I needed to fix this.
It was Wheels that told me exactly what I needed to do. "You still don't know where Curt is?" he asked.
I did—now, at least. Luther's friend had found him blocks from the house we lived in back... back before everything had gone to hell when I was a kid.
And I knew what I needed to do, regardless of whether or not I'd told both Luther and Dex that I'd let them handle it. Handle bringing him in, that is. The moment those assholes had come into Pins, this had become my problem. Not anyone else's.
Not even Sonny's.
Sonny.Crap. My fingers flexed nervously as I reached into my back pocket to pull out my phone. Later on, I wouldn't even remember tapping on his speed dial button. All I was aware of in that moment was that I had to be the one to call my brother and tell him. This wouldn't fix the trust issues between us but it was a start, I hoped.
I didn't even let him finish greeting me before I cut him off. The event and my recent decision taking the front of my thoughts by storm. He had to know. "Son, I have to go back home."
~ * ~ *
“We’re here, baby.”
I felt the hand on my thigh pressuring me back to life, and I yawned. It had to have been close to three in the morning by the time Dex was pulling Luther's pick-up into the driveway. Despite the nap I took at Mayhem, I was exhausted—absolutely exhausted. I also had a feeling that they’d given me some sort of sleep aid instead of Advil, but I wasn’t sure and I didn’t care.
After Dex’s meltdown, I’d only seen him in passing twice at the bar. He’d come back up the stairs with Blake in tow. Poor Blake who had to get a handful of stitches in his eyebrow. I apologized to him about a dozen times but he waved me off, and left the bar after giving me a hug that hopefully said he wasn't holding the incident at Pins against me. Dex, on the other hand, had watched me with a tight jaw, his fists clenched at his sides until he'd bowed over to kiss the top of my head. His nostrils had flared and the corded veins in his neck had been the only sign that hewason the edge.
The second time I saw him had been when he'd been heading down the stairs of the bar. I knew he was mad and even though all I really wanted was to climb onto him and ask for a hug, the distance was probably good for both of us. I needed to figure out how the hell I was getting to Florida, and he needed to chill out.
Worry and fear had burrowed itself into me, and I was trying my best to talk myself out of it. I wasn’t completely successful either. As long as I could leave Austin until this mess got sorted out, no one that I cared about would get hurt.
At least that's what I hoped more than anything.
And it was that argument that finally lassoed my half-brother into agreeing with me that I should try to find our dad. With supervision, he'd insisted, but I'd never agreed. Sonny realized, just like I did, that this mess had just turned into a disaster. A disaster that he'd tried to contain, but now that he was so far away, it fell on my shoulders.
It wouldn't be the first time responsibility was on me, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. The fifteen minute conversation had worn me down to the bone. If anything, it'd also made me just that much more angry, too.
Drained, pissed, and sore, I'd napped on the couch and eaten the food that one of the younger guys had brought me. Someone kept me supplied with ice packs for the first couple of hours. Even after that, I kept having people I'd met briefly in the past ask if I needed anything.My new friend Lee had come up at some point and rubbed the top of my head before sitting on the couch next to me and going straight into a story about how weird it was going to be getting his “goods” fondled at the doctor’s office.
But what I needed the most was for my fingers to quit shaking. The pain on my face I could deal with, but that hard printed memory of the gun on my forehead was semi-permanent by then.
Slim and Blake left about an hour after the incident with plans on going home. Dex had decided to close down shop for the time being. Not that I could blame him though I felt even worse that they needed to reschedule appointments because of my mess. I didn’t want to have a repeat of that afternoon anytime soon.
Or ever.
I hadn't even woken up from my nap until Dex had carried me halfway out of Mayhem. He’d brought the familiar big truck around and carried me into the passenger seat, going as far as to buckle me in. Later on, I could worry about where he'd left his bike, and remember to thank Luther for loaning out his truck again. Riding on the back of his Dyna hadn't exactly sounded like an appealing idea in that moment. No sooner had he slipped into the driver seat than he was fishing my hand off my lap and pulling it onto his, linking our fingers together.
He opened the passenger door once we parked outside out of his house. Big hands undid the seatbelt before pulling me into his broad build.
"I can walk, Dex," I told him, pressing my forehead to his shoulder.
He made a noise in his throat. "Give me this, Ritz," he said hoarsely before I was up in his arms with my head nestled right into his neck as we went inside.
He didn’t stop in the living room or in the kitchen. Dex didn’t drop me off at the bathroom to get cleaned up. Instead, he weaved our way into the master bedroom, setting me down on my feet as he toed off his boots and I did the same to my own shoes.
He was wordless, unsteady. His hands reached for the hem of my blouse, slowly tugging it upward until it was thrown into a corner. Dex's breathing got heavier as he paused, hands at his sides.
In a bold move, Ididthe same with his shirt, watching his eyes closely. "What's wrong?" I whispered.
"Nothin'." He shook his head, those blue eyes screwed shut. "Just...goddamn it, Ritz!" He slammed the palms of his hands against the wall on the sides of me. Those thick, muscled arms bunched and strained with an emotion I doubted that he completely understood. "Fuck," he choked out, dipping his forehead to mine. "You have no clue...no clue..."
He was right. I didn't have any idea what he was thinking, what was turning a knife into his spine; but if it was fear, anger, disappointment, or one of a million other emotions, they were all rooted back to me. And it was only me that could help him.
I glanced down at the column of his throat, at the tip of Uriel's red tentacle following the curve down to the multicolored body circlingthe ring through Dex's nipple. Hard abs and a trail of dark hair disappeared into theband of his underwear, which then melted into his jeans.
