“If you stare at her any harder, she might combust,” Asher chuckles, but I don’t follow suit. His smile drops.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, looking at her, around her to make sure no one had gotten in without him knowing.
“I’m such afucking idiot.This whole time. This wholefuckingtime I thought she was out there having chosen to forget me…” My throat gets tight as the regret and guilt eat at me. “But she gave… She actually… God-fucking-damn it.” The anger that builds in my chest is enough to have me push the table and storm out of the room, but that would mean I’d be away from her. For even a moment. Yeah, that’s not happening.
So, I sit there, stewing in my own emotional turmoil, keeping eyes on her and her alone.
Never again is she going to wonder if she’s safe.
Never again is she going to feel like she has to watch over her shoulder.
I’ll take all that on.
For her.
“Woah, man,” Asher says, coming to sit next to me. “One thing at a time. What happened?”
I swallow the lump in my throat, the one that burns and tells me to go beg her for her forgiveness.
“I don’t know the whole story. You came in pouting like a damn toddler before she could tell me.” Asher looks sheepishlyat me, mouthing ‘sorry’, before letting me continue. “She–get the fuck out of this–she was housed with the Franks. As inMickey fucking Frank.”
Asher’s expression turns solid, like everything just shifted. Because it did.
“Mickey Frank. The guy who wants you dead? The one who’s had a hard-on for you since you knocked his fighter out and embarrassed him nearly a decade ago after a fighthe started? The guy who keeps trying to trap you so he is able to use you to throw fights? That Mickey Frank?”
I nod solemnly, eyes going back to Roxie sleeping.
“Fuck,” he whispers. “This is going to get messy, isn’t it?”
“Hell yes, it’s going to get messy. It’s going to getdeadly.” I already have my mind made up. I know what needs to happen, but I need to hear what actually happened to her. I need to know how much I need to make himhurt. “You’re on board?”
Asher nods once.
“So fucking on board.”
“Good,” I say simply and lean forward on my elbows again, hands folded under my chin. “She went to live with the Franks, who are fucking morons and let their abusive son run the house. And, in turn, he ran her.” My chest tightens with that anger and frustration from before. “She didn’t… She wasn’t able to check her email. She didn’t have a phone, a computer. She didn’t have that. And she fucking went behind their backs, saving what money she had to check her email. Only to pull the biggest fucking martyr move I’ve ever heard in my life. And you’ve pulled some pretty marty-ish shit, Asher.”
“She knew you emailed her?” Asher’s eyebrows narrow as he tries to figure out why I’m not mad. Why I’m not upset when that’s all I would talk about. Give me a beer and it was,“Why couldn’t she just tell me she wasn’t going to call? Why can’t she just email to let me know she’s alive?”
Not anymore.
“She did. And she chose not to email back because she wanted me to be able to move on. She didn’t think she’d be able to bring anything to my life and so she forcibly gave me an out.”
Asher sits back abruptly like he’s been shot.
“No shit.”
“No shit.” I nod.
“Wow,” Asher says, looking impressed and upset for me.
“Yeah.” I drop my head and run my hands over the back of my head.
“You didn’t know, Ty,” he says softly.
“I know. I know I didn’t. But, Asher, she washurting.Starving.Scared. And I was sitting here, feeling sorry for myself and hooking up with blonde chicks to try to get over her.”
Putting words to the guilt I’m feeling makes it burn hotter.
