as harsh as he’d set out to be.
Tango shrugged and sent his gaze through the windshield, toward Hamilton House.
“Ian not letting you sleep?” Aidan asked, not really wanting the answer, unable to keep quiet.
For the first time, Tango didn’t react with defensive denial. “He always lets me sleep,” he said quietly. “He makes me eat when I don’t want to.”
“Then why is being with him killing you?”
“I’m not with him. I’m not with anyone.”
“Kev, if this is about Jasmine–”
“Look.”
Aidan snapped around, binoculars at the ready.
They were parked alongside the broken-down carriage house in back of the mansion, screened by a few branches Aidan had dragged into place. They had a narrow view through the windshield, but given the position of the carriage house, they could see anyone going into or out of the mansion through the front or back doors. They’d been staking Hamilton House out for a few weeks now, and so far had seen nothing.
Their luck was changing today.
It was a crisp day, and the man Aidan clocked heading up to the porch wore a hoodie, the hood pulled up, cinched tight. Average height, a little on the small side, head ducked so his face wasn’t visible. He walked with his hands in his pockets, his gait hurried.
“The dealer. Gotta be.”
Tango sat up tall, tension tightening his frame. “What do you wanna do?”
He considered a moment – truly considered. A year or so ago, he would have jumped to immediate action. But…he waited. Weighed their options.
“Let’s go in the back,” he decided. “Real quiet, and see what we can see.”
The rear porch steps groaned the moment they hit them, and Aidan winced, balanced up on his toes as he navigated the sagging boards gracelessly. By contrast, Tango skipped all the way up to the door without a sound, damn his light dancer feet.
Why no one had ever bothered to lock the house up, he didn’t know. Probably all the copper pipe and radiators had been pilfered. The back door opened with a touch, swinging inward and stirring thick clouds of dust. They drew their guns and ghosted down the hallway, pausing before they reached the ballroom, flattening themselves to the wall. Listening.
“…nah, I’m here. No. Uh-huh. Sure…” The guy in the hoodie was obviously on the phone. His voice echoed strangely in the wide room, and Aidan couldn’t tell much about it thanks to the distortion.
“…I’ll check in after. Yeah.” Low beep of the phone hanging up. Shuffling of feet.
Aidan looked at Tango. Yeah?
Yeah.
They charged out of the hallway together. “Hands up!” Aidan shouted.
The guy spun, gaze snapping to the barrels of the guns trained on his face.
His familiar face.
A face Aidan had last seen in this same scenario: holding a gun, those eyes flooded with sudden terror and understanding.
His muscles turned to water. “Greg,” he gasped, and Tango made a similar sound beside him.
“How is he–” Tango started.
Aidan didn’t hear whatever else he said. He was tumbling, tumbling, headlong into a memory that was a nightmare. The cattle property, wind lapping at his face, Greg begging with him, pleading…
“Aidan!” Tango snapped. “Why is he still alive?”
He slammed back into his body, and though he was shaking, it was anger that overtook him, skinned his lips off his teeth. “I told you to stay the fuck away,” he hissed. “I let you go! And that’s how you pay me back? Killing Fisher? Dealing his dope in my city?”
Greg had calmed from his initial shock, and stood watching him with quiet eyes, palms held outward to show he was unarmed. “You couldn’t shoot me before. Can you do it now?”
“You’re damn right–”
Chaos. The buyers tumbled into the room from the front hallway, a knot of college boys, swearing, gesturing, shouting. It diverted Aidan’s attention just long enough…
And then Greg was running, slipping around the corner. “The side door!” Aidan shouted.
Tango surged ahead of him, the faster runner, and they barreled through the butler’s pantry, the kitchen. The door stood open, sunlight streaming in.
Greg was gone.
~*~
The mood in the common room made Aidan’s skin itch as he entered. All patched members were present, called in from their jobs across Dartmoor, everyone gathered around a table where Ratchet and Walsh were making notations on a map of the city and surrounding counties.
The confession he’d meant to spill – “Dad, look, about Greg…” – shriveled up in his mouth and he swallowed it down. “What’s going on?”
