“I want to say it was a while ago, but it was last year,” Jeremy says with a snicker.
I let out a short giggle at the mental image. Nic’s a foot shorter than Jeremy, so there’s no telling what tactics she employed to actually force him into a closet and lock him in. I might need to call her for tips.
“I won’t let anything hurt you, not even me,” he says. His mood darkens again, and he’s back to speaking in that sullen way where his words drag out painfully slow and so weighted with meaning and promises that I’m drowning in my own insecurity and desperation to have him love me the way I think I’ve fallen for him—fast, deep, hard, and without a safety net to limit the destruction when this all goes to shit. Because we just got together. Like… just.
“Not hurting me means not shutting me out,” I say.
“You’re scaring the crap out of me, Chey.”
“Then help me,” I plead. “Holly’s getting better, but she’s still struggling, and God only knows what’s going on with Mindy. Nobody can seem to get ahold of her.”
“Club’s handling it,” he says firmly. Like that’s supposed to stop me.
“You’re not saying anything new. Quit shutting me out.”
“Meth heads who raped Mindy kept calling her Nic while they did it, so the club thinks it’s revenge for his prick kid.”
I let my eyes fall closed so I can block the world out for a moment. I’m under no delusions that Forsaken is a club full of angels. They may be assholes, and they use women and lose them before the condom comes off. They may even sell pot by the fucking ton, but so what? It’s weed, not heroin. Even if it were, they don’t have women raped or send their men out to kill their own children. They don’t do those things, so why is all this awful shit happening to us?
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he says.
“I’m just trying to figure out why so much crap is happening to the club is all.”
Neither of us say a word for a long while. The sun starts to set as the temperature drops. Jeremy must be freezing, but he doesn’t move to leave.
“I got a job to do,” he says. “And for me to do that job, I got to know you’re not poking into shit you shouldn’t be. Got it?”
“One night, less than a week after the... attack.” My voice drops lower with every word as I figure out how to word what I’m trying to say. “Holly woke up screaming. Dad was outside with Ian. Whatever they were talking about had them both really upset. I didn’t want to bug them, so I went downstairs to see if I could calm her down. She let me crawl into their bed with her, and as we were lying there, side by side, she was crying. Not like screaming anymore, but her face was covered in tears. She looked so out of it, like she didn’t really know what was going on around her. Then something clicked, and she looked at me and just said, ‘I’d do it again,’ and then she mumbled the numbers seven and one. It was totally creepy and really weird, but she did something for my dad, which means she did something for me. And I love her, and I can’t lose her.”
I let that settle with him for a long moment before saying, “Holly did what she had to do for us. Now I’m doing what I have to for her.”
“Christ,” he mutters. “If I promise to keep you up-to-date on shit I find out, will you promise to fucking leave it alone?”
I think that over for a moment before nodding in agreement. I feel lighter now, less frustrated and more hopeful. Being able to share my fears with him and to have him promise to keep me up-to-date makes me feel better than I have in weeks. He twists me in his lap so I can face him better, and very slowly, he leans in and presses his lips to mine. Letting out a happy sigh, I press back, and we begin to move in a practiced rhythm. It’s a few minutes of wandering hands and heaving breathing and a kiss that quickly moves from chaste to something that should most definitely be private. Just as my hands trail down his arms, rubbing his practically frozen flesh to warm him up, his phone buzzes from beneath me.
We pause, and I wiggle off his lap and onto the cold-as-hell sand and curl up to his side. He pulls the phone out, stares at the screen, and says, “Fuck.” He pushes a few buttons and then brings the phone to his ear. He closes his eyes and places his head in his hand. All is quiet for a moment before Duke’s voice shouts through the line in an angry string of curses.
“Yes, sir,” Jeremy says, sounding so freaking upset.
“You fucked up, boy,” Duke barks so loudly that I can hear him without even straining to listen in.
“Yes, sir,” Jeremy repeats.
“Where the fuck did you go?” Duke demands.