CHAPTER 17
Paxon
This is so fucked up.My brother is missing and I’m riding around with his potential assassin to save him from other guys who want to kill him. How is this my life?
I’m still reeling from what happened in the motel room with Wraith. I’ve never taken my anger out on someone like that before, but it was fucking hot, even though it was so damn wrong. I can’t let myself do that again. I have to let Wraith go as soon as this situation with Boone is handled.
I glance at him. He’s focused on his phone, his head down, a few strands of his auburn hair shielding his face. I want to tuck it behind his ear, run my fingers through his beard, taste his kiss again. Subtly, I shake the thoughts away. Gotta stay focused on finding Boone.
His phone buzzes and he frowns before he answers it. “Hey. What’s up?” Wraith glances at me briefly before he clenches his jaw and nods. “Thanks, man.”
Wraith ends the call, placing his hand on my thigh, and I brace myself for what he’s going to say.
“You said you know where Boone was headed?”
“We have a property up north. I would imagine he went there.”
“How far is it from here?”
I glance out the window at the passing interstate signs. “Fifty or so miles. Why?”
“Whisper said he captured the car on several cameras but then it just stopped. So he must have pulled off somewhere before he got to your property. Whisper would’ve seen it all the way to an exit.”
My stomach twists into a knot. “Fuck. Did they get to him already?”
“Let’s not assume that. We’ll just keep an eye out for him on our way.”
I nod, trying to focus on my driving, but all I can think about is my brother dead on the side of the interstate somewhere. Why did he take off? Fuck! He’s so goddamn stubborn.
“Tell me a good memory you have with Boone,” Wraith says, patting my thigh.
I almost blow it off, but images immediately flood my mind. “Birthdays were special. My mom loved them and she would go all out to celebrate us. One year, when Boone was, like, twelve and I was nine, he wanted to make her breakfast in bed before she had to go to work. We didn’t know shit about cooking, but we thought we could manage pancakes.”
I chuckle at the memory.
“God, it was funny. We trashed the kitchen and made the world’s densest, most tasteless, raw-in-the-center pancakes. They were truly disgusting.”
Wraith chuckles. “What did your mom say?”
“She cried. She was so happy and charmed that her boys tried so hard. The three of us sat down on the living room floor with bowls of cereal instead and we just… talked. It was a really nice morning.”
“Sounds like it.”
Silence lingers for a moment before I start talking again, about things I haven’t talked about in a long time.
“It was a rare form of cancer,” I say softly. “She didn’t have aclue she was sick until it was too late to do anything. I tried.” My voice cracks. “I found specialists and clinical trials and weird holistic programs. Anything to keep her longer, but money couldn’t save her. She was gone just months after her diagnosis.”
“Fuck, man. I’m so sorry.”
“I couldn’t find Boone. I couldn’t tell him to hurry back. He wasn’t at the funeral. He never said goodbye. That’s when the drugs got a lot worse. I’m not sure he’s forgiven himself for it.”
“It’s gotta be hard. A lot of guilt there.”
I shrug. “I wouldn’t know. He doesn’t talk about it, and he shuts down if I try to.”
“You guys seem to be okay now? Present situation excluded.”
“We’ve been doing better, yeah. Like I said, he finally got off the drugs and alcohol. He got a job and an apartment, and he seemed like he was stable. He comes to my games and sometimes we hang out a little, but it’s still strained. I wish it wasn’t. I wish he was the brother I had when I was a kid. I looked up to him, and I thought he was so smart. Heissmart. He just makes shitty choices.”
