I SAT IN my car parked just outside our house for an hour. I hadn’t really seen her in a day. Any time we were together, I wasn’t really there. I couldn’t lie and say it was easy, because it wasn’t. I’d never taken a hard drug in my life and had no idea what the firsthand experience of drug withdrawal felt like. I’d seen it in patients hundreds of times. Goddamn if being with her, but not really with her, didn’t feel like it. I couldn’t sleep. I could barely eat. Hitting the gym became a luxury. My hands were constantly unsteady. I had night sweats, if I could sleep. My skin was on fucking fire in a very, very bad way.
I stayed away at times when I was awake for very good reasons. The days in which the hospital and the warehouse were my primary stomping grounds, the Eric I didn’t want her to know had taken over.
Because of Preston, I knew things about her she’d never told me. Whether or not they were true, or Preston was just blowing smoke up my ass, I had to be mentally vacant with her until I could figure it all out. Torturing Preston, though it was vindicating, pitted me against the man she made me become when I was around her.
Managing blood loss to keep Preston alive through the detachment of two more of his limbs—and preventing Victor from finding out about Preston’s little vacation—wasn’t exactly a cakewalk. I didn’t know if I should thank Charlie for the quiet on Vic’s end or if being careful paid off. He never told me what he wanted in exchange for giving me Preston, at least, not yet.
If I wasn’t educated in the how and when, Preston would’ve been dead by now.
Nikki sent me a text out of the blue and made me rethink my decision to stay away for the night:
Come sleep with me tonight. I miss you.
It burned a little. I couldn’t have said no. The way she’d been acting after and before my disappearing acts didn’t exactly make me think things were good between us. Every time I cornered Janet to find out why she wasn’t doing what I’d asked her to do during my absence, she said Nikki was never home when she came around. The incompetent sons-of-bitches I sent to look over her claimed she went for frequent walks. I knew those fuckers were lying to me. She was going somewhere, ignoring the fact I told her to stay in the house. Where the hell was she going?
When I walked into the dining room, I was stunned for a minute. The table was lit by candles and decorated with spread I knew was store bought. I couldn’t help but smile. And when she stood from the table, she reminded me of why she was still the sexiest woman I’d ever met. That apron—the sheer apron—and fuck me heels with nothing underneath immediately made my cock wake up.
Janet got her ass in gear and finally did what I’d asked her to do. Here I thought I’d have to use scare tactics with her.
“I wasn’t expecting you so late,” she said, awkwardly toying with her hands. “The food is cold. I don’t usually celebrate Thanksgiving, but I wanted to…with you.”
“Doesn’t matter. I wasn’t hungry.” I pulled her into my arms and kissed her. “I love that you did this, Nik.” As I held her, the things I was told about her gnawed at me. I bit my lip to keep the anger down. “But not tonight.”
She looked close to tears.
I sighed and dropped my head. “I’m really fucking tired, Nikki.”
She placed her hand on my jaw and gave me a kiss. “I only did this because we’ve lost us, and I wanted to try and do something to get us back. It was…a stupid idea.”
My eyes shot up to her in shock. Never mind. Janet didn’t do what I’d asked her to do. Here I was to face down what I knew she’d been thinking. She didn’t know what was going on, and to an outsider looking in, I couldn’t blame her for feeling that way.
I searched her eyes. Despite the way she quickly swallowed back her tears, there was something different about her. She was calm. Collected. She’d taken something. A fact that hitched in my throat and damn near choked me. She’s trying to replace me…again. “What did you take, Nikki?”
“Nothing.” She shot me down too fast for it to be true. “I’m not on anything. I’ve been going to a therapist for several weeks and…”
Her voice trailed off. I dropped my hands from her. A therapist? She was in therapy for weeks and she didn’t tell me? So that’s where she’d been disappearing to? The dumbfucks ordered with watching her lied to me about it. Are you fucking shitting me? I felt betrayed. Beyond betrayed. Over the bridge and into the thicket of betrayed.
I went from room to room, ransacking the house, because I didn’t believe her. She’d taken something, and I was on a mission to find what she took and get rid of it.
I might need to tie her to the bed again.
“Honest, I’m not taking anything. You can keep searching”—she dodged a stray piece of something I threw over my shoulder during my search—“but you won’t find a single pill. Eric, stop.” She put her hand on my shoulder.
“Shit,” I muttered and rubbed my forehead. I believed her. I could almost always tell when she was lying. It was the one time I’d wished she was.
“I had to do something, Eric. You weren’t around then, and now that you are around, you’re so…different. I needed someone to talk to.”
The therapist thing would be dealt with. Another bullet note on a list of things to manage and keep my life under control. As tired as I was, I had to do something in the now to make her think seeing a therapist was a bad idea. But when I tried to kiss her, she backed away. I couldn’t lie. Having her full out reject me made me feel like shit. I couldn’t blame her, I was trying the gentle-guy thing with her when we fucked and it wasn’t exactly working for either of us.
“You’re right. I’m tired, and I’ve been waiting for you for four hours and—maybe we should just go to bed.” She slipped my arms from around her and went upstairs, her hands behind her back, partially covering her naked ass. “Happy birthday,” she said in a tone that sent a knife straight to my chest.
I took a deep breath and got out of my headspace. A cake with thirty-something candles was set on the center of the table. I was so fucked over everything, I forgot. It wasn’t exactly the date of my real birth, but a date I set when I went to college in order to appear as normal. I didn’t know the date of my real birthday, because the only time I celebrated was with my mother, and I’d blocked out most of my memories with her.
“Nikki…wait.”