Walsh glanced up and pulled the pen from his mouth. “Five of our dealers dead.”
“Mitch and Marcello we found,” Mercy said, gesturing between himself and the VP.
“We checked in on Scott,” Rottie said of himself and RJ, “and he’d been dead for a while.”
“Anthony and Cracker are gone too,” Briscoe said grimly.
“Jesus.” Aidan felt his knees tremble and locked them tight. “How?”
“Knife,” everyone said at once.
He should tell them about Greg. He should. But there was no way Greg had done all of this. Which meant –
“This is on a much bigger scale than we thought,” Ghost said. His face at grim angles, eyes blazing with dark light. “It’s not a message. It’s an act of war.”
“From…Ellison. You think?”
“That’d be my guess.”
Walsh looked uncharacteristically nauseas. “We pissed them off. What happened with Em…”
“Hey,” Ghost said, turning to him, “we would have gone in there after anyone linked to us. This isn’t on you, VP. Ellison woulda made a move on us eventually.”
Then Ghost turned back, gaze sharpening. “Where have you two been?”
“Hamilton House,” Aidan said woodenly. “I’m still trying to find that dealer who had Fish’s stuff.”
“Yeah, well, mystery solved it looks like,” Ghost said.
“Yeah. Looks like.”
~*~
It had become a ritual, their trip down to the vending machines for Coke and M&Ms. Aidan came by the university every day at her class break, and side-by-side they dragged the walk out as long as possible, the breaking point at her classroom door becoming this awkward moment of suspended animation, in which they both seemed to realize that neither wanted to be the first to walk away.
It was the best part of Sam’s day, hands down. Better than dragging Erin out of bed, whipping together sack lunches for everyone, commuting and hustling across campus to make her first class. It was better even than her favorite lines of iambic pentameter. Better than the words that flowed off her pen when she sat down at her bedroom desk each night. The bright white slice of Aidan’s smile; the laugh lines around his eyes and mouth; the way the razor never really took his beard stubble down to the skin. The way he smelled like wind and wildness, and the careful curve of his rough fingers around her elbow, like he was afraid he might break her or spook her.
She didn’t want to fool herself about what this was – God knew he wasn’t the type to take things slow and chivalrous, so he must not have wanted her sexually. But the unfolding easiness between them kept growing, kept tucking new dimensions into their conversation and lending them a familiarity she didn’t think either of them had expected.
Today, he was already propped up against the outer wall when she left the classroom. Hands in his pockets, hoodie zipped up against the chill beneath his cut. He needed a haircut, and his eyes were tired, and she drank him in visually.
“My next class is cancelled; I’m letting them take the day off and work on their papers. So we can actually have coffee today.”
He nodded and pushed off the wall, his smile just as weary as his gaze. “It’s cold out. That sounds good.”
Sam buttoned up her jacket and slid an arm through his offered one. It always sent a pulse of awareness through her, feeling the solid hardness of his biceps through his clothes. A gorgeous boy, a playboy…but a strong one, too.
The breeze rushed over them, as they pushed through the doors into the sunshine, and Sam leaned in a little closer.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said, and it was an obvious, stiffly told lie.
“Girl trouble?”
He snorted.
“Family trouble?”
No comment.
“So club trouble, then.”
He made a sound that was neither yes nor no, but she understood it.
“Talking about it might help.”
He sighed…and then pulled her tighter beside him as they walked, holding her against his side, his gaze downcast. “Do you ever just know something’s going to blow up in your face, but you’ve got no idea what to do about it?”
“Yes. Though, in my case, it’s a metaphorical explosion. And with you, there might well be a real bomb involved.”
He chuckled. “You think?”
“There’s no telling.”
He nodded. “Yeah, well…this is a metaphorical one – damn, listen to how you have me talking – at least, I think it is. Mostly.” A frown pressed a deep groove between his brows. In a quiet undertone: “I really fucked up. A lot. And I’ve got no idea how to fix it.”
Okay, so whatever this was, it was serious.
They reached the coffee cart and she motioned toward a bench a few feet away in a sunny patch. “What do you want and I can join you in a sec?”
“Nope.” He dug out his wallet, its chain rattling. “I’m buying.”
