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“I know you’re awake,” he finally says, and I chuckle.

“I was just thinking the same about you. How long have you been awake?”

“A while.” Which, in Brawley language means most of the night.

I turn over and face him, to see his eyes focused on the ceiling and his jaw clenched.

“Talk to me,” I encourage.

“Nothing to say.”

“Brawley.”

He looks at me and rolls slightly onto his side. “I don’t know how to do this,” he confesses with a sigh. “The not knowing. When he gets like this, I always know what to do for him. When it gets really bad, I know what he needs to bring him back. But this time I don’t know where he is, and he has never been gone this long. I can’t just do nothing.”

I reach over and place my hand on the side of his face. “He’ll be okay; we have to believe that. You are not failing him. He removed his microchip, which means he doesn’t want to be found. All we can do now is wait for him to come back when he is ready. And when he does, he is going to need you to be in one piece, so I need you to breathe.”

“I am breathing.”

“You know what I mean.”

He pulls me into his chest and tucks my head under his chin, wrapping a big arm around me. “I’m so glad he found you.”

“Me too. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else right now.”

Rogue was happy to give me time off, and if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t miss going into the bar. I know I should, I love my job and working for Rogue, but I want to be here, too, and that scares me. What if I’m falling into old habits? I shake away the thought. Right now I just want to know where Vero is, and hope he hasn’t done something stupid.

“He is going to be fine,” I whisper into Brawley’s chest.

“Yeah,” he replies, but I can tell he doesn’t fully believe it.

The door swings open and Clay fills the doorway, clad in his security vest. He and Ares have been trying to keep a normal routine. “You can’t mope around here all day again. It’s depressing.”

“Good morning to you too,” I snap.

“I mean it, it’s been three days. Sitting around here won’t make Vero appear. When he is back, he won’t be quiet about it. You’ll know.”

“Fuck off,” Brawley growls.

“Lying in bed together won’t help the situation,” Clay insists.

I sit up and pin him with a glare, unsure if anyone ever taught him to show empathy. “He has been missing for three days, and you just want us to go about our day?”

“I want you to be functional, because when he comes back, and he will, we need to be able to actually help him. You two being in a funk won’t help at all. He will feed off that.”

I hate that he’s right. Worse, he knows it, the smug asshole. The look on his face says it all, and I want to wipe it off. I want to throw something at him, but all I have is a pillow close to me, and that won’t be all that useful.

“Fine,” I huff, and Brawley groans beside me. “I hate to admit it, but he is right.”

Ares appears behind Clay and looks at the two of us still in bed. “We are going to the bar for lunch, all of us. We can go over what we know and come up with new ideas on where we might find him.”

“I don’t want to sit around and talk about shit we have already been over.” Brawley huffs. “He’s nowhere.”

“Neither do I, but I want to sit around here even less.”

“Whatever,” Brawley says, rolling onto his back.

“Good,” Clay snaps, and turns and walks away.