“Isn’t it? Hell, I’m surprised you even let your mom take care of her in the afternoons when she gets out of preschool.”
I let a smirk climb to my mouth. “I’m kind of questioning that, actually. She’d look pretty dammed cute with a hard hat on the job, don’t you think?”
His eyes narrowed. “I’d be laughing right now if I didn’t think you might actually be serious.”
I chuckled, head shaking with a bit of amusement before I dropped my gaze toward my booted feet. “Nah, man. I...”
Kale set his hand on my shoulder. “You’re a disaster, man. Know you don’t want to hear it, but you have issues, and I’m worried about you.”
“It’s just...it’s so goddamned hard to let her out of my sight. Feel like I’m always scrambling to stay in front of everything, trying to stay one step ahead to make sure she’s safe.”
His voice softened. “You know that’s not always going to be possible.”
Dread curled in my stomach. That same old misery that stalked me in the day and hunted me in the night. The helplessness and fear and agony that had scraped and scraped at my spirit.
Perpetual torture.
I wondered how there was anything left of me.
“You’ve got to understand, Kale.”
“Of course, I understand. I was there, man. I went through it, too. But you can’t spend the rest of your life a prisoner to that time.”
How the fuck were we supposed to move on from it when that time was unending?
“I’m trying.”
“Are you? Then why don’t you come clean about what’s going on with this Rynna girl? The smoking hot chick who just so happened to be at the emergency room—at three-thirty in the morning—with the guy who refuses to accept help from anyone other than me, Ollie, and his mom, and barely even then.”
Unease stirred through me. That same feeling that had been nagging at me for days. The dread and the need and confusion. “Battery was dead in the truck.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm, what?”
“You’re an awful handy dude for having to ask a woman for help in the middle of the night.”
“Frankie was sick. Didn’t have time to spare.”
“You needed someone, and you went to her.”
Fuck.
He was right.
I needed someone. And I went to her.
I went to her.
Agitation had me shifting on my feet.
He squeezed my shoulder a little tighter. “Tell me what’s going on with you two.”
My attention was locked on Frankie as I rubbed a hand over my mouth, trying not to think about the way I’d felt pressed against Rynna. The way her heart had beaten and mine had come alive for the first time in years. “Only thing that’s going on is shit that can’t be.”
“And why’s that?”
My chest tightened, and I looked to the ground, voice dropping so low I wasn’t sure he could hear my confession. “It feels like cheating.”
