“I don’t like where this is going.”
“It all ended fine, obviously.” I gestured at myself, alive and uninjured. Physically, at least. “Drunk me decided to take a nap on the tracks. Turns out rails don’t make very good pillows…especially if you misjudge how far away they are and slam your head into one.”
Dom’s chair scraped noisily across the floor. I jerked my head up to find him dropping into the seat next to mine. He pulled my chair so it faced his and cupped my face. Moisture shone in his eyes. “Shadow, what the fuck were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t,” I said, my voice cracking. “I was hurting, Dom. So fucking much. Everyone else was out celebrating their results, excited about the future. But me? All I knew was that you wouldn’t be in mine. I couldn’t cope with it. I just wanted the pain to go away for a few hours.”
“Oh, baby.” Dom tugged me forward until my knees were between his thighs. His arms encircled me, holding me tight. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. It kills me to know you were hurting. That I hurt you that much.”
His cheek brushed mine and my breath caught in my throat. Suddenly sadness wasn’t the main emotion I was feeling. It was enough to bring me back to reality.
Clearing my throat, I eased out of his arms and scooted my chair back to its original position. “It’s in the past.”
Dom’s jaw worked as his hands fisted on his thighs. My heart ached, knowing he was stopping himself reaching for me.
“What happened? Did someone find you?”
I gave him a weak smile. “Frank did.”
Dom jolted in surprise. “What?”
“He saw me walk past your house, swigging from the bottle, and decided to follow me. Good thing he did, really.When he realised I had a head injury, he called an ambulance.”
Dom’s skin paled. “You ended up in hospital?”
“Barely.” I waved a hand dismissively. “Just for twenty-four hours for monitoring.”
He winced. “You had a concussion.”
I gave him a weak smile. “I’ve learned to keep pillows nearby when drinking that much whisky now.”
“Jesus.” Dom pressed his hand to his face. “You’re fucking lucky there weren’t any trains that time of night. What if you hadn’t been found in time? What if Frank hadn’t seen you?”
Irritation pricked at me. “Well I was and he did.”
“You could’ve died, Ry.Died.”
Okay, the irritation was now full-blown anger. We’d literally just gone over why I’d done it. Why was he getting so pissed off now? “Don’t tell me you’re going to sit there and lecture me about putting my life in danger.”
“Of course I fucking am,” he snapped, his temper rising to match mine. “Christ. Do you realise what it would’ve done to me if I’d known? If I’d had to sit there, waiting for a call, knowing I couldn’t get to you? How fucking awful that would’ve been?”
I pushed my chair back slowly, getting to my feet. “Yeah, Dom. I knowexactlyhowthat feels, as a matter of fact. Want to add in that, when it happened to you, I was hours away from home? That I drove like a bat out of hell to get back? That I held Frank’s hand while we waited for the phone to ring? That I wasn’t even surprised to get the call, given I’d been waiting for it every damned day since you left?”
Dom stood too, reaching out for me with a trembling hand. “Shit, Shadow. That was insensitive. I didn’t mean?—”
“You have no right to lecture me.” I shoved my finger into his chest as I snarled at him. “I was a broken-hearted teenager looking for an escape. You, on the other hand, willingly and knowingly put yourself into the line of fire. Quite literally, I might add. And notoncedid you think about how it’d be for me.”
“That’s what upset you about Taff,” he said slowly, his eyes widening. “Because I put myself in danger to save him…because he had someone to come home to. You were angry because I had someone waiting too. I had you.”
“No.” I stepped back and shook my head. “You didn’t have me, Dom. I didn’t wait for you.”
“Then why were you angry?”
My mouth opened and closed as I searched for an answer. WhyhadI been so angry? Was it just because he’d been reckless with his life? Or something more? “I…I don’t know.”
“You were wrong about me not thinking about you,” he said in a low voice. “I thought about you every minute I was away. Every second. And as I tackled Taff out of the way, as I lay dying? You know what I thought about?”
“Stop.” I shook my head and held my hands up as if that might somehow stop the tidal wave threatening to drag me under. “We can’t do this, Dom.”
