Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(50)

“Sammie,” I attempted again, my voice cracking. “I’m sorry. I’m interning here.”

I guessed when I’d told her I was almost finished, she hadn’t realized that I was actually overseeing a group. That I’d stepped out beyond the online classes to learn the things I could only learn by interacting with people.

I struggled to find the words to give her comfort when I felt so lost.

Bewildered and crushed.

Clearly, my baby sister had kept me in the dark about something awful.

I could feel it, radiating from her in waves of shame.

“Whatever is going on, whatever reason you’re here, I’m here for you. It isn’t your fault.”

She blinked and backed away. “You don’t know anything.”

Steadily, she kept inching toward her car. She opened the door. “Please . . . just . . . forget you saw me here.”

Then she turned, jumped inside, and drove away.

I stood there on the sidewalk as the streetlamps slowly blinked to life.

Stricken.

Broken and not having the answer as to why but knowing there was no chance I could ever forget.



Drained, I snapped open the door and was met by the silence of Ollie’s loft radiating back at me.

I didn’t really want to be alone, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go. No one to turn to. No one to talk to.

Maybe this load really was too heavy. All I’d wanted was to make a difference. Pour goodness into a cruel world. In some small way, make it better.

Now, everything felt so wrong.

It’d taken every single ounce of willpower I had not to jump in my car and chase after Sammie.

She needed time, and my pressing her for answers wouldn’t be doing her any favors.

I had to give her space.

It left me feeling mashed up inside. As if I’d been beaten and left for dead.

Wounds bleeding out when I didn’t have the first clue how they’d been inflicted.

The vibration of the band playing downstairs at Olive’s seeped through the floors and trembled the walls with revelry.

Voices carrying.

Laughter riding.

I’d never felt so brutally alone.

Heavy, sluggish beats drummed in my aching chest as I stepped into the space and let my purse drop to the middle of the floor. Not even caring where it landed.

I felt . . . stunned.

Dazed.

As if another piece of my world had broken loose.

I was happy, wasn’t I?

So was my sister. We were close.

I’d always believed it.

Where had things gone wrong?

My gaze was drawn to the bank of windows that overlooked the city below.

My sluggish heart drummed a wayward beat, a thrum of adrenaline through my veins.

It had nothing to do with the view and everything to do with the man sitting on one of the oversized loungers on the balcony.

He faced out, just his head and the expanse of his massive, bare shoulders in my view.

A shiver rolled, and I felt as if my spirit crawled right out of me to make its way to him.

There was nothing I could do. It didn’t matter what had happened on Saturday. How much I wanted to protect my heart.

I moved.

Drawn.

The way I’d always been.

Toward him had always felt like the only direction I could go.

And tonight, that feeling was overpowering.

Helplessness streamed through me like an out-of-control current that was getting ready to go right over the edge.

A free fall into nothingness.

I kept my footsteps subdued as I inched across the floor, my motions measured as I slowly opened the glass-plate slider.

Ollie stiffened in the cushioned chair, but he didn’t say anything as I stepped out onto the balcony.

Distorted music floated through the muggy air, and that chill scattered. Binding deeper as I eased over to the ornate wrought-iron railing. I wrapped my hands around it and held on tight.

As if it might keep everything from splintering away.

His presence slammed into me from behind. Beat after beat.

Fierce.

Intense.

“Shouldn’t you be downstairs working?”

“Was worried about you,” he finally grated, blowing out a long breath toward the sky.

“I told you, you don’t need to worry about me.”

“Tell me how the fuck I’m supposed to do that when the only thing on my mind is you.”

His words were delivered quietly, though his voice somehow boomed in the dense, thickened air.

“Texted you earlier. Never heard a thing. Then when I came up to talk to you, you never showed. Went as far as calling Lillith to find out if she’d talked to you after your meeting tonight.”

He inhaled a deep breath. “Your meeting ended two hours ago, Nikki. No one’s heard from you since, some asshole broke into your apartment during last week’s meeting, and you want me not to worry about you? Think you know me better than that. I was about five seconds from starting a door-to-door search.”

There was a confession to his words. The depth of his worry and the lengths he would go.

I lifted my face to the mild breeze that blew through.

Cars accelerated below with small bleeps of their horns, and cicadas buzzed in the towering trees that reached to our level.

I wanted to dip my fingertips into it. To find the peace it seemed to offer.