“You don’t have to do keep doing that.”
“I’m taking up your time, so I’m buying your coffee.”
“Aidan–”
“Not listening.”
It wasn’t their usual back-and-forth. This was tight, colored with his disquiet.
“Fine.”
Aidan bought the coffee and they stirred in their preferred flavors: just sugar for him, and hazelnut International Delight for her. A kid with a laptop was settling onto the intended bench as they approached, but Aidan made a face that sent him scurrying.
“Wish I could do that sometimes,” Sam said as she dropped down onto the cold concrete.
“What?”
“The look.”
“You should talk to Mags. I hear she gives classes.”
“No doubt.”
The disquiet pressed in more strongly, a cold hand against the back of her neck. Whatever troubled Aidan, he wasn’t just ticked off, wasn’t just stewing. This was heavy; it had clamped down on him.
He held his coffee and stared down at the toes of his boots, head hanging between his shoulders.
“Aidan, tell me,” she prodded.
He sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “My dad’s not always an easy guy to please.”
“I’d imagine not.”
“I kinda gave up a while back, when I was a kid. It wasn’t possible, so I stopped trying. And I guess that’s why I suck at doing anything right, even when I try.”
She kept silent.
“After the accident,” he continued, and her mind filled with an image of him, pale and drawn in Ava’s guestroom, his arms dark with healing road rash, his head supported by pillows; it turned her stomach. “I had a talk with my dad, and I realized – well, I was gonna do things different. No more fucking – I mean, screwing around. I was gonna get settled. I was gonna step up. That was my plan.”
Sam thought of Tonya Sinclair, and her stomach did another cartwheel. She swallowed. “Settle down as in…”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said with a snort. “I got it wrong, and I’m an idiot, I guess.”
“You’re not an idiot.”
He glanced over at her finally, brows lifted, half-smile sad and mocking.
“If I’m being totally honest, I think you’re a little selfish.”
His grin widened a fraction. “Yeah?”
“You like to have a good time.” She knew her cheeks colored as she thought of the wild MC party rumors she’d been subjected to since childhood. She’d overhead Aidan talking about a stripper once their senior year, just before he’d dropped out, that confident, smooth quality of his voice that said so much more than the words themselves.
“Not – not that there’s anything wrong with that,” she added, and he chuckled. “But you’ve been worried about yourself – about moment to moment experiences, and not the big picture, not the way your actions affect others, or yourself, even.”
She didn’t really expect him to agree, much less smile about it, but he did both. Nodding, he said, “I don’t impress you for a second, do I?”
A little tremor of something ridiculous in the pit of her stomach. A flutter in her chest. “Depends.”
His grin widened for a second, a brief flash of humor and happiness, and then his mood dimmed. His eyes stayed pinned to hers, dark and deep, and full of something she could only guess. “You’re better than me,” he said quietly, seriously.
“Aidan–”
“You finished school, you’re about to have two degrees. You go to work, and take care of your family, and you don’t break the law. You’re a good person, Sam. And you’re not selfish, not like me. You’re a better human being than I’ll ever be. But you don’t treat me like I’m not fit to breathe the same air as you.”
Awareness dawned, and with it a cool prickling along her skin. Anger knifed through her, a possessive, almost maternal urge to pull him in close, stroke his hair. “Who treats you that way?”
“Doesn’t matter now.”
“What did Tonya say to you?” she demanded, voice sharp and so unlike herself. She sounded angry. No, not just sounded – was.
Aidan’s expression shifted, became curious. He shrugged. “She was too good for me. But like I said, it doesn’t matter.”
“What did she say?” Sam repeated. Anger pulsed through her, strongest in her wrists, her throat, right up close to the skin.
Aidan shrugged. “What do you–”
“I care,” Sam interrupted, surging to her feet suddenly, “because I’m sick to death of people like Tonya Sinclair” – she spat the name like an expletive – “misusing the entire world on a whim. Like every damn person in her path is just an amusement.”
Aidan stared at her in surprise and disbelief as she paced in front of their bench. “Wait. You know her?”
“Everyone knows her. She wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s been making girls hate themselves since birth.”
