Chapter 5

I hate it when I see an old person and realize we went to high school together.

-Things Tobias doesn’t like to think about

Tobias

“You can come in and take a load off while I go change my clothes,” I grumbled, ripping my brother’s shirt off my body and tossing it in the general direction of the laundry room before continuing on to my room.

Those little fuckers at the last apartment complex better be glad that they were only kids, or I would’ve unleashed holy hell on them.

I fucking hated wearing wet clothes.

I did it enough while at work. I didn’t want to do it on my days off.

Her laugh followed me into the bedroom, and I had to suppress the urge to laugh with her.

The last apartment we’d gone to, I had to admit, was actually a good one.

It was a newer construction right off the interstate and had excellent security. It had a clean and modern feel to it that the other apartments didn’t have.

Although this particular complex was at least a hundred and fifty dollars a month more than the other places I’d checked out with her today, I had a feeling that she was going to do it.

The building itself was fantastic.

From a cop’s perspective, this place was perfect for a single woman.

A gate surrounding the entire complex. Lots of lighting in the parking lot as well as through all of the hallways that led to the different apartments.

Then there were the steel reinforced door jams along with a security system that each individual apartment had.

However, the apartment’s security system was an extra fifteen dollars a month.

I’d gladly pay that for her, though, just to ensure that she had that peace of mind that she deserved.

I’d seen the way she’d taken in the security. I’d also listened as she asked question after question about who was allowed in, how the visitor situation worked, and what the response rate was for the fire department as well as the police.

The thing that made me think she was going to take this place? The fact that there were kids around.

The same kids who’d shot me from a third floor balcony with water pistols, and continued to do so while I walked to my bike and backed out.

Shaking my head at the memory, I pulled my gun from the holster at the small of my back and placed it on the bed before shucking my pants.

Thinking it was best to go ahead and change completely, I walked to the dresser and dropped my underwear just as I heard a gasp from the door.

“Jesus, Lord have mercy,” Audrey said. “I’m so sorry.”

I turned to find her standing in my doorway, her hands covering her eyes as she tried to back out of the door.

The thing was that she was standing sideways, so all she kept doing was backing into the wall, and then ended up even further inside the room instead of closer to getting out of it.

“Hold on,” I laughed at the way she bounced. “I’ll get some clothes on and then you can open your eyes.”

“I thought you were just changing your shirt, or I wouldn’t have followed you in here.”

Grinning, I moved slowly—more slowly than I normally would have—and stepped into my boxer briefs.

The moment they were up over my semi-erect cock, I reached for the first pair of jeans that were on top of my dresser and stepped into those as well.

“I’m decent,” I said once I had them over my hips.

Keeping my eye on her, I buttoned up my pants and then zipped up the zipper.

“I only saw your butt,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

Grinning, I reached for the shirt that was in a pile next to my pants and shrugged that on, too.

“I like that t-shirt,” she said, eyeing it.

I looked down at it and grinned.

“I was a soccer player in high school,” I told her.

She scrutinized my shirt. “I’m surprised that a high school would allow you to wear that.”

I laughed. “I don’t think that they understood what the shirts meant. But we did. We also fucking loved it.”

The shirt said, “We do it for ninety minutes, from eleven different positions.”

“Can I have it?” she asked.

I shook my head. “You already got my favorite. This is my second favorite. Not gonna happen.”

She smiled at me sweetly. “We’ll just see about that.”

Then she stopped as she got her first good look at my wall.

"What's all this?"

The wall had hundreds of pushpins and strings. Hastily scribbled notes on any piece of paper I could find interspersed throughout the messy web.

"That," I said, "is my sightings wall."

"Sightings of what?" she asked, her eyes wide as she took everything in.

"Sightings of the woman that’s said to be pregnant with my brother’s child."

Her brows rose.

"From the brother we saw the other day?"

I shook my head. "No, this one is Dante. The one you saw the other day was Finley."

Her lips pursed into a Cupid’s bow. One that I wanted really badly to kiss.

"Why are you looking for her, and not your brother?"

I really, really didn't want to get into my brother’s problems right then. They were numerous.

Some of them were heartbreaking, and despite what my brother thought, his heart wasn't the only one broken.

Hell, I hadn't seen him since he checked in on me months ago after I was shot. And even then it was merely a 'you look okay' check in.

He'd stayed for less than five minutes and then was gone.

Then again, if my wife and children had been killed like his had, I might be unwilling to mingle with society either.

"Because he won't."

My tone was final and a little more surly than I intended it to come out.

But this subject wasn't one I wanted to talk about. At all.

She obviously picked up on that, too, because she quickly asked a different question.

"How many brothers do you have?"

I grinned. "Five."

