Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(92)

He hesitated on the other end of the line.

“What’s going on?”

He blew out a sigh. “Not sure, man. There’s just some weird shit with this car.”

Only thing I heard was Sage shouting dollar signs.

“That car’s special to me. Doesn’t matter what it costs.”

He inhaled, stalled, and an odd sensation gathered in my chest while I waited for him to fill me in.

“No. This isn’t about money. There’s some . . . shit in the trunk that doesn’t sit right.”

“What’s that mean?”

I could hear him pacing on the concrete floors. “There’s some rope. A torn shirt that looks like it’s splattered with blood.”

Unease moved through me, silence falling over us as Sage let me catch up to what he was implying.

I sucked for a breath, teeth gritting as I spoke through the anger that lit inside me. “That kid Caleb . . . he . . . who knows what the fuck he was mixed up in. Knew he was trouble the second I saw him.”

“That’s what I was worried about. And it might not be anything. Someone could have just as easily cut themselves and tossed the shirt in there. Just have to verify it before we gut this thing and start on the actual work.”

I was always quick to jump to conclusions.

Sage was just taking the steps needed to get things done.

I shoved down the swelling rage.

“Of course.”

“Honestly, the more I think about it, I’m sure it’s nothing, but it’s gonna nag if I don’t call it in.”

“Do what you’ve got to do, man. Can’t blame you for that. Just let me know when you get started.”

He was right. It was probably nothing, and if that punk had been up to something shadier than we’d thought, at least he was in rehab. If he did try to leave, he’d land his scrawny ass in a jail cell.

I couldn’t worry about it right then.

Because my girl was peeling off her panties and grinning at me as she climbed into my bed.

And no matter how awesome that old car turned out, it wouldn’t ever come as close to looking as good as that.





30





Nikki





My phone buzzed in my hand, and I was already grinning when I slid my finger across the plate.

Then my heart . . . it pattered when I saw the text that had come through. Was that normal? I was thirty, for God’s sake.

But it did.

My eyes traced across the screen.

Ollie: Pretty please.





It probably wasn’t the words that got me so much as the picture that he had sent along with it that had my pulse skipping a beat. My teeth tucked my bottom lip between them as I was hit with a rush of giddiness.

Because there was an up-close selfie of Ollie.

He was leaning against the bar downstairs at Olive’s. An arm was crossed over his chest, and one of those tatted hands held onto his opposite shoulder.

The man was grinning at the camera, at me. And his eyes? They glinted. Glinted with happiness, and there was no description for how happy that made me.

Walking down the busy sidewalk, I tapped out a response.

Me: Not a chance, playboy.





I hadn’t made it two steps before my phone buzzed again.

Ollie: Come on, gorgeous. Show me that face and just a little bit of that body. I’ll make it worth your while ;)





There was that patter again.

Six weeks had passed since that fateful night on the dance floor when everything had changed. When the anniversary of Sydney’s disappearance had changed us again. Although this time, it had pushed us together.

Closer and closer each day.

Our lives knitting together, so tightly we’d become one.

Easy.

The way it was always supposed to be.

Things had settled.

Caleb was still in the long-term rehab center, hopefully making a real effort to piece his life back together and become the type of man Brenna and Kyle deserved.

I tried not to be skeptical.

Sometimes that was hard because it turned out I was protective, too.

Sammie still hadn’t confided in me, but she’d been calling more, asking me over, and I got the feeling she was working herself up to the place where she felt comfortable enough to do it.

I would never push her, even though sometimes I had the itch to beg her to tell me, that part of myself that wanted to make everything better screaming out to do something.

I had to accept I didn’t have that kind of control.

All I could do was love and support and be there for her when she was ready.

Two weeks ago, Hope and Kale had announced that they were expecting, which filled me up with an intense joy for them and also lit a few sparks of jealousy.

I’d pushed those feelings down.

Of course, I ignored all of Lily’s ribbing when Ollie and I stepped out as a couple. We’d had a heart to heart, and I’d finally confessed to