“Help!” Hayley’s distinct voice permeates the air, breaking through my internal darkness. It takes me a moment to get my bearings but when she calls out again, I register the panic. “Reed!”
Taking off in a run, I round the corner toward our hotel and almost lose my footing on the curb, the adrenaline keeping me moving.
Hayley’s fear plays on repeat in my mind, and I reach her and Reed just as he throws her out of harm’s way, slamming her into my chest.
The urgency strikes me, but everything happens in slow motion.
A flash of silver draws my attention as Reed falls to the ground, and acting on instinct, I push Hayley aside, running toward their attacker, tackling him to the ground before he raises the knife again.
Hayley cries out, but I don’t have time to process what she’s saying as an excruciating pain radiates through my side.
Without thinking about the consequences, I fight back, grabbing the man beneath me, slamming his head into the ground when he tries to take control.
It’s not until he stills that I realize what’s happened, Hayley’s cries jolting me out of my anger.
“Zane?” I’m pulled back to the present as Cade’s annoying tone seeps into my memory and I shake off my thoughts.
“What?” I ask, not even bothering to hide my confusion.
He frowns for a beat before repeating himself. “I asked if you remember that girl that flew in for the summer each year. The one that wouldn’t give us the time of day? Gabriella?”
“Nope,” I lie in the hope that he’ll stop playing this game. Of course I remember her. Cade was obsessed. Told us all he was going to marry her one day. But I’m not in the mood to take a drive down memory lane. The memory of last night is debilitating enough.
Although, the irony is that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m taking a drive toward the town I hoped would forever be a memory. A torturous memory that keeps me up at night, but a memory all the same.
And the closer we get, the more I’m regretting it.
Nothing good can come from being back here. I’ve got enough on my plate right now.
Cade scoffs beside me, pulling me out of my thoughts.Again. “Fuck off,” he grates but there’s a lightness to his tone. “You remember her. Everyone does.”
“Sorry.” I shrug. “I must have blocked her from my mind.”
“Whatever, man. We’re engaged.”
“What?” My head darts in his direction so fast my neck hurts. “You’re engaged? To Gabriella?”
“Yep.”
“Well, fuck me.”
“I didn’t think you remembered her.” He smirks triumphantly and I can’t help but chuckle.
“I’m shocked you’re engaged at all. I thought you wanted to stay single.”
“People change. Ithought you’d end up with my sister.”
I open my mouth to argue, but that’s what he wants. He wants me to admit I was fooling around with Blair behind his back. To admit I deserted her. But I refuse to open that dialogue. That was another life, and there’s no point in dredging it up now. I’ve punished myself enough.
“That’s her house, by the way. The white brick house with the perfect little picket fence.” His voice turns bitter and I want to question him, but that involves me showing an interest in her life, and I can’t. It’s better if I move on and pretend I never saw her, pretend she never walked back into my life at the precise moment I needed someone.
When I ignore him a second time, Cade laughs to himself, and a few minutes later he’s turning onto an all too familiar street, making my pulse spike as my childhood home comes into view.
“Why the fuck would you come this way?”
“It’s the shortest way to the bar. If I’d gone around, it would have been another ten minutes.”
Ten minutes?He’d put me through hell for ten fucking minutes. My skin crawls and I ignore the sweat collecting on my brow, staring straight ahead, refusing to look at the house I grew up in.