“Okay…” Aidan said, but she wasn’t listening.
She was seeing Tonya: seven and gorgeous even then, in that mysterious way some girls seemed like grown women from conception, tiny child’s nose already lifted in disdain. Ten and accepting tokens and favors from her fawning friends; telling Sam she couldn’t go down the slide because she “hadn’t paid the toll,” and because her glasses were “fugly.” Eighteen and tailgating in her convertible. Twenty-one and sending back a martini because there was an onion instead of an olive, shaming the poor waiter until he nearly cried.
Thirty-two, and wrapping those manicured hands around Aidan’s tattooed arms, leading him into her bedroom.
Sam closed her eyes against the mental picture, hating Tonya, hating Aidan, hating herself. Hurt boiled up inside her, a hurt she had no right to feel, one that burned as it filled her.
Before she could stop herself, she whirled to a halt, facing him, braid slapping against her back. “What is it, anyway?”
He sat back, brows lifting. “What?”
“What is it about girls like Tonya that gets you guys all riled up? Is it really just about looks? She’s beautiful, and that’s all that matters? Or does she do something fr-freaky in bed” – she felt color bloom in her cheeks, bright spots of heat under her skin – “that other girls won’t? Or is it for bragging rights? I mean…Jesus, every woman has a vagina. What makes hers so special? Why does someone like Tonya get everything she ever wanted, and every guy too?”
The moment the tirade had left her, the anger was replaced with hot, acid shame, burning up her throat, choking her. She couldn’t believe her own outburst, couldn’t believe she’d said something so childish and petty.
“I’m s-sorry,” she stammered, putting her back to him, walking away. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, though he couldn’t have heard her. She had to get away from him; couldn’t stare him in the eye after she’d let her jealously come roaring out into the open like that.
Breathing in big gulps of chilled air, squeezing her coffee cup so hard it cracked and leaked down her hand, she didn’t realize she was being followed until she caught her reflection in the plate glass of a window. Aidan walked several paces behind her, hands in his cut pockets, gaze fixed to her back. He wasn’t hurrying, but he wasn’t falling behind either. He was keeping up with her, tracking her. In the fast window glimpse, he looked like a predator on the hunt.
She ducked her head and walked faster. Faster, cursing her heels and skirt, trying to…
“Samantha.” He caught her suddenly, closing in as they reached the parking lot, his hand darting over her shoulder like a striking snake and taking hold of her wrist. The way he said her name, the streak of emotion in his voice, sent sparks shooting through her veins. He turned her so she faced him.
His face was flushed from the cool air and the exertion, a blush painted along his high cheekbones. Such pretty eyes he had, dark as coffee, full of pain.
“Sam, wait,” he pleaded, and she stood stock still, because suddenly, she felt the balance tipping between them, and she had no idea which way to lean.
“I’m sorry I got emotional,” she said stiffly, the words clashing with the way she felt her insides slowly melting. “I didn’t mean to jump down your throat like that.”
He didn’t seem to hear, staring at her. He dampened his lips – a fast flash of the pink tip of his tongue – and said, “You’re right. There’s not one thing special about Tonya.”
She hadn’t expected him to say that, of all things.
“I thought she was classy,” he continued, “and I thought she must be strong, the way she acted. I was looking for someone, someone special, really looking this time. But Tonya’s a bitch. And she was using me. She’s not anything like you, Sam,” he said fiercely. “She’s nothing like you.”
Her pulse arrested a second, and then kicked into high gear, thrumming in her ears. Her voice came out a whisper. “Why are you telling me this?”
He still had her wrist in an iron grip, and gave her a little shake. “Because I figured out what I really want. Finally. Jesus Christ – finally.”
“What’s that?”
“You.”
She couldn’t have heard right. This couldn’t be happening.
“No,” she said, going cold all over.
“Yes.” He leaned in closer, grew still more earnest. “I’ve been so, so, so stupid. I’ve been a fucking idiot, chasing after everything I shouldn’t. And I know that now. And I know I want you.”
She was…furious. Heartbroken.
