When I look back at him, he’s staring open-mouthed behind him. And his hands ... they’re empty. The bag is gone.
Chapter 7
Griffin
“That did not just happen.” Penny’s voice is oddly flat. I’d expect a drama queen like her to be hysterical, so it must be shock.
Reality hasn’t hit her yet. It sure hasn’t hit me, because I can’t find a single word, or even a sound, to break the yawning void silently stretching out the moment.
I had the bag in my hand, felt the ropey handle against my palm, and then a jerk as the tiny weight disappeared and the handle broke loose. And then the guy was gone.
I think ... I just got mugged.
Penny slaps my chest with her ice cream–covered palms, leaving a mess of chocolate handprints. “Go get him! I’ll call the police!”
Right.Right.
I’m an athlete, and a fucking monster, so I jump into action. I take off at a sprint, initially trying to dodge people on the sidewalk, but quickly giving up on any facade of manners and barreling straight through them if they don’t move at the sight of an oncoming freight train. There’s a wake of shouts behind me, but none of those people matter. Only one man does—the one in the red hoodie. It seems like forever, but in truth, the delay between the guy stealing the bag and metaking off after him is probably only a couple of seconds, a head start I can easily make up.
But the guy is wily. I can see him ahead, easily sidestepping the crowd, so I yell out, “Stop that guy! Thief!”
He looks back over his shoulder, and I get a good look at his face. Early twenties, maybe even late teens, closely cropped light-brown hair, and pale skin with a heavy smattering of freckles across his nose and deep purple smudges beneath his eyes. He sees me and his eyes go comically wide. Or it would be comical if he didn’t have the bag with Penny’s ring in his hand.
Annoyingly, no one tries to stop the guy. If anything, they seem to not want to get involved and start moving out of his way, which gives him an even easier escape route. I growl, putting everything I’ve got into my mad dash to catch him, but he disappears around a corner. A split-second later, I make the same turn, but he’s ... gone. Poof! Vanished into thin air like a ghost.
I look in the doorway of the closest store. Nope. I look down an alley. Not there either. I even look up the building, thinking he might’ve scaled it like Spider-Man, but he’s no spider. Just a run-of-the-mill, shitty human thief. I glance around, thinking someone might tell me which way he went, but they shrug like they didn’t see a thing, as if they missed a guy in a bright-red hoodie, balls to the wall running from a guy the size of small European car.
“Fucking cowards,” I snarl, and a few of them cower back, shuffling their feet as they hurry to get farther away from me. Like I’m the one in the wrong here, not the other guy who stole.
Right. Out. Of. My. Fucking. Hand.
Shit. There’s no coming back from this. Penny is never going to forgive me. I saw how reluctant she was to let me hold the bag, like it was precious, and how worried she was that I was gonna do something juvenile like hold it over her head, playing keep-away with something important to her. I’m an asshole, but I wouldn’t do that. I understand that her work is everything to her. And she’s damn good at it.
And I just fucked that up. Majorly fucked it up.
But I’m not a coward. I’ll take my lumps. I’ll figure out how to make it up to her. Somehow, some way, someday, she’ll forgive me for this.
I trudge back to where I left her, but she’s not there. For a moment, I panic that something happened to her, too, but logic starts to prevail as I retrace our steps. When I find her back where I originally ran into her, close to an antique store I know she frequents, she’s staring at the door, slack-jawed, her eyes vacant as she squeezes them shut, then pops them open, staring at the store across the street.
“What are you doing?” I ask carefully. It’s entirely possible she’s lost it. I know Dom jokes about it sometimes when she gets going on one of her weird tangents, but right now, she looks like she might’ve actually broken her brain.
“Rewinding the last thirty minutes so this never happened. Did you catch the guy?” She looks at me with hope-filled eyes, but when she sees my empty hands and sour expression, she sags. “No, no, no ... this can’t be happening. It’s not real. Just a nightmare I’m gonna wake up from ... right now.” As she declares it, she pinches the shit out of her arm before I can stop her and then cries out at the sharp pain, glaring at her arm like it’s betrayed her too. “Fuck. Fuck a motherfucking duck.”
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I say soothingly, catching her in my arms and preventing her from doing further damage to herself.
But she fights me, jerking around like an electrified worm. “No, it’s not, Griffin! That ring was everything! Literally everything! And now it’s gone. And it’s your fault.”
It’s not. It’s the thief’s fault, but from her perspective, I can see why she’d think it’s mine. I even feel guilty ... for not seeing him coming, for not punching him when he got too close, for not catching him.
“I’ll fix it. I’ll figure something out,” I mumble, not sure what in the hell I’m saying, but willing to say or do anything that’ll stop the tears that are now running down Penny’s face. She’s getting heavier in my arms as the reality hits her harder and harder with every passing moment. “I’ll pay you back for the ring. Whatever you paid, I’ll give it to you.”
That’s apparently the wrong thing to say, because she snorts in derision, finding her feet to stand against me. “Ten thousand dollars, Griffin,” she snaps. “You got that floating around in your savings account? ’Cause I don’t. It’s on a credit card that’ll be due in a few weeks. I’ll have to sell everything I have to pay that bill. I’m gonna end up selling feet pics on OnlyFans, and you know I have wonky toes from skating my whole life. Nobody’s gonna pay ten thousand dollars to see these jacked-up piggies.”
She holds a foot up in the air as if proving her point despite having on tennis shoes that hide her not-at-all ugly feet. Not that I’m into that. Or care about people who are. I’ve just noticed everything about Penny over the years. And her feet are fine, cute even, but now doesn’t seem like the time to remind her of that, especially if she’s thinking of selling pictures of them.
I make good money as a professional hockey player, but it’s not as simple as a lot of folks seem to think. After taxes, agent’s fees, and more, a big chunk of my game checks are eaten up before I ever step foot on the ice each week. But I have long-term investments and savings, thanks to my accountant, who makes sure I’m not going to end up one of those guys with more debts than brain cells after I retire, so I can swing it. It’s just going to take me a bit to get that kind of liquid cash to give to Penny. But I will.
“I do. I’ll pay the credit card, and it’ll be like this never happened.”
