My breath quickened. I wasn’t over him. Had I ever claimed to be? No. But seeing him now solidified what I’d always known. Rory was my toxin. If he allowed it, I’d drop everything—destroy my life—just to have him ruin me again.
Rory closed the gap between us, and that cavernous wrinkle in his forehead was back and so were his hands on my body.
“The blood,” he said, elevating my splattered arms to look for the source of the injury. “Where’s it coming from?”
“It’s not mine.”
“But…” He pulled up my shirt to expose the smear of red blotting my skin. So familiar was he with my body that Rory hadn’t stopped to consider it might be an invasion of my privacy. And I didn’t tell him because when his hands skated across my abdomen searching for the nonexistent entry wound, they sent shivers right down to the tips of my toes. “You’re covered in it.”
“Listen to me,” I said, commanding his attention with the tip of his chin. “I’m okay.”
“You don’t look okay.” He frowned. “I’ve seen dead people with less blood on them.”
He said things like that sometimes, and I’d never known how to respond. He’d always kept the realities of his past life far away from me. “It’s not mine,” I repeated. “It’s Quinn’s blood.”
A muscle pulsed in his cheek. He was angry… for me, as if the world had bobbled and knocked both of us off our axis. Rory understood my reliance on Quinn. Never questioned our connection and never made me feel shame for needing my brother close by.
“I don’t know what to say,” he muttered, despite his empty expression saying it all. “Sorry isn’t enough.”
No, it wasn’t. Rory got it. Sorry wasn’t nearly enough.
“I tried to wipe it off,” I said, my whispered hysteria building. “But I just ended up spreading it around, and now I’m splattered in my brother’s blood and I can’t hardly think straight.”
He lowered my shirt, smoothing it out. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have been touching… I thought you were injured.”
I shook my head, both in response and exasperation. “Why did you come here?”
“You know why I came here.”
“No, Rory. I don’t.”
“You. Quinn.”
“But why do you even care? You walked away.”
“Because you were once…” Rory stopped himself, looking away.
“Once what?”
His voice crackled as he finished the sentence. “…my family.”
The sincerity in his admission broke me. We were the family he’d never had, not just Quinn and me but the rest of them too. And yet he’d given it all up… for her? I would never understand.
“I couldn’t just”—he blinked heavily, his eyes lowering—“just sit at home and watch it on TV. It’s the same shit over and over. No updated information on Quinn at all.”
I felt sympathy for him. How could I not? So much had happened between Rory and Quinn, so much animosity, that it was easy to forget they’d once been friends, bandmates. They’d made plans to ride the crazy train of fame together… until Quinn caught him in the act of betrayal, blowing Rory and me to smithereens. To my knowledge, they’d never spoken since, but if the pain that shrouded his features was any indication, he still cared about my brother… and that touched every raw nerve in me.
“There’s nothing to report. Quinn’s in surgery. It’s been hours, and we still haven’t heard anything yet. I’m scared he’s not going to make it through,” I said, trying not to wince at my own words. “The blood you see on me wasn’t even half of it. Me and his fiancée, Jess, were trying to slow it down until the ambulance arrived.”
Rory listened. Nodded. Cringed. His fists curled into knots.
Unlike Elliott, he didn’t offer up empty assurances or tell me everything was going to be all right. He didn’t rub my shoulders or make uncomfortable small talk in an effort to soothe me. Rory was a realist. He’d seen the dark side of life and didn’t believe in happily ever after. He would never sugarcoat the truth for me or promise me a bright future, but what he would do was suffer alongside me. Really, that was all I’d wanted from Elliott—someone to mirror my rage and justify the horror I felt inside.
Rory’s jaw steeled at the injustice of it all as I told him what had happened inside the arena and of a heroic but wounded Quinn coming to our rescue and leading us out of harm’s way through a hatch under the stage. Once I’d run out of words, Rory lowered his head, slipping his fingers through my hair, cupping the back of my neck and laying his forehead against mine in a show of solidarity. We stood like that, his hands caressing, and then he drew his head back and stared me in the eyes.
He wore a brooding look that tugged at his eyebrows and tapered the bones in his sculpted face. I swallowed hard, burning to touch his whiskered cheek and pepper kisses on his mouth. But I didn’t dare. Rory was one giant danger sign. He couldn’t be tamed. If I didn’t heed the warnings, it would be my own damn fault. I had Elliott, a man who loved me. A man who would never leave me screaming in the driveway. No, I thought. If I continued down this path, I’d be the Rory in Elliott’s and my story. I had to immediately extract myself from this very precarious situation.
But before I could act rationally, Rory glided his thumb along my wanting lips. I sucked in a breath, my heart flapping like a mama bird’s wings after her baby fell out of the nest. Closing my eyes, I valiantly tried to summon up Elliott’s face, but Rory was making it so damn difficult. He knew me so well, could read the conflict written across my face. If I did this, if I fell back under his spell, I would lose Elliott and the life he promised. Stability. Family. Happiness.
