“Frazzled?” I offer, trying to help him out. “Yeah, been a rough few weeks. I’ll be okay, though. I probably just need a good night’s sleep.”
Michael gets up and loops a towel around the back of his neck, using it to mop up the beads of sweat rolling over his shoulders and down his arms. His muscle shirt is soaked through, clinging to his stomach, displaying the wall of abs he has under there. It’s weird—ever since I got with Zeth, I haven’t checked another guy out. Not once. I’m not blind, though. I can see that Michael’s beyond hot. With that beautiful, warm skin tone of his and those shockingly bright blue eyes, he’s quite startling to look at.
“You know, when you spend as much time with someone as I have spent with Zeth, you come to know them pretty damn well,” he says, cracking open a bottle of water. “And I know you love him, Sloane. I know you’d do anything for him. But you need to learn to trust him.”
“I’m sorry?” His words are out of the blue, but he has this look on his face that makes me think he knows. He can’t, though. There’s just no way he possibly can. He smiles sadly.
“You’ve trusted him to save your life more than once, girl. And believe it or not, he’s trusted you to save his a couple of times, too. I never thought I’d see that day. But now you have to trust him to have your back, Doc. Seems like it should be easier than everything else you’ve gone through, I know, but I get it. Sometimes it’s hard to make a leap of faith. To count on someone. It’s all too easy to assume how a person is going to react to something, but sometimes the reality will surprise you. Let him surprise you, Sloane.”
I puff out my cheeks. My eyes are welling up, my palms sweating. I have no clue what I’m supposed to say to any of this. I don’t know how to react. Eventually I say, “I trust him. Of course I do.” I laugh. My voice is shaky as all hell. “And, boy, you don’t need to talk to me about Zeth surprising me. He surprises me every day.”
Michael drains the bottle of water he’s holding. He crushes it in his hand, and then tosses it across the room into the trashcan. Getting to his feet, he does something very strange then. He takes a few steps, closing the space between us, and he wraps his arms around me, drawing me into a tight hug. It’s so unexpected that I don’t know what to do at first. I stand there, my hands pressing against the sides of my body, my eyes still stinging as he holds onto me. After a moment, I let myself go and hug him back. It feels like a relief. It feels like I’m allowing the situation to wash over me instead of trying so damned hard to hold it at bay. I close my eyes and I cry. Michael doesn’t say a word about the fact that I’m sniffling like a baby into his sweat-covered shirt. He just rubs his hand up and down my back, remaining silent, which is exactly what I need.
It feels like we stand like this for a long time.
“Lacey was like a sister to me, Sloane. She was family. You took care of her and you cared for her like she was your own, too. So whatever happens in this life, know I’ll be here for you, Doc. Never forget that.”
Chapter Seventeen
MASON
“You’re fucking kidding me? Dude, three seconds ago, you were telling me there was no way you could go to LA. Now you’re saying you can?” Ben’s wearing nothing but his boxers and some smeared hot pink lipstick on his stomach. I dread to think where else he might have been painted pink. His apartment smells like sex, which is to say it smells like Ben’s been locked up in here for the past three days, not answering his phone, not cracking a damn window for fresh air, while he goes at it with an array of morally challenged women.
I step over an up-ended carton of Chinese food, trying not to breathe in through my nose. The guy is a fucking animal. “I’m not saying I can go. I’m telling you that you have to go. You’re such a fucking idiot, Ben. You know the guys from French’s are looking for you, right? Don’t you read your text messages?”
“Oh, I read them all right. Dude, you are panicking over nothing. Johnny’s not pissed. Fighters pull this shit all the time. There’s no way they’re gonna single me out for a beating.”
“They tried to kill Jameson Rayne, man. He’s their prize fucking fighter. If they’re okay with killing him, they’re not gonna think twice about killing you.”
Ben makes a disbelieving sound, waving one hand at me as he sifts through the piles of dirty cups and dishes on his kitchen counter with the other. “That’s just people talking shit, Mase. They’d never tackle Rayne. You want some coffee?”
“No, I do not want some coffee. I want you to listen to me. Rayne’s sister told me a bunch of heavies showed up at her place with serious designs on hurting him. They trashed her apartment, destroyed the place. She wasn’t lying. Why the fuck would she?”