Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(72)

Didn’t matter it was dark, he could feel the warmth rise to her cheeks. “Yes.”

He swallowed around the lump that almost strangled him.

Nerves and excitement and lust.

He stared up at her, watching her expression when he said, “Next weekend . . . there’s a big bonfire at the lake. Supposed to camp with a bunch of people from school. Tell your mom you’re spending the night with Sydney.”

Her head angled to the side, that same worry they had over his sister taking over her features. “And what am I supposed to tell Sydney?”

A sigh pilfered free. He didn’t want to be annoyed. Irritated that they were sneaking around because they were afraid they might offend her or hurt her.

“We’ll . . . figure it out, okay? We’ll make it work. I just want to be with you.”

She wound her arms around his neck. “I just want to be with you, too.”





23





Ollie





Traditions.

It was hard to pinpoint exactly how they were formed. How they came into existence. It was like a slow slide of habits that gathered and merged until they stuck. Most people viewed them as a good thing.

Holidays and family and celebration.

Cherished memories repeated again and again.

This tradition?

It was nothing less than masochistic.

Hot blades cutting into my skin.

Needlessly, considering the scars were already there. Etched in me so deeply they could never be erased.

Kale and Rex both inclined back on different pieces of furniture in the back office at Olive’s, Rex with the bottle this year, pouring it into the shooters. “Seems crazy this date has come up again. Years going by faster than I can make sense of them.”

A sorrowful, wistful sound filtered from Kale. “Yeah. Time just keeps rolling, things changing so quickly, and still I can close my eyes, and I swear, I’m back there at the lake that night.”

Shivers scraped across the surface of my skin.

Agony.

Rex peered over at me. “You sure you want to do this again?”

“What’s changed?” My voice was grit, even though the words were feeling more and more like a lie.

The first time we’d gathered on the anniversary of this night? We’d been eighteen. They’d found me at the lake.

Alone.

Looking at the water like it might conjure her existence on the glassy, darkened surface.

They’d climbed down on either side of me.

Kale with all his quiet understanding and support. Rex wearing some sort of unfathomable grief on his face.

He’d pulled out this massive bottle of cheap whiskey, twisted the cap, and handed it to me.

I’d chugged what had to have been half of it until I’d choked on the burning liquid that’d pooled in my empty gut, then the three of us had sat there for hours, passing it back and forth until it was empty and the sun was coming up.

Two of them swimming in my loss. Keeping me from drowning.

I’d pushed Nikki away. Hadn’t seen more of her that unbearable year than stolen glances which had damned near destroyed the last bit of me.

Cutting her out of my life had hurt like a fucking bitch. But how could I have her when the cost of wanting her was my sister?

I couldn’t.

And I’d hated and hated and hated, and that feeling had built for so many years until it suffocated me. Until I could no longer see straight, which was how I’d ended up at Nikki’s door a year ago tonight.

Nothing but a selfish bastard.

Taking her.

Of course, I couldn’t even remember how I’d gotten there since I’d been so messed up that my rational mind could no longer convince my spirit that I wasn’t allowed to have her.

It was like finding peace in the darkest night.

Then, like a piece of shit, I’d slipped from her bed before dawn, fucking wrecked, leaving her lying there naked where I’d been tangled with her.

The whole time wanting to climb right back into her arms.

To wrap her up and never let her go.

But I’d left her there because I’d had to.

What other choice did I have?

Didn’t think I’d ever been so torn about anything.

I had been wrong.

Tonight, I felt like I was being shredded in two. Never so caught up in right and wrong. The girl once again a secret.

My best secret.

One I wanted to keep.

Just didn’t know what kind of person that made me if I did.

Rex handed Kale a shot glass and then gave one to me. The three of us met in the middle of the small office. We lifted the shots above our heads. “To Sydney. We’ll never forget.”

Glasses clinked, and we tossed back the shots. I swallowed it down. Heat blistered my stomach and crawled through my senses. This date would haunt me forever—but I could feel something . . . something changing.

Kale clapped me on the back. “You okay, man?”

A huff left my nose, and I scrubbed a palm over my face. “Not sure that’s the right description. Okay would mean forgetting.”

He looked at me seriously. “Not sure there’s any chance of that. Don’t think you’re ever going to forget. And I don’t think you’d want to.”

He started to move around me to head for the door. All the girls and Broderick would be waiting, probably wondering where the hell we’d slipped off to.