Maybe it’s the day. Maybe it’s that as a kid I walked in on my mom in that situation more times than a kid ever should. Whatever it was, it saved Ella’s life, because I’ve never moved or reacted quicker than in those seconds after hearing her scream.
“Are you okay?” she asks me, her voice hoarse.
I tut. “Don’t get soft on me, Gibson. If anyone’s gonna kill you, it’s me.” I grin at her, and she returns the smile. “Can we go? I fucking hate this place.”
Hunter nods. “You come with me. Ella, do you need a place to stay?”
“She’s coming home with me,” Guy barks out, eyeing Hunter like he trusts him as much as he trusts me.
“No way,” she says.
Asher slides his arm around her waist. “Your dad’s right, Ella. You should go home with him, where it’s safe.”
“If I avoid that place now, I’ll never go back,” she insists, looking up at him. “I’m not gonna be chased out of my own house.”
Guy sighs. “Baby?—”
“No,” she says, her voice as firm as I imagine it can be. “He was clearly some obsessed stalker working alone, right? And now he’s gone, so … I’m going home.”
I don’t blame her. But I also know what’s coming next.
“Then you can stay with us,” Asher says. “Can’t she, Gable?”
Usually, I’d argue the point, but Guy looks like his head is about to explode, and it’s satisfying to watch. “Whatever. As long as you don’t hog the shower.”
A few days of Ella is worth it to see the fury in her dad’s eyes.
Asher takes Ella in our car, and I go with Hunter. In the passenger seat of his SUV, we’re quiet. The sun is rising, but I’m not tired. There’s something about taking a life that invigorates me, like I absorb what they lose. Closing my eyes, I savor the way my body feels—alert, tingling, alive. Everything that man no longer is.
“You okay, kid?” Hunter asks.
I nod. “Yeah.”
He taps the steering wheel. “You don’t like Ella?”
I chuff. “She’s annoying as shit.”
“And you don’t like sharing Asher’s attention.” He glances at me. “Why don’t you come home for a bit? That house is too fucking big for me all on my own, anyway.”
That’s tempting. I miss the house in Seattle. I miss the rain, and the quiet, and the first bedroom I ever had that didn’t feel tainted with trauma. Hunter’s home is home, but I know Asher won’t leave Ella, and I won’t leave him.
“Then marry one of the endless women you have around.”
He laughs. “Not the marrying type.”
“Me neither.” I stare out the window. “Seems Asher is, though.”
“You think it’s that serious?”
I do. I’ve never seen Asher like this with anyone before. And if it were any other situation, I’d be happy for him.
I shrug. “Either way, he can’t be with her. It would mean being honest, and she’ll run a mile.”
Hunter pulls up outside the apartment just as Ella and Asher enter the lobby. They stand together, their bodies close, and Asher tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear.
“She might surprise you,” Hunter says.
I doubt that.
