“And I know what happened the night Cooper was killed.” That stole the smile from her face, so he quickly switched gears. “And you know how I used to run to the Portland Head Lighthouse to get away from my foster homes and group houses. I told ya all about how I’d stare out at the ocean and dream about growin’ wings so I could fly above it all.”
“And I know how you spent weeks trying to find the perfect paint for your motorcycle,” she murmured. “That very specific gray/blue color that matches the Atlantic off the New England coast. I know you named your bike Freedom because that’s what it represents to you. A means of escape.”
“See?” He spread his hands. “Nothin’ is off-limits with us, right?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She slid him a sly look. “I bet there are a few things you’re keeping to yourself. Like the blonde at the bagel shop across the street.”
“What blonde?” he asked, all innocence.
“The one who desperately tries to get your attention every time we go there,” she said, her South Carolina drawl softening the edges of the words.
The first two months she’d been at BKI, she’d kept herself inside the compound. Since Eddy Torres’s death, though, she’d started venturing out—never far, and always with Hew in tow.
The bagel shop was one of their regular stops.
“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ ’bout.” He took a pull from the beer bottle resting loosely between his gloved fingers.
“You are so full of shit,” she said before throwing back her head and laughing.
He gaped at her.
He’d seen her grin. Heard her chuckle a few times. But her grief had eclipsed any real laughter, and this? Oh, this was as real as it got.
And it was the sweetest thing he’d ever heard.
She pointed a gloved finger at his nose, eyes dancing. “You’d have to be blind to miss her signals. She’s like one of those airport people. The ones with the orange flags?” She flailed her arms like she was directing a Boeing 747 into Gate B12.
“Ayuh,” he allowed with a dip of his chin. “But that doesn’t mean I’m interested.”
“Why? You don’t like big boobs and gobs of cornsilk hair?”
Instead of answering, he lobbed his own question. “Let’s say I did take her up on it. How would she feel ’bout you sneakin’ into my room three, four nights a week?”
He’d meant it as a joke. But the way her teasing smile faded told him it had landed all wrong.
“I’ll stop,” she said quietly.
Fuck.
He didn’t want her to stop. The best sleep he got was when she crawled beneath the covers, still cool from the air in the hallway, and warmed herself up by curling against his back. Him—six foot two, two-ten, trained to kill. And her—one-thirty soaking wet, and yet holding him like a shield against the dark.
He opened his mouth to tell her as much. But she kept going before he could get a word out. “Or you could just tell her the truth. That we’re only friends. Nothing more.”
Hew lay sprawled on his back, one arm folded beneath his head, as he replayed the memory while staring at the dim lines where the bricks of his walls met the mortar between them.
He liked the idea of brick walls, soaked in years of stories, steeped in a thousand memories. They were permanent. Enduring.
He hadn’t experienced much of either in his life. That is, until he’d come to Black Knights Inc. and, for the very first time, understood what it meant to be part of a family.
Turning onto his side, he buried his face in the extra pillow and imagined all the times Sabrina’s head had lain right there. Right in that very spot.
He’d convinced her after that night by the fire pit that he welcomed her after-hours visits. That he was honored to help chase away her nightmares. That their friendship wasn’t the reason he hadn’t gotten the barista’s number. But even so, her visits had become fewer and farther between.
It’d been nearly a month since she’d slipped through his bedroom door, her luscious brown hair a tangled halo, her dark eyes bleary with sleep and shadowed by the vestiges of bad dreams as she grabbed the stuffed toy from atop his dresser and climbed into bed beside him.
He breathed deeply, imagining her sweet smell lingered even though he’d changed his sheets since her last visit.
Why would it remain? he thought. To remind me she’s past the point of needin’ me?
