His legs tangled with mine. He was still worried, about me, about Folk, but he was so fucking tired I felt the energy drain from his body. Felt him slip away as his breathing evened out and his muscled frame fell slack.
He slept.
I didn’t.
My brain went into overdrive, my pulse thundering out of my ears, thinking, thinking,thinkinguntil it finally fucking dawned on me what I’d done.
What I’dmissed.
I fumbled for my phone, frantic in the knowledge I’d made a terrible mistake, my soul vibrating with the need to put it right, if I even could.
My hands shaking as I tapped out a message to the only person who understood me well enough to help.
Saint:come home. i need u
8
RUBI
I wasn’t built for the road anymore. At least, not this fucked-up version of it.
Grease. Diesel. Whingeing.
A summary of my life from the era I was currently living through and I couldn’t even blame Ranger for it.
Not entirely, anyway.
“Processed food is the bane of civilisation.” I scrunched a sweaty burger wrapper and tossed it in his general direction. “Food deserts are going to kill us all.”
Ranger grunted, rearranging his feet on the dashboard, not giving a single shite about the increasing pile of debris around him. “That’s your third Chicken Mayo. Does that mean you’ll die first?”
“Doesn’t count if it’s off the Saver’s menu. That’s the rules.”
“I want a new rule where you shut the fuck up for longer than five seconds.”
How very dare he? But I let it go. We’d been on the road nearly three weeks. It made sense that Roo was as sick of me as I was of him. Also, despite the junk-food chemicals playing havoc with my disposition, I was aware enough to get that Ranger didn’t have the royal hump with me. He wastired, scared of a headache that hadn’t happened yet, and missing Viktor so much he’d probably have cried if I’d given him the space to have a tangible thought or feeling.
What he didn’t realise was giving him space meant givingmyselfspace, and I was festering in all the same shit he was.
Fatigue-induced migraines.
Missing River.
Missinghome.
I thought about calling Nash, but it wasn’t his turn. He’d put in a shift listening to me complain thirty-six minutes ago, which meant, technically, Cammie OB was up, but I needed Riv’s voice in my life. It had been too long.Two hours.
Fucking torture.
I placed the call.
River answered with a growl so similar to Ranger I had to check the screen. “You’re on speaker,” I warned. “Don’t say anything naughty.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Anything. How are you? What are you doing?”
“I’m doing the same fucking shit I was an hour ago?—”
