A husky female voice barked back, “Stop being such a sourpuss. One drink won’t hurt you, grouchy pants.”
I looked over Rule’s shoulder where I was still holding onto him and my eyes locked with Dom’s. I saw him do a double-take, his eyes widening as he took in the crowd gathered to celebrate his accomplishment and then narrow into slits as Rule let go of me and took a step to my side. I took a step towards him as he took one back towards the open door, his eyes locked on Remy’s twin. The twin who shared the face of the boy on my wall. The twin who he didn’t know was the surviving one of the set because Remy was dead. My omission, my inability to talk about my first love was about to smack me right across the face.
“Not so out of the picture after all, is he, Lando?” Dom’s voice sounded like acid poured over rusty nails.
“No, Dom …” But my explanation came too late as he stormed back out the door, leaving a room of stunned faces staring after him and his adorable little sister looking like she wanted to take a carving knife to my balls.
“What the hell?” Rule snapped the question out as I rushed towards the door.
“He doesn’t know Remy is dead. I never told him and I still have pictures up in my house of the two of us. I told him things ended badly. He doesn’t know because I was too much of a coward to tell him.” Panic made my words rushed and jumbled together as I threw them back over my shoulder at Rule.
“And we have the same face.” Rule’s voice was understanding, as I was stopped by Dom’s sister, who put her tiny hand on my arm as I hit the door.
“So far I am not a fan of you, Mr. Fancy-Pants. You hurt his feelings by not being there today and now you have him running away from his surprise party. Royal likes you and says you two are good together, but if you keep hurting my brother”—her eyes were narrowed and I noticed they were a much brighter, sharper green than Dom’s—“I will hurt you.”
I pulled out of her grip. “I’m gonna fix it. Just give me a chance.” I was making a shit first impression on the people who mattered most to him, but as long as Dom would hear me out I would worry about fixing that later. If I thought the fear of losing him to something violent and uncontrollable on the streets was bad, I was wrong. The fear of losing him because of my own stupidity, the idea that he could walk away because of my own failings and hang-ups passed fear and went straight into stone-cold terror.
I had to do what I did best. Fix something that seemed unfixable.
Chapter 13
Dominic
When I passed the conditioning test and the sergeant in charge of administering it shook my hand and told me I could get my badge back as early as next week, I thought I would be filled with so much accomplishment and joy that it would burst out of me. Instead, I shook the man’s hand back and wondered why it all felt anticlimactic. I thought maybe it had to do with the fact there was no lanky ginger there to congratulate me or to appreciate how far we had come together. Maybe it had to do with the fact Royal had been there, with her new partner. Making it clear that I was going back to work but things were different … I was different. Maybe it had to do with the fact I ran the course with twenty other recruits, huffing and puffing alongside the new generation, a generation that didn’t know how bad it could be out there on the streets, a generation that still had the same shiny idealism and drive that I started out with but had let slip and slide somewhere along the way.