I look up at him, my heart hammering against my chest. Everything blurs.
“We need to go.” August pockets my phone a few seconds later.
“What happened?” I close my eyes.
Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.I can’t lose my only living relative.
“Riley was arrested. We need to go bail him out.” August takes my hand. “Colton, I need you to stay, do the rounds.”
“Sure thing, boss.” Colton nods. “Don’t worry, Hayles. August is a pro at bailing people out. He’s done it for me more times than I can remember.”
“He’s been arrested. He’s not dead.” I look up at August, needing to hear it again.
His face softens. “He’s just been arrested, Hayley. He’s fine.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Since I can’t kill him, because I don’t think Hayley would be okay with that, I’m going to scare some fucking common sense into this kid. The look of sheer horror on Hayley’s face when she received a call from the police department…
Fuck me, I do not want to see that look on her ever again. Her hand is gripped in mine tight. She’s worried about her brother.
“He’s okay, you know,” I tell her.
“What if I had gone to Europe? I wouldn’t be able to even get back here to help him. What was I thinking? I could have been in a completely different country. What if something did happen and I wasn’t here? I should never have booked that trip. If I didn’t, he never would have gone to your club. I never would have left him alone.”
“We wouldn’t have met,” I remind her.
“There will come a day where you will wish for that too,” she whispers.
“Doubtful.” I chuckle.
“August, I almost couldn’t handle walking to the damn bar in that ballroom without you.”
She looks horrified at what she’s admitting to me. Me? I fucking love that she wants to be near me all the time.
“The whole time, I thought something horrible was going to happen and I wasn’t going to be there to stop it,” she says.
That’sher issue. She’s not obsessed. She’s fucking scared of being out of control. Like when her parents died. Hayley told me this little “quirk” of hers started after their accident.
“Hayley, you’ve had a traumatic day. Give yourself a break,” I tell her.
I need a way to make her happy. What the fuck can I do? I pull out my phone and message Colton.
Me:
I need a tree in my living room by the time we get back there.
Colton:
Any tree?
Me:
A fucking Christmas tree, moron.
Colton:
Do I look like Father Christmas?
