Chris takes the phone from my hand. “Mom?” he asks.
He’s listening the entire time it takes Detective Diaz to cuff me. Finally, as I’m being led out the door, he says, “You need to get over yourself Mom,” and hangs up. “What do you need me to do?” he calls to me over Detective Diaz, who’s reading my rights as I’m being led down the stairs.
I twist to look at him over my shoulder. “You’ve got my ATM and the credit card. Just take care of yourself.”
“Shit,” he says under his breath, then louder. “Fucking shit!”
I hear him banging down the stairs behind us. “Go inside, Chris.” When he just stands there at the bottom of the stairs, his expression a mask of shock as the uniformed cop presses on my head and lowers me into the backseat of the waiting cruiser, I resort to the lie I promised myself I wouldn’t tell. “It’s going to be fine.”
He stands there shaking his head as Detective Diaz asks if I understand my rights. I nod even though I didn’t hear a word.
Very few of my neighbors come out to watch the spectacle. Even the bangers who are always in the parking lot are gone. Most of them probably have outstanding warrants, so they aren’t going to push their luck. But I see tattered blinds being bent further out of shape as they watch from their crack house windows.
This is it, I think to myself as the cop slams the door on any future I might have had. This is where my whole life derails.
I slump low in my seat and loll my head against the window. But just as I’m closing my eyes, I see a silver Mini Cooper race past and skid to a stop in front of my apartment. As the cruiser takes a corner, I catch the briefest glimpse of long sable hair emerging from the driver’s door right where Chris is still standing.
I drop my head against the headrest and swallow the hot lump in the back of my throat. Because I still don’t regret a minute with her.
Chapter 17
Blaire
I nearly knock a guy standing at the bottom of Caiden’s stairs over as I bolt for his apartment, but I’m only halfway up the stairs when I see the door is hanging wide open.
“Caiden!” I call, panic making my voice thick.
“He’s gone,” the guy says, turning toward me. He looks shell-shocked, his eyes glassy and his jaw hanging slack. He’s tall and lanky. Somewhere between Caiden and Marcus, and his dirty blond hair is cut short.
I turn and descend a stair, trying to convince myself Caiden took my advice and ran. “What do you mean, gone?”
He shakes his head and blinks a few times, seeming to regain his footing. “Are you Blaire?”
I nod, my bloodstream suddenly full of ice water. “Where is he?”
He starts up the stairs. “Come on in.”
I move to the side as he passes and as I get a closer look at his face, I recognize the mouth, lips the color of coral and fuller on the left. “Chris.”
It’s not a question, but he slows and nods.
I follow him up the stairs and close the door as he goes to the kitchen. “I’ve got coffee, Coke…” He opens the fridge and peers inside. “OJ?”
“Coffee is good,” I say. I realize how hard I’m shaking when I hear it in my voice.
He pours a couple of cups and pushes one across the island to me.
I move across the room and take it.
“You’re the one who got him into this,” he says over the top of his mug.
I nod, still not trusting my voice. He’s right to hate me. I hate myself.
But as he walks past me and drops onto the sofa, he looks aggravated but not particularly mad.
“I’m sorry,” I manage after a long swallow of coffee.
His eyes snap to mine. “Caiden’s not.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I move to the sofa and sit on the end away from him, focusing all of my attention on the dark liquid swirling in the mug, as if the key to everything lays in the non-existent leaves at the bottom, and I could see it if I looked hard enough.
“Listen,” he says into the awkward silence. “Caiden didn’t tell me a whole lot about what happened between you two, but he’s a pretty level headed guy. If he took the risk, he must have decided you were worth it.”
I look up at him and find eyes more blue and less storming than Caiden’s looking back at me. But the shape is the same, as is the depth in them.
I clear my throat. “He said this was going to happen. He asked me to stay away from him.”
“But then he came to you because he couldn’t stay away. He told me that much.” He tips his head back and empties his mug. “All I know for sure is the way he looked when he talked about you…like you were his reason for waking up every day.” His eyes find mine again. “I’m not going to put words in his mouth if he didn’t say them himself, but I’ve never seen him talk that way about anyone else. Ever.”