“Gran, you’re not looking so hot, are you?”
CHAPTER 29
QUE
Rudy hooked an arm around the trunk of the tree, as we stood on the embankment that gave us the best overhead view of the lake, and held out the key fob he’d found stashed in the floorboards. He was convinced there was a car down there. Iwasn’tconvinced it was a good idea to prove him right, but after running around the cabin and the area surrounding it clicking that damn fob with no results, I figured it best to let him try it here.
I grabbed on to his wrist to stop him from pressing the button that would trigger the lights, and he looked back at me over a shoulder.
There was a slim chance this would even work, seeing as we didn’t know how long the car had been submerged—if there even was a car—but according to Rudy, the battery should be protected enough for the LEDs to flash on. Maybe the alarm too.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked him.
“What the fuck do you mean? Why wouldn’t I besure?” he growled out, a puff of white air pushing past his lips and disappearing a few seconds later. There was less snow but a shit-ton more ice, and every time a breeze hit, the branches above us would jostle and send more clumps of frozen water onto our heads and shoulders.
I was shivering in my boots while Rudy had worked himself into a rage that had him stripping off his jacket and handing it to me on the walk here.
I peered down at the lake while I considered my answer. The top layer had frozen over and all we could see was more blackness underneath. Still, those stones we’d tossed in hit something. Which meantsomethingwas there. I just wasn’t so sure I wanted to know what that something was. And I was also pretty certain it was better if Rudy didn’t know either. Especially when he was just starting to act like his old self, maybe even a tad less broody…
“Because sometimes not knowing is better…” I admitted. I glanced down at my boots before bringing them up to lock eyes with him, a lump the size of the boulder we were standing on sinking into the pit of my stomach.
“Since when?” He shook me off him and turned back towards the lake. “Weren’t you the one who told me finding out about Holly was for the best?”
I shook my head, even though he wasn’t looking at me anymore. “That’s different.”
“Yeah? And why’s that? Because it makes it okay for you to suck my dick?” he grunted.
Great, now he was pushing me away.It wasn’t that I didn’t love the back-and-forth, push-and-pull thing we had going on between us. It was just that I didn’t like it during those few instances when I was trying to be serious.
“Don’t be like that.”
“Be like what?” he hissed. “Honest?”
“An asshole.” I shoved at his shoulder, gripping up his jumpsuit and tugging him back when he almost toppled over the edge and went thick-skull first into the lake.
“Who’s the asshole now?” He shook me off him again. “This is Prat, Que. He’s one of us.”
“And now so is Nickie.”
Rudy spun around to wave a finger in my face. “She isnotone of us.”
“Only 'cause you won’t let her be,” I reminded him.
“If you like her so much, go suck her dick.” I lifted an eyebrow at him and he added, “You know what I mean.”
“It’s not like that.” I flicked his nose, leaning forward and kissing him when he blinked involuntarily. “You know you’re the only nutjob for me.” I grinned.
“I’m not a—you know what? Never mind.” He stepped closer to the edge and looked down. “Point is… he woulda done it for us. He did do it for us. He went out there first. Alone. Because he trusted us to have his back and we let him down.”
“We all knew the risks. We agreed?—”
“I don’t care what we agreed to. That’s just something you say. At the end of the day,Isaid no man left behind. I promised…”
“This ain’t all on you.” I tried to grab for Rudy’s arm one more time, and he moved it before I could reach him, leaning over as far as he could while directing the key fob at the lake and pressing the button.
The water lit up like Christmas morning, the ass of a van sticking up in the air with a license plate number we both recognized.
“That’s Dash’s car, isn’t it?” I swallowed the lump that had traveled up to my neck now.
