No Perfect Hero(75)

Blake’s late, though. I’m on my second brew before that wily bastard saunters in, walking with an exaggerated pseudo-cowboy lope. Something he developed to hide the limp where he took a chunk of shrapnel to the thigh and nearly severed his femoral artery, leaving the entire muscle in ribbons.

He’s doing a lot better now, but some days you can tell it still hurts him.

Not today, though.

Today he’s all swagger and bluster, and he grins real broad, his teeth bright against his rusty-brown beard, as he raises a hand. “Warren, you skinny ghost. Why the hell haven’t I seen you in two weeks?”

Skinny bastard. I’m an inch taller than he is and just as broad. I roll my eyes as I stand to clasp his hand briefly in a tight grip before we both drop back down into the booth. “Been busy. Work.”

“Work, huh?” He arches both brows skeptically and raises a hand to signal for a waitress. “So throwing down with pretty brunettes is your job now?”

“Don’t even start on Haley,” I chuckle. Word gets around at light-speed in this town. “Yeah, all right. I’ve been a bit distracted by a pretty girl. What about it?”

“Hey, no shade.” He holds both hands up. “Honestly, it’s good to see. I haven’t seen you date in fucking years.”

“Yeah, well, I had my reasons.” I prop my chin in my hand, scratching my beard. I’m not sure if I want to think about those reasons right now, or what changed.

When did I become ready to move on?

When did life on the other side of this grief seem real, possible?

Shaking my head, I say, “I’m not even sure what we’re doing could be called dating.”

“Yeah? What would you call it then?”

“More like a freelance fling. We’re just consulting on a short-term contract for what a relationship could be like. Before she's gotta up and leave for Chicago.”

“Ouch.” He frowns. “So you don’t think this thing with Haley could be real?”

“No fucking clue, man. We just had one night. It’s like my brain's picking that up and charging full-speed ahead five or ten years in the future.” I grumble. “I get that I've got a lot of lost time to make up for, but it’s damn annoying I can’t rein myself in.”

“You’re lonely. No shame there.” Blake’s usual jovial smile vanishes.

He’s always all hotheaded emotion, everything from laughter to anger coming out as this intense fire, but underneath he can be deadly serious. And he’s all solemn right now, looking at me with brotherly concern. “Look, bud, it hits all of us sooner or later. We get tired of fucking around and we just want someone to come home to. Someone we get. Someone who gets us. Someone who makes the rough days better just by being there.”

“Shit, where's Violet? Bet she'd think her old man's the sweetest in the world.”

He smiles sadly. “More like it'd go to her little head and send it halfway to goddamn Jupiter.”

We both know his words could apply to his daughter or that reckless, screwed up woman he loved. Before she left them both behind.

Is Haley that person? The one who evens out your days and makes you smile through the storms?

If you’d asked me a week ago, I’d have said she was the cause of half of my thunderheads.

Then something shifted. Then we found out our edges don’t fit together half bad...and now it’s almost comfortable.

Almost downright comfortable shuttling between her half of the cabin and mine like we’re one big household.

Same kind of comfortable teasing Tara, lifting her up on my shoulders while Hay looks on too fondly. Same comfortable remembering her schedule so I can have breakfast ready when she gets off shift, and so I can work my own local gigs around being awake when she is.

It’s comfortable as hell – or maybe heaven – feeling like she’s always been a part of my life, instead of this shooting star that came crashing down to Earth to smash my world to pieces.

I start to answer Blake, but freeze as the door to Brody’s swings open and I catch, in the reflection on the glass, a familiar head of ash-blond hair before the reflection’s owner steps into view.

Bress.

Dennis fucking Bress.

He comes lumbering in with that slow sidestep he has, this quiet-stone way of moving that makes such assuring promises that are always just lies. That’s what I hate most about Bress.

He was always this fatherly figure who made you believe you could trust him. He'd protect you, he’d do anything for his team.

In reality, he’d do anything to his team. Whatever it took to hide his secrets and preserve his own hide. Every ounce of fucking trust he’s ever asked for was built on a lie.

I can’t take my eyes away from him, this anger smoldering inside me.

He doesn’t even look at me. Him and two men I don’t recognize – reedy men in suits with the look of loan sharks, carnivorous and watching him intently – stride past and claim a table in the far corner. The fact that the fucker doesn’t even glance in my direction, walking in here like I don’t even exist after everything he did, pushes that slow, simmering anger into a fucking boil.

It’s like someone just lit a fire under my ass and sent me shooting up with the pure force of heat exploding through me.