Heartbreaker (Unbreakable #1)(22)

Hours later, I sat at my worktable in the quiet of the warehouse like I did so many nights—staring at the envelope.

Unopened, it almost appeared harmless. But starched ivory, inked letters, and two postage stamps with Love scripted in pastel colors on its outside surface didn’t change the contents behind the sealed flap.

Underneath the stationery camouflage lay a grenade.

And I wasn’t about to pull the pin.

Instead, I warily stared at it like I had the handful of other times since the postman had come to my door. Front side up, partially concealed by a stack of mail, its green perforated strips hidden on the backside were evidence that I’d acknowledged receipt.

“Open it. Don’t open it,” I grumbled. Then I took a sip of coffee, glaring at the damned thing, willing its contents and all they represented to poof into thin air.

But as usual, nothing happened.

And I wasn’t kidding myself that anything would.

Common sense screamed the explosion would happen anyway.

But still, the nightly exercise, futile as it was, helped soothe my version of reality: that nothing would change. As long as I didn’t open the envelope.

The longer it sat there, the more hazardous it felt, though. Like it was merely a grenade if I eventually took control and pulled the pin. If I didn’t? Then it morphed back into what it had been all along: a ticking bomb.





Darren…

Fucking traffic. Sucked that I’d left so early—only to be late.

I glared at the right lane, willing a spot to open.

Score. When a Jaguar inched forward, I gassed it, yanking the wheel hard to steal the opening. A horn blared from a white sedan I’d cutoff.

My lips curled into a smug smile. “You text, you lose. Idiot.”

Not that I should talk. Multitasking had overrun my life.

As I barreled down the highway exit, I glanced at the time. Five minutes late, clock still ticking. I threw out the desperate hope that late happened all the time in the music industry. And that everyone else I’d be meeting had gotten snagged by traffic too.

A disembodied girly whine wailed through my truck speakers, dragging me back to the phone conversation. “Darren, are you listening?”

“Yeah, Logan. I heard you.”

“You’ll be there?” Her tone wavered with doubt.

I sighed, pissed at myself for getting distracted. She counted on me being present with her. Even when I had a million other things on my mind. “Of course. You know I wouldn’t miss it.”

“Awesome. It’s at seven on the first.”

“I’ll be there.”

“And Darren?”

I took a wrong turn onto 41st Street instead of 42nd. “Fuck,” I bit out under my breath. Then I exhaled, calming down a bit. For her. For us. “Yeah, Lo?”

“Thanks. This means a lot.”

My heart melted. All the crunch, all the multitasking, all the sacrifice was for her. Too often, lost in the chaos of it all, I forgot that.

“Love you,” she said quietly.

“Love you too.” I did. To my bones.

Yet sometimes love trapped you into a life you hadn’t been planning—along with the worst possible events.

But I dealt the best way I knew how.

At nineteen, I’d been served my unexpected future like a prison term with no parole in sight. My only task? Make sure it wasn’t a death sentence for her.

But day after day, week after week, two years and three months after our lives had been changed forever, a light had appeared at the end of my dark tunnel.

Kiki.

A girl I hadn’t counted on. One I never thought I’d deserved. One I definitely didn’t think could fit into my and Logan’s unorthodox and unforgiving world.

In fact, I still wasn’t sure. Could my crazy life—barely held together—handle Kiki? Would I be betraying Logan?

That was the kicker. Logan came first, over all else. I owed it to her. I’d promised.

And if dealt the same cards, I’d promise all over again, even knowing the difficult times I’d be committing the both of us to. Because for better or for worse, she was family.

Just because life seemed worse most of the time, didn’t mean you abandoned your loved ones. It only meant you had to work that much harder to find hope in the middle of it all. That some days would be better.

Allowing Kiki into my life risked that hope. Threatened to upset the balance I’d tried so hard to maintain.

And yet, I couldn’t stop myself.

She was like a drug—quieted the noise in my head.

In just a few short days, she’d become my escape. And a part of me didn’t want to deny myself the best feeling I’d had in years.

Maybe I could have both…if I was careful.

Maybe.

Just…maybe.





Kiki…

“Oh. My. God. My calves.”

Upside down on Kristen’s couch, feet planted on the wall while I surveyed the fresh coat of lilac toenail polish, my muscles seized. I sucked in a breath and dropped down with a sideways spin. Then I grabbed my big toes and flexed my feet upward, pulling them toward my shins.

I exhaled in relief.

Pain took my mind off of other things. But I could only handle so much.

Kendall stared at me from the other end of the couch, brows drawn low. “What did you do?”