Sam twisted her hand but couldn’t break away from him, grimacing at the tightness of his fingers. “You don’t want me,” she said through her teeth. “You think you do, now, all of a sudden, because Tonya used you and made you feel like shit.” She knew it was true, as she said it, and she hated the tears that sprang up in her eyes. “I make you feel better, right? You said so. Because I’m this pathetic…loser…who has a crush on you, and looks at you adoringly, and makes you feel like a man. You don’t want me. You want the ego boost.”
“Sam…” He stepped toward her, and she stepped back, still trapped by his hand, grimacing at the pain – physical and emotional.
“I’m your last choice,” she said. “You tried everything, tasted everyone in Knoxville. And when the princess told you off, you came to me, the last ditch effort.” She tried to smile and knew it was an awful expression. “You said so yourself. ‘Finally.’ You’ve finally exhausted every pair of open legs in this city, and now it’s time to try me out.”
“No,” he said, roughly, stepping into her again, holding her fast. He pressed against her, all of him hard beneath his clothes, the leather and smoke smell of him filling her lungs. “No, it’s not like that, I swear. Sam, listen…”
She turned her head away, closed her eyes. But she could still feel him, smell him. Was still shivering.
Aidan’s breath touched her cheek, as he closed in further, invaded her senses. “Listen to me,” he said urgently. “I know I’m not worth a shit. I know I don’t deserve you. But I know you want me. I can feel it. I don’t have any of the things I ought to offer you, but I can make your toes curl. I can be good to you that way. And if you’ll just gimme a chance to–”
She shoved him. One-handed, but hard, and he let go of her, out of shock, she thought, going by the way his eyes leapt wide.
“No,” she insisted, tremulous, weak. “I won’t let you use me. I won’t be another notch in your belt, because you feel low–”
He caught her face in both hands, pulled her to him, and kissed her.
A real, violent, hot-blooded kiss, his tongue thrusting between her lips.
She’d never been kissed like that.
It kicked off a slideshow in her mind, drawing on all her wildest imaginings: Her fingernails sunk in the tattooed expanse of his back; rasp of his breath at her throat; swift pain of him coming inside her; his weight pressing her into the mattress; scent of sweat and musk.
“Sam, please,” he said, raggedly, against her lips.
But none of it was real.
The startlingly sexual, animal heartthrob of her youth begging to sleep with her?
That wasn’t real.
“Oh my God,” she heard someone say. A female someone. A voice she recognized: Ava.
“God,” Sam echoed, and tore away from Aidan, not looking back, running for her car.
~*~
Damn his sister. Damn her for popping up when he least needed an audience. Interfering.
He whirled on her, snarling, and watched her eyes open in surprise. Excuse me? they said, as she gripped the handle of her double stroller. In the front seat, little Remy looked up at him, echoing his mother’s sentiment.
Damn both of them, even if one was a baby.
“Okay, what the hell was that?” Ava asked.
He countered with, “What are you doing here?”
“Dropping off a paper. I go to school here, Aidan. So I think the question is, what are you doing here? Aside from traumatizing Shakespeare professors?”
“None of your goddamn business.” He wanted to stomp off, but knew he was in no shape to get on his bike at the moment. He vibrated head to toe, and he knew that was part frustration, part shame, part lust, part total and complete devastation thanks to what Sam had said. That was when he realized, for the first time, just how serious he was, how much he wanted her, needed her. The One? He’d found her. But he was too late, and he’d treated her too poorly, and now there was no chance.
Aidan scrubbed at his hair with both hands, trying to contain the headache that swelled up behind his eyes.
The stroller came closer, plastic wheels bumping over the cracks in the sidewalk. “Why are you messing with Sam all of a sudden?” Ava asked, dropping her voice to a low, soothing pitch that reminded him suddenly of Maggie.
He let his hands fall to his sides, giving her a back off glance that she ignored. “I’m not.”
“That’s why she ran off like that, then. All your not-messing.”
“Ava…” he said in warning.
“She’s in love with you, you know.”
That stopped him fast. “What?”
Ava studied him like a bird might, head tilted to the side, dark eyes narrowed. “She’s never said anything, but I can tell. She gets that look, that faraway one people have when it hurts to look at someone.” She smiled. “Caught that look on my face in windows and dessert spoons often enough back in the day to recognize it when I see it.”
