I turned to face him. “Of course. You have my attention.”
Those ocean eyes of his grew cold as ice. “If this man were to roll up on us. Gordon, with the mafia, or even just Gordon with a couple of friends, do you think you’re safe with him? With them, I mean?”
I blinked. “Are you asking me if I’m safe with Gordon now understanding who he really is?”
“Yes.”
For the first time since high school, I had no clue how to answer that question.
“I don’t know, Dutch,” I said as my body finally found more tears to shed. “I have no idea if I am, or not.”
And as my back gave way, almost as if my spine had given up on life itself, my head fell to Dutch’s shoulder.
While he sat there, allowing my tears to soak his black t-shirt.
16
DUTCH
“I’m so sorry,” Naomi choked out as wetness poured over my shoulder. “I-I-I—I just need a second.”
I nodded. “Take your time.”
My hands balled into fists as my thin, spindly little fingernails raked against my own skin. The crescent moons glared at me, begging me to stop as I sat there. Stiff as stone. My blood boiled with a need for vengeance. Never in my life had I experienced the rage that poured over me the way it did, but with every sniffle that fell from Naomi’s precious little nose, I wanted to shear the skin off that spineless pig and use it as a rug.
Before I fucked his ex-fiancée on it.
“Oh, my God,” she said breathlessly. “How is this happening?”
I shook my head as I sat there, feeling her body sink into me. Her softness blanketed me, like a protective weight charged with blocking out the world. My hands trembled in my lap. My toes curled in their boots. The smell of metal and the sound of cracking bone filled my ears as my fingers contorted in ways they had never stretched before.
I wanted to strangle that pathetic motherfucker with my hands for making such a beautiful creature cry.
How dare he.
“Fuck, come on. I’m so—s-s-s—so tired of—of crying.”
I nodded. “I would be, too. It’s been a lot for you lately.”
She scoffed as she picked up her head. “Yeah, something like that.”
I slowly pivoted my head to take her all in, even if it was just her flickering outline lended to me by none other than the oil lamp at my feet.
“I can’t listen to you cry any longer,” I finally said.
She wiped at her tears. “I know, I know. I’m so sor—.”
But, the second her face wrinkled up again, I knew I couldn’t leave her.
Not until she was all right.
“It’s okay,” I said as I started rubbing her back. “You’re going to get through this.”
She shook her head quickly as her gaze dropped into her lap. “I don’t know if I want to get through it anymore. I don’t—God, when the hell did it become such a burden to go home? Isn’t home supposed to be what comforts you? It’s just… it feels like it’s ruined. Like I have—have no home, Dutch.”
I scooted a bit closer to her. “Now, I quite understand how that feels.”
She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. That was insensitive.”
