He didn’t answer. He yanked the helmet—her helmet—over his head and started the bike, the engine’s growl drowning her out.
She stepped forward, reaching for him. “Tate, let’s talk.”
“I think we’ve said enough for one night,” he countered, visor flipping down as she caught his arm.
“Don’t do this.”
The visor snapped back up, his eyes blazing at her. “I’m not welcome so I’m removing myself from the problem.”
“It’s not that…”
“Then what is it, Nettie? What is it about me, about the idea of us, that bothers you so much?”
The words cut like a blade, slicing right to the truth she couldn’t face. Because he wasn’t wrong. Because she cared too much, was afraid too much, and every time she let herself get close, it hurt.
Her silence was answer enough.
“That’s what I thought,” he said thickly, his voice ragged with emotion. The visor snapped shut, and the bike roared forward, carrying him away into the night.
Nettie stood frozen, watching the red glow of his taillight fade into the distance. The ache in her chest throbbed harder with every second until there was nothing left but silence, the bitter taste of regret, and the undeniable truth she couldn’t escape.
No matter how much she fought it, she still cared – and he had the ability to destroy her all over again.
CHAPTER 16
TATE
Tate groanedand flung an arm across his face, blocking the merciless light that streamed through the narrow gap in his blinds. His room was still heavy with the weight of sleep, the sheets tangled around his legs, the faint smell of fabric softener on the sheets, and yesterday’s gym bag lingering in the corner. He muttered something incoherent under his breath—something halfway between a curse and a prayer for five more hours of darkness—and aimed a halfhearted glare toward the window as though it had betrayed him personally.
A sharp hiss came from the foot of the bed. Mulligan, his tiny gray kitten with an oversized attitude, lifted his head from the nest of blankets and flicked his tail in agreement.
“Exactly… why is it morning already?”
The universe, unbothered by his suffering, offered its only answer in the form of a noise. That noise. The one that had yanked him out of the best dream he’d had in weeks.
A text message.
Tate gritted his teeth. He should have put his phone on Do-Not-Disturb. He should have turned it off altogether. He should have done a thousand things differently in his life—starting with not letting himself get so tangled up in the brown-eyed,stubborn, impossibly delicate-looking woman who had a knack for making him lose every ounce of common sense.
He should have done so many things differently – but he was stupid. A moron. A man who grew infinitely stupider the more turned on he got, and if you mixed that with rescuing a woman, a fragile-looking goddess that looked up at him with those big brown eyes. His IQ plummeted like an elevator cable that snapped on a cartoon, causing him to do even dumber things at one in the morning.
The phone beeped again.
Tate cursed aloud, flinging out a long arm and snatching it from the nightstand. The screen lit his face with a merciless glow, and he groaned as though the light itself carried pain.
Too early.
Too much.
He squinted, focusing on the names at the top of the messages. His sister. And Nettie. At the same time.
“Well, that can’t be good,” he muttered, thumb swiping to unlock. He glared at the screen like he could make the inanimate object cower and then scrolled his thumb up, reading through them. The screen lit up with overlapping texts, a jumble of concern, accusation, and all-caps outrage.
G: What did you do?
N: Tate – where’s my car?
N: Tate – tell me you had something to do with the reason my car is missing…
