I stretched my legs out in front of me. The T-shirt Decoy wore was a decade old. My shorts were even older. Only my boots belonged in this decade, and I resented the fact that they were already wearing out.
“You smell of the sea.”
I broke my stare-off with the weathered leather on my feet.
Decoy had raised his head and turned his gaze on me. He had eyes like burned caramel. Warm, sweet, and irresistible.
Surprised.
And I couldn’t blame him. When Ivy wasn’t here, he was often alone. It wasn’t as if I’d lacked opportunities to approach him.
It was a warm night. I leaned back on my hands, tilting my face to the sky, though it was impossible to tear my gaze from him entirely. “Heard you had a rough night.”
“Oh.” Decoy mirrored my pose. “I thought you might’ve come out to chew my head off about Rubi’s nonsense.”
“Really?”
He thought about it a moment, then shook his head. “All right. Maybe you’re not a head-chewing kind of bloke, but I’m sorry all the same. It frustrates them that they can’t fix this for me, so they come up with wild ideas from time to time. Sorry you got caught up in that.”
“You’ve just apologised twice for something I’m not upset about.” I tipped him a smile, hoping it would ease some of the tension binding his shoulders. “It’s nice that they care enough to have wild thoughts. Though, to be honest, a fake boyfriend is a world away from how creative I’ve seen them get over other problems.”
“I’m not supposed to know about stuff like that.”
“But you hear things?”
Decoy nodded. “I don’t try that hard not to. Figure as long as I keep my hands clean, I’m safe enough.”
Couldn’t say why, but it comforted me to know he wasn’t unaware of the murkier side of club business. Maybe because I didn’t want to be a stranger to him.
What do you want, then?
Many things, but mainly for this lovely man to be okay. Because that’s what he was. I hadn’t had a real conversation with him in years, if ever, but I watched him a lot. With his daughter. With his brothers. With random people in the outside world. He was good, and patient, and kind. Selfless. An easy man to love if our lives had played out differently. “All I’m saying,” I said after a protracted pause that he didn’t seem to notice, “is that Rubi’s dastardly scheme could’ve been a lot worse than me holding your hand in front of your ex-missus.”
The faint and most beautiful hint of a grin warmed Decoy’s face. “Trust me, I know. I have to believe they wouldn’t kill anyone on my behalf, but there’s other ways they could fuck her over.”
“And you won’t let them do it?”
“Nah.” Decoy stretched out his denim-clad legs. “I’m too paranoid. I know Alexei’s good at all that technical stuff, but what if this was the one time he messed up or got caught? If any of them did? It would cost me everything. Besides, I want to look my kid in the eye and tell her I fought for her because I was the best person I can be. Rigging the system makes me a liar.”
So would pretending to be mine, and I couldn’t fathom the odd disappointment creeping over me. I closed my eyes, breathing through it. I wasn’t a liar either, but for the briefest of moments, I wished we both were.
“It would never have worked anyway.”
I opened my eyes.
Decoy was still at one with the sky, his gaze distant again as he watched the stars flicker in the faint summer mist blowing in from the sea.
I sat up for no other reason than to be closer to him, aching to touch him as much as I had the moment I’d laid eyes on him all those years ago. “The fake boyfriend scheme?”
Decoy nodded into a deep sigh. “Even if I wanted to lie to my daughter, it’d need to be a hell of a pantomime to convince her.”
“Hmm. I’d have to live in your pocket.”
“It’s more than that. She’d expect us tobetogether, like every other romantic relationship she sees.”
I was a rational person. Always had been even before years of training and combat operations had honed it to a fine art. But every fibre of my being didn’t see the problem in Decoy’s flat statement. I could live in his bed. I could be all over him. The fact that it wouldn’t be real seemed beside the point.
“And then we’d have to break up.”
