Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(73)

He paused when he was right at my side, both of us facing opposite directions. He reached out and squeezed my shoulder, his attention cast to the ground. “But it’s been fourteen years, Ollie. If I knew Sydney at all? She’s looking down on you, wishing you’d finally let her go. Wishing that you’d finally let yourself live.”

I didn’t say anything, and he opened the door and stepped out into the bar, the muted thrum of the band playing tonight growing loud as he did. Without looking back, he snapped it shut, closing Rex and me in, the beat once again distorted, faint and vibrating through the walls.

Warily, I looked up to meet Rex’s piercing gaze. Something about it was unsettling. Remorseful but strong. “He’s right, man.” The words caught in his throat. “It’s time.”

I looked to the floor, hand running down my beard. “Not sure that’s possible. Not until I find her.”

He winced, eyes slamming closed and hands curling into fists. “You’re hung up on an impossibility, Ollie. It’s time you admitted that.”

Part of me wanted to lash out at him. Tell him to fuck off because he couldn’t understand. This was my sister we were talking about. They’d barely even been friends, only knowing each other because he and I hung out.

The other part knew he was right.

Fourteen years, I’d been searching. Cutting out every fucking news article about her that had ever been written, comparing it against other cases, sure that, if I was patient enough, I would notice something. Piece together a clue that had been missed.

Hell, that’d been part of the reason I’d opened this bar in the first place. Figuring one day, someone would slip, say something they shouldn’t. Or maybe someone would say something they didn’t know was important in the first place.

I felt that hope slipping away.

What scared me most was I didn’t know where that left me.

Rex hesitated, the words almost a groan when he released them. “I miss her, too, man. You think if I could go back, I wouldn’t do things differently?”

I looked up, trying to gauge where he was coming from, what he was trying to get at.

He sighed, shook whatever thoughts he was having off. “Everyone’s out there. Together. The people who care about you most. Don’t neglect that. You’re gonna regret it if you do. Time goes by so fast, Ollie. So damned fast. You’ve got to treasure the days you’re given.”

An echo of my mother’s screams filled my ear, the impact of them thrashing in my spirit, her fists a phantom pain on my chest.

It’s your fault.

I trusted you.

You were supposed to take care of her.

You promised, you’d take care of her.

“Not sure I even deserve to be out there with them.”

Rex strode for the door, pausing with it open as he turned, his words pointed. “Don’t you?”

For twenty minutes, I sat alone with only my thoughts and the sounds of the bar seeping through the walls to keep me company.

Processing.

Sifting through my thoughts and my worries.

The deep-seated need to cling to this day—to the memory of Sydney—to give her the devotion that she’d deserved.

The other part was all fucked up over Nikki.

Nikki. Fucking. Walters.

Invading my life when I didn’t know how to keep her there.

How to make her fit.

The girl so fucking wrong. So fucking right.

Like I said, I’d never been so torn.

Finally, I forced myself to get it together, got behind my bar, and went to work.

Seemed impossible, but the smile tacked to my face wasn’t all that hard to find, considering I was surrounded by the group of people who had gathered directly across from me.

Laughing and treasuring and cherishing.

Most of all . . . Nikki was right there.

Safe.

I poured Lillith a glass of chilled white wine, whipped up a pitcher of margaritas for Rynna, Hope, and Jenna. After that, I handed a beer to Rex, filled a tumbler of whiskey for Kale, and passed a glass of red wine to Broderick.

I went to work on Nikki’s drink, listening to my friends carrying on, having a great time.

Their laughter rang free, blending with the beat of the band where they’d taken up residence at the bar like they owned the place.

Their voices were loud and their mood a little bit rowdy.

From across the bar, Nikki met my eyes.

Tentatively.

Tenderly.

The girl sending me her soft encouragement. Aware and sweet and filled with all that light I’d taken for granted for all these years.

I sent her a covert smile back as I slid her pink cosmo across the gleaming wood in her direction.

Telling her I saw her. That I felt her. That I knew this day wasn’t easy on her either.

That she had just as much on her mind as me.

Maybe more.

I was grateful there was a smile on her face, too.

That she was acting like her normal self.

Her old self.

Laughing and teasing and playing with her friends.

Jenna, who was Hope’s best friend, squealed, jerking my attention away from Nikki’s hypnotizing stare. “I knew there was a reason I loved you.”

She wrapped both hands around the margarita glass rimmed with salt, bringing it to her nose and inhaling like it was some kind of rose or some shit.