“She called the charter,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“She asked for help.”
“Yeah.”
“Then she gets help.”
Nate’s mouth curved grimly. “Figured you’d say that.”
We were out the door before the waitress could ask if we needed boxes.
My bike was parked half a block down, Nate’s beside it. The night air hit my face, cool and full of salt, fried food, perfume, exhaust, and the old, familiar taste of trouble.
I swung onto the bike.
Nate pulled on his helmet. “Dyl.”
I looked over.
“She specifically said not you.”
I put my helmet on.
“I heard you the first time.”
“And?”
I started the engine.
It roared beneath me, loud enough to drown out every promise I had made to stay away.
For a year, I had told myself I was doing the right thing.
For a year, I had let her build a life without my shadow across it.
For a year, I had tried to become a man who deserved to stand somewhere in the distance and be proud of her.
But she was in Santa Monica.
She had called my charter.
And someone from her past had found her anyway.
Maybe Destiny was not mine.
Maybe she never would be.
But if the past thought it could touch her again while I was five minutes away eating noodles and pretending I wasn’t orbiting her life like a doomed planet, it was about to learn exactly what kind of man I had spent a year trying not to be.
“Too bad,” I said.
Then I tore out of the parking spot toward Third Street.
After Santa Monica, I told myself I was done.
Not done with Destiny.
