Brutal Game (Flynn and Laurel #2)(40)

He nodded.

She tousled his hair in that way he hated, that way he’d miss like oxygen if she was somehow gone tomorrow. “Night, kid.”

“Night.”

He watched her go. He ought to move to the chair, but the roof felt right under his ass, cold and hard and awkward. All the things he’d been to Laurel, tonight.

She’s gonna start worrying. Yeah, probably. Being a dick on occasion was one thing, but tonight had been something else entirely. It’d be selfish to stay up here, wallowing, knowing if she woke he’d only wind up hurting her more.

He got to his feet, feeling old and achy, feeling every hit he’d ever taken and every hour he’d ever labored in his muscles and bones and heart, and deserving every pang. He crossed the roof, scanning the city, feeling as determined as he did lost as he hauled the door open and stepped inside.

Two flights down, he unlocked the apartment as quietly as he could, toed off his boots and shed his jacket and sweater and jeans. As his eyes adjusted, he looked to the bed. The note sat where he’d left it atop his pillow. Laurel had moved though, turned over, her pale arm slung across the dark bedspread. He should have been here, should have felt the sweet weight of that arm as it sought him in the dark.

Too f*cking bad. He couldn’t fix that lost chance, not any more than he could’ve fixed things when she’d lost the pregnancy. If control really was what he valued, it was the present he ought to be focused on.

He crept around the bed, grabbed the note and crumpled it into a ball, small and hard as a marble, and tossed it in the trash under the sink. He used the bathroom and washed his hands, ran a wet washcloth over his face. The fan sounded so loud, his thoughts so quiet at long last.

The sheets were warm as he slid beneath the covers on Laurel’s side of the bed.

“Hey,” he whispered, seeking her body, his chest meeting her back.

“Mm.” A pause. “You’re freezing.”

“I needed the can.” Not a lie, thankfully.

“You smell like cigarettes.”

He didn’t reply, grateful she was half asleep.

“Want me to budge over?”

Though he was wedged on a narrow sliver of mattress, he said, “No. Stay right here.” He wrapped his arm tight around her, warmed through when her hand covered his at her heart.

She said nothing for a long time, but he could tell from the subtle tension in her body, she wasn’t asleep. Finally she whispered, “You back?”

She didn’t mean back in the apartment. He knew precisely what she meant.

“Yeah, I’m back.”

“Good.”

“Sorry I left.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just don’t go away again.”

“I won’t,” he promised. “Now get some sleep, honey.”





12





With the help of his sister’s smoke-scented wisdom, Flynn slowly came to accept that maybe it wasn’t so sad and pointless, the way things had happened with the baby. Like maybe surrender was just the price you paid when pregnancy and kids entered the picture. He was pretty useless at surrendering, but the thought was comforting in its way. It became his first step toward moving on.

He and Laurel saw each other less than usual the next couple weeks, but not infrequently. If he woke up angry at the world on a given morning, he let her know he needed space that night. He’d finish work and toil in the gym for twice as long as usual, pound his angst into the bags or sweat it onto the bench, mop it away with a towel. He tried not to take it to bed with him. Mostly succeeded.

It was a warm Monday afternoon at the start of April when he noticed the biggest change—he’d gone an entire workday without thinking about any of it. A long, laborious slog of a day spent tacking drywall in Fort Point, an industrial vent droning nearby and making conversation with his coworkers impossible, infinite opportunities to ruminate and dwell…and yet he hadn’t. He’d thought about a thousand other things—baseball, a beef with his boss, the taxes he couldn’t put off much longer—but not the lost pregnancy.

He called Laurel on his way to the gym to ask if she wanted to hang out that night, but it went to voicemail after a single ring. “Hey, it’s me. Calling to see if you wanna stay over tonight. Lemme know.” He pocketed his phone and cut down the alley beside the bar, exchanged a curt nod of greeting with a fellow boxer as he emerged from the side door. Flynn caught it just as it was about to swing shut and headed down the steps.

He felt the buzz of his phone as he was shedding his jacket and checked the screen. Laurel. “Hey, hang on a sec.” The reception downstairs sucked.

“Sure,” came her crackly reply.

He headed for the stairwell, trotting back up and out into the alley. “Okay, I’m good. Had to get out of the dungeon. You get my message?”

“I did. Sorry I missed you—I was on the subway.” Her voice was hitching slightly.

“You walkin’ someplace?”

“Yeah. Anyway, I’d love to hang out.”

“I could pick you up about seven,” he said, eyeing the sky. He was in a tee and the hairs on his arms were prickling in the cold. It felt like rain, but he didn’t care. His own forecast was fair, at long last. “I was thinkin’ maybe we could swing by the grocery store on the way back, grab a rotisserie chicken or something.”