Crash into You (Pushing the Limits, #3)(86)

She says things, things I don’t understand, and she strokes my hair while she talks. I can’t breathe. I can’t.

She disappears and in her place are gray storm clouds. “Breathe, angel. Come on.”

Isaiah. I wrap my arms around him, and he holds me—tightly. I listen to his heart: the steady beat, the steady pace, and within a few seconds I start to match his breathing. I inhale deeply one more time. “Isaiah.”

He cups my face and forces me to meet his eyes. “Are you okay?”

I nod. “Eric?”

“Is gone,” says Logan from the doorway of the office.

Isaiah helps me walk back into the garage. Logan’s right. It’s only the four of us. With her shoulders hunched, Abby stands beside Logan. She lifts her head only to share a wary glance with him, then Isaiah, but not me.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. Because I can feel it. A heaviness that wasn’t here before.

Isaiah swears under his breath. “I’m sorry.”

I hate the prickling in my stomach, a sensation foretelling doom. “For what?”

“I hit him. Eric. I came in and saw the two of you fighting him off, and I hit him. Hard.”

“Good.” I mean it. If I could have socked him in the jaw and caused the bastard to bleed then I would have, but I’m not that strong.

“You don’t hit Eric.” Abby nudges her foot at the concrete. “Not without repercussions.”

My stomach cramps. “Is he going to hurt you?” No, please no. My hands flutter near Isaiah’s face, terrified of Eric hurting him. “I’ll apologize. I’ll...I’ll...” I have no idea what to do.

Isaiah takes my hands. “He moved up the due date. We have to pay him in one week.”

My head becomes light and I sway. Isaiah places his hands on my waist to steady me.

“It’s unexpected,” he says. “But not impossible. We’re close to the total. Let’s race tonight, count our winnings and see where we stand.”

Okay. He’s right. Plus Isaiah would never lie. “All right.”

“Abby!” Logan calls out. “Where’re you going?”

With her hands in her pockets, Abby walks away from the garage. Isaiah holds on when I move to go after her. “I’m okay,” I tell him. “I need to talk to her.”

Isaiah releases me, but keeps his arm near my elbow in case I drop. “Abby!”

She continues to walk away and I quicken my pace. “Abby!”

Abby stops on the sidewalk and doesn’t turn around. I slow as I approach and think of Eric’s words and Abby’s description of her job. She’s a drug dealer.

A drug dealer. My first real girlfriend is a drug dealer. My entire world feels upside down and sideways; yanked inside out then pulled back out again. With new eyes, I look at Abby. She’s exactly the same as before: black hoodie, braver-than-I-could-ever-be jeans and long brown hair. She’s a beautiful girl—a mystery to me, and bold, but what I’ve never seen is how seventeen she appears. How...young, like me.

She’s what I should hate in the world, yet she’s come to be someone I love.

“Thanks,” I say.

She flips her hair over her shoulder. “For what?”

“For helping me with Eric.”

“He’s an *.”

“Yes. He is.” I hesitate. Eric called Isaiah an addict. He called her a drug dealer. Drug dealers are bad and Abby isn’t. She’s good. “Why?”

She shrugs, not even pretending she doesn’t know what I mean. “I inherited a mess, and someday, I’m not going to do this anymore. But right now, there are problems with my family and I’m the only one who can fix them.”

I understand inheriting a mess. My birthright is to make up for Colleen’s death and as for family problems, I understand those, too. “Can you come with us tonight? It gets lonely sitting in the stands by myself.”

Abby stares at me blankly, as if she never heard me speak. “I don’t use the drugs. I swear to God I’m clean. And I never bring them around you.”

“I believe you.”

She narrows her eyes. “Why?”

Because she stands by me. Because I think she loves me like I love her. “Because we’re friends.”

Abby smiles. “I knew there was a reason I chose you to be my best friend.”

Is it strange that that just made me incredibly happy? “Me, too.”

Abby and I both take interest in anything else but each other. I think this whole friend thing is completely new to both of us. From the open bay of the garage, Isaiah watches us with his hands shoved in his pockets. Logan stands right behind him. They’re a strange combo, but so are Abby and I.

There’s so much I thought I understood, but that’s not the truth. I avoid issues more than I try to understand. “Abby?” Deep breath. “Does Isaiah use drugs?”

She tucks her hair behind her ear again. “I think you should talk to him.”

It’s as if my soul became too heavy for my heart. That’s a conversation I don’t want to have.





Chapter 55

Isaiah

RACHEL’S LIGHT FOOTFALLS CAUSE THE wooden stairs to groan. “Seven hundred dollars. If you asked me two weeks ago if we could make seven hundred dollars in one week, I would have said yes, but after tonight...I don’t know.”