LYNX WASN’Tsure she could do this thing with Mike—unconditional love—but she also didn’t want to go home.
Except, she didn’t know how or whether to say it or not.
She also needed to check in with Sammy, but she couldn’t stop rolling Mike’s words around in her head.
I love you, Lynx.
She didn’t deserve those words, but she was taking them, absorbing them, wrapping her soul in them. She repeated them, making promises to him to try to get her shit together.
She’d decided earlier today she would accept Michael’s love and affection. After all, she craved it like potato chips and ice cream when she was PMSing. She went to him, unannounced, carrying a stupid excuse to see him like an extra suitcase at the airport.
And now, she didn’t want to ever leave him.
It didn’t make any sense that he wanted her, but she wanted him, so she was taking him. Keeping him.
I love you, Lynx.
“I’m not ready to let you go today, not yet,” Mike said as they pulled away from the curb. “I don’t want to take you home.” He had her hand in his and ran his fingers through hers, not asking about the scabs or cuts anymore.
He let them be—for her.
“I don’t want to go home.” The words bubbled up in her throat, almost getting stuck, but she pushed them out.
He gave her a single nod and drove the car, no further words passing between them.
Lynx didn’t know where he was going, but for the first time in what felt like decades, she allowed someone else to think for her.
When Mike pulled into the garage of an apartment building, she asked, “Is this where you live now?”
He nodded. “Couldn’t stand staying in Asher’s house after you left. Needed a place devoid of you, of memories of us. Anyway, now that house is better with Lisa filling it up with good times.”
Lynx swallowed a lump in her throat at the thought that she’d abandoned him. “I wish I hadn’t left you, but Sammy ... she was all I could think about. I had a real live sister somewhere out there.”
“No more regrets,” he demanded. “Speaking of which, you should text her. Won’t she worry?”
“Yeah. I should.”
“Come on. You can send her a text when we get upstairs.”
Mike got out of the SUV and opened her door, then led her to an elevator bank. When they got inside, he pushed twelve and off they went, her shoulder brushing his arm, tiny sparks igniting.
There were only two apartments on the twelfth floor. Mike’s was the one on the left, a huge daunting wooden door separating his personal space from the hall. To the right of the door was a keypad where he stroked in a code.
“It’s your old phone number, in case you need to use it,” he said softly as a click echoed through the hall.
When the door opened, half a floor of Miami’s finest views came into view.
Lynx walked straight to the windows and stared out at the city before her. She’d come here to help Natalie and to escape Vegas. She’d found her sister and set about being a hero, but in the process, she’d messed up the one thing, theonlything, that mattered.
Not a thing, a person.
Michael.
“Text Sammy,” he reminded her, and when she did, the response was quick.
SAMMY: Good for you. Thank GOD.
With her palm to the glass and her eyes trained on the city in front of her, Lynx asked, “Will you ever forgive me?” A cloak of shame fell over her shoulders, dragging her down. She felt like she carried the weight of seventeen men.
