I’d thought the piece of Savvy I had inside me had been erased, but a girl like her you couldn’t erase. Just like an addict was always an addict, she was my drug.
I’d watched her for months in high school. The girl who offered a shy smile to everyone. Who helped out the school nurse. Who volunteered at the hospital every Sunday visiting the terminal patients. I’d found out her dad had died there, but I didn’t know from what. I tried to keep myself from her, but my eyes always found her in the hallways. On her walks home. I’d even gone to school early in the mornings so I could watch her through the fuckin’ tiny window in the door of the gymnasium when she’d practice her dancing alone.
And she was a good dancer. Really good. It pissed me off when she’d told me she was just okay on the school steps that day, because she was better than just okay.
I was drawn to her from the beginning, partially because we were the complete opposite. I remember wanting her back then, even just to sit with her and talk, but I was too angry and fucked up to ever have her.
Then I’d kissed her at the cemetery after her mom died. A kiss that sealed her inside me.
I clenched my jaw. Damn it, I’d warned her never to come near me again.
And now she was here, walking back into my life.
Savvy.
The girl who said everyone had good bits, but it was she who carried them. She simply handed them out to everyone she encountered. Like passing out chocolates, she passed out her good bits to people when they needed it.
Even that piece-of-shit druggie Josh whom she offered a quiet smile of sympathy when I had him up against the lockers.
She’d handed me her good bits, too. There was no choice in whether to hold onto them. Once she gave them to you, they were permanent, like she was.
Her smile. Her touch. The way she cared about people.
And even me. The asshole who never smiled or gave a shit about anyone.
That was a lie. I gave a shit about Savvy, even if I’d tried not to. Her goodness was my fuckin’ drug, drawing me to her.
The truth was, she never left me. I just kept myself from her because I knew exactly what would happen—this. A possessiveness I had no control over, and I controlled everything about my life. I’d never had a girlfriend. Never wanted the attachment. Never wanted something to love and lose. I’d loved and lost the most important person in my life.
It was easier being alone. It was safer.
I chugged back the rest the water then tossed it in the bin.
Jesus, was she crazy wanting to dance at a nightclub? Compass was the safest of all of them, Brett and I made certain of that, but it was still a club, and people drank and became unruly and did things they didn’t normally do.
But Savvy had been stubborn. Shit, she’d come to an underground fight, something that definitely went against her principles. I knew for a fact she’d never been to one of my fights because even if I couldn’t have seen her in the crowd, I’d have felt her.
“Boss?” Luke stopped in front of me. He owned Shield Security, the company we used for our rock band. He’d helped save my life six months earlier when I’d been in a car accident with him and Haven, my band mate Crisis’s wife. “All good?”
Luke was quiet, calm, and vigilant about his job and had become more than just security to all of us. He was a friend.
“Yeah.” And what I liked about Luke was he didn’t ask questions. I was pretty sure he knew about my past in Ireland before my father moved us here, but he never mentioned anything.
But shit with my father had resurfaced after the car accident, and my dad had contacted me when it was all over the media that I was in critical condition. And it sure as hell wasn’t to wish me well.
We hadn’t spoken since I was sixteen and the fuckin’ memories slammed into me when I’d heard his voice. I learned to live with the memories of Emmitt and my mother, because no matter how many shields I put up, they leaked through.
But him… the anger rose again like a raging bull being baited and stabbed.
“The guys are waiting for you in the limo,” Luke said.
I nodded, and we walked toward the back door Savvy had vanished through a couple of minutes ago. It was the right thing to do. Let her go. She was better to escape me now because next time, I might not be so willing.
Luke opened the door, and the cool summer air wafted into me. Fuck, it smelled like Savvy. Like that sweet scent of something flowery and exotic mixed with her coconut shampoo.
“You want a man on her?”
I knew the “her” he was referring to was Savvy, and I wanted to say hell yeah, but it was better I kept myself distant from her. If I put a man on her, shit would change. I’d want to know every-fuckin’-thing about her like why the hell she was looking for a job at a nightclub when the Savvy I remembered wouldn’t like to be put on display like that.
“No.” But just saying no was difficult.
I could ask Deck to look into her as he had more resources than Luke. Deck was a friend of mine and owned Vault’s Unyielding Riot, which according to the law was a security slash investigative company, but Deck and his men dealt with the most unsavory men in the world.
Sex trade, drugs, guns, you name it, Deck and his men had seen it. Most of his guys were ex-special forces or had training like special forces. My cousin Deaglan, who was based most of the time in Ireland, had done some work for Deck. Deaglan flirted with both sides of the law, meaning he also had ties to the unsavory.
I had to let her go. Attachments like her were dangerous.
My father reappearing had uprooted my past and everything I’d worked hard to eradicate from my life. Now I had a chance to hurt him, I didn’t want Savvy anywhere near that. Including Compass.
I stopped beside the limo, and Luke put his hand on the door before I could open it. “If she’s a security risk, I need to know.”
I snorted. “Savvy’s not a security risk. Unless you consider a girl who thinks everyone has good bits a risk.”