Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(14)

“Saving you was always my job.”

My insides shook.

It was so easy to fall back into rhythm with him.

He looked over at me, his expression softening. “Guess I should have known that wasn’t a guy.”

“Why’s that?”

I shouldn’t have let him bait me. Not when the subject was such a thin, shaky line.

He tacked on a dangerous smile. “Because if you were my girl, I’d be right there, protecting you. Not texting you like some pussy who doesn’t want to get his hands messy.”

There was some kind of censure in there.

Possession and a warning.

Yet, here you are, protecting me.

So badly, I wanted to say it, but I bit it back and let a smirk ride to my own mouth. “Um . . . this might be news to you, but being a bossy, overbearing asshole does not make you a man.”

The brute grinned wide, his big body overflowing in the seat, hands squeezing down on that wheel as if he knew exactly what it was doing to me. “You sure about that?”

“Positive.”

Ollie looked over at me.

The easiness was gone.

Obliterated.

In its place was a desperate man. The one who’d shown up at my doorstep for seemingly no purpose at all but to check on me but had been there the exact moment I needed him.

“Who did you piss off, Nikki? Need to know . . . don’t care what it is you’ve gotten yourself into . . . won’t be a dick about it. I just . . . need to know.”

My chest squeezed, and I had to force out the response. “You heard Seth. It was probably just some kids.”

He turned back to the road.

His big body was slung back deliciously in the seat. Everything about him was wholly overwhelming.

Utterly overpowering.

“Is that what you want me to believe?” He slid the question from between his lips like a low accusation.

That was the thing. Oliver Preston did know me. In all the ways that mattered most.

But even if I wanted to tell him, it wasn’t my right. I couldn’t break Brenna’s confidence.

God knew what Ollie would do if he even thought someone was trying to hurt me.

I couldn’t risk that.

Contemplating, I stared out the windshield before I murmured, “I haven’t done anything wrong, Ollie.”

I didn’t know if it was an admission or a defense.

“Never said you did, but sometimes doing the right thing puts us in a bad place.”

A huff of air blew through my nose.

Wasn’t that the truth.

“If I’m in trouble, I’ll let you know. I promise, okay?”

His eyes darted across at me, his lips thinning as he pressed them together. “Thing I’m worried about is you’re already there.”

Two minutes later, Ollie made a quick left turn onto Macaber Street.

Strands of lights twinkled where they crisscrossed over the street, strung between the old renovated buildings to create a cozy vibe.

The area was a destination in and of itself.

The renovated buildings boasted restaurants and bars and cafés on the bottom floors, and trendy loft apartments with views of the city and the river took up the upper floors.

Even though it was after midnight on a weeknight, the sidewalks were dotted with couples that strolled along the storefront windows, wrapped up in each other as if they had nowhere to go, and groups of friends hopped from hot spot to hot spot to drink the night away.

I wasn’t surprised to see Olive’s, Ollie’s bar, was still packed. Curtis, the head bouncer, guarded the door, and a row of taxis waited to carry the revelers home after a night of indulging.

Ollie made the next left turn and whipped around to the back of the building.

He pressed a button, and a large garage door rolled up at one end of the building. He eased his car inside where his collection of restored cars sat in the private garage that took up a small section at the back of the first floor. He pulled the car into one of the open spots, killed the engine, and hopped out without a word.

Almost warily, I unbuckled and climbed out of the car as he grabbed my duffle from the back seat.

Raucous voices carried through the walls from the bar.

Sydney’s soft voice floated to me as if she were standing right at my side, whispering it in my ear.

Insightful and real.

My best friend who’d understood the world before any of us could.

I could almost see her with her face tilted toward the summer sky, her legs dangling over the side of the dock, her toes in the cool water.

“I think it’s the things that hurt the worst that mean the most, don’t you?” she mused, her hair flying around her face as if she’d stirred a new concept that’d been waiting to be revealed. “Good or bad. That’s what’s gonna shape us. Make us into who we are. Guide us on the path to what we want the most.”

She glanced over at me. “I think we’ll know it when there’s no other direction we can go. And I’m not going to be afraid of walking it anymore.”

She wasn’t wrong.

I gravitated toward this man.

But what she was wrong about was not being afraid of walking that path.

I knew firsthand it was wrought with peril.

Just spending the night here, being in his space, felt as if he was going to break my heart all over again.