"Sisters?"

My stomach clenched.

"None anymore. They both died."

She must've sensed the anger there, too, because she sighed and looked away.

"Do you want me to shut up?"

My lips twitched, and I sighed.

"No." I blew out another breath. "My family is fucked up times six. Seriously, all six of us boys have fucking problems, and none of them are even remotely fixed yet."

She turned and looked at me with these hauntingly green eyes.

"You don't look damaged."

The laugh that bubbled out of my throat was harsh. It hid the scream of anguish that wanted to slip from my throat at how fucked up I was. How unstable I was when I thought about all the things I’d done wrong in my life.

On the outside, I may look undamaged. But if it was possible to see to the heart of a person, mine would look torn, mangled and bruised.

"I watched my sister kill herself."

Her mouth fell open at the abruptness in my tone.

"Tobias..."

I held up a hand, already shaking my head. "It's okay."

She shook her head in denial. "No, it's not."

She was right. It wasn't. That didn’t change the fact that she was gone, though.

"Well, as of right now, it's as okay as it will ever get."

She knew when a subject was closed, obviously, because she just shook her head and walked away, leaving me staring at a wall that was my effort to atone for my sins.

My way to make things right.

After all, I’d made my sister a promise as I held her rapidly cooling hand.

"You make sure to help him," she’d whispered. "Please, make it right."

Dante had asked my sister to drive his family home when he was called in for an emergency at work. My sister had.

However, what Dante didn't know was that my sister was under the influence of drugs. She'd been exceptionally good at hiding her usage.

Hell, I hadn't even known she'd been using, and I saw her every week like clockwork.

Dante had entrusted our sister with his wife and children’s lives.

Instead of admitting that she was under the influence, she'd driven them to save face.

And in the process of driving them home, she'd lost control of the car, driving them off a bridge and into the river that was twenty feet below.

The only one who had made it out alive without drowning had been my sister, and we still weren't sure how she'd survived it. The drugs, maybe. We really weren't sure.

But that was my fault too. I hadn't protected her.

If I had to make a guess, she started using to hide from the pain after the man I used to call my best friend had hurt her.

And when she woke up in the hospital, I knew from the look on her face that she was going to try something.

So I'd watched her. Spent so much time with her that she couldn't do what I saw in her eyes that she wanted to do.

She'd been heartbroken. Plus, with the accident, and it being her fault, she’d been clean and sober since the accident, causing me to finally start backing off. Which had been a colossal mistake.

She gotten dressed up. Acted like she was going out on a date. Had gone on a date. Except she'd ended it early, and I hadn't realized it.

Then she'd gone home, wrote a note to Dante and me, and had overdosed on a bottle of pills that she’d stolen from my medicine cabinet.

Then she'd cleaned up after herself. Started a load of laundry, and then had gone to her bed.

When I'd arrived at her place an hour later, it was to find the note on the counter.

After I read the first few lines, I immediately started running toward her bedroom. I'd arrived in time to watch her take a few labored breaths in between telling me her wishes for Dante before she died in my arms.

“I’d offer to help you, but it looks like you have your ducks in a row.” Audrey broke into my thoughts. “If you ever need anything, I’m here.”

I squeezed her hand, grateful that she’d changed the subject on me, and returned to the bed to retrieve my weapon.

Once I had it on my person, I covered it up with my t-shirt. Once my shirt was in place, I looked over at Audrey still standing at the sightings wall and studied her.

“You ready?”

She nodded.

“Well then, let’s go,” I rumbled.

“You’re sure?” She was looking at me like I was going to self-destruct. “I don’t want to go that bad.”

***

She started to type, and again she nodded her head.

“The only cabins I have, mid-level and mid ship, are the ones with queen sized beds. However, if you choose, we can separate them into twins. You’ll just need to make sure that you specify that on the instructions tab on the site right there.”

The travel agent pointed to where the tab was on my own computer, and I nodded.

“Okay,” I grunted, turning to the woman that’d been particularly quiet throughout the entire appointment. “Is that okay with you?”

Audrey shrugged. “I can close the bathroom door. As for sharing the bed, that’s fine with me as well. We’re both adults.”

I looked at her, studying her sincerity, and then turned back to the woman.

“All right,” I leaned back in my chair. “That’s how it’s going to be.”

The travel agent’s smile was almost giddy as she signed us up, and I idly wondered how much commission she was getting off of the sale. I’d met one cop going in, and one cop had come in sometime during our meeting with her.

She was going to make a killing on just law enforcement.

“Alrighty, then.” She grinned. “Let’s get this booked.”

Ten minutes later, we were walking out of the door with a pamphlet full of shore excursions in our hands, and a hunger that was gnawing at our insides.