He heard her words, but his brain wasn’t computing them. “What?” he repeated, tone becoming desperate, unfamiliar to his ears.
“Honestly, I don’t know why she’d waste her time on you,” Ava said with a shrug. “We all know you don’t care about education and responsibility. But she probably can’t help it. Hell – it may go all the way back to high school. That kind of first love crush is almost impossible to get over.” Another sad smile, because she understood all too well.
Aidan didn’t understand, though. His head was pounding. “Sam doesn’t – she couldn’t – there’s no way–”
“No accounting for taste, I guess.” Ava grew more serious. “But what were you doing just now?”
He gave her a vicious frown. “What’d it look like, genius?”
“Like you’re taking advantage, because you’re lost, and you’re hurting, and Sam suddenly looks like a soft place to land,” she said baldly, without flinching.
“It’s not like that.”
“So explain it to me.”
“Fuck you.”
She didn’t shrink away, of course she didn’t. Ava – shooter of men in the face, mother of two half-demons, both of whom were staring at him at this point, even Cal somehow disapproving in his own baby way.
“Does she know what’s going on with Tonya?”
He wasn’t prepared for the fresh, hot surge of anger that boiled up in his chest. He took a step closer to his sister, aiming a finger at her chest. “No, she doesn’t, and don’t you tell her, understand? Don’t tell her anything.”
“She’s my friend, and I can’t sit by and watch you deceive her just for fun.”
“It’s not for fun. It’s…” Something came unhinged in his mind. A sharp pain in his head, somewhere deep he couldn’t touch; he felt something break and give way. The stress – of Tonya, the baby he wasn’t going to ever get to meet, the dead dealers, freaking Greg – overwhelmed him in that moment, and he hated the way his anger turned to something raw and desperate. But he was powerless to do anything about it.
“I’m gonna tell her,” he said in a breathless rush. “About Tonya, about everything. I am, I swear. I don’t wanna lie to her. But I can’t tell her right now. I have to wait for the right time, for–”
“You have to wait until she’s so hopelessly attached she couldn’t walk away from you?”
“Ava! Jesus Christ, I’m serious!” He reached for her, planning on taking her by the shoulders, but a fast mental image of Mercy knocking all of his teeth out pulled him up short. Instead he curled his hands into fists. “You can’t tell her yet. Please! Not yet. Wait and let me tell her.”
He was breathing like he’d run a race, chest heaving. He felt the hot slide of perspiration down his back and shivered despite it. He had to hear her relent, absolutely had to. He had maybe one chance with Sam, and he couldn’t afford to blow it.
Ava looked at him a long moment, pushing the stroller back and forth absently when Cal started to fuss. “You’re dead damn serious, aren’t you?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“Why now?” she asked, smoothing her expression to something thoughtful. “Sam and I have been friends for almost two years. Why do you want her all of a sudden?”
Hot shame passed through him. He wasn’t sure he’d ever felt like more of an idiot, not even when he’d been sitting across from Tonya in that booth at Stella’s. That sort of regret was normal – making a mistake, kicking himself for it. But this, with Sam – that was about realizing he’d missed something.
He missed a lot of things, didn’t he?
He sighed deeply, and the tension bled out of his body, leaving him exhausted.
“Because the total fucking mess I’ve made of my entire life is catching up to me now. Because I’m tired – tired of getting everything wrong, tired of chicks using me, tired of everything stupid and shallow and fake. I want something real, and Sam’s the realest thing I’ve ever run across.”
Ava smiled. “Welcome to the land of adults, bro. I’m glad you finally made it.”
He rolled his eyes.
“But,” she added, “Sam doesn’t deserve to be dragged into the mess if she’s just a balm. If you’re just hoping she’ll be sweet to you and make you feel better.”
He started to respond –
“I won’t say anything to her, I promise. And really, I think she’d be good for you. Maybe help get your head on straight. But make sure it’s really about Sam, Aidan, please. She deserves to be loved. Make sure you can love her before you break her heart.”
He…nodded. That was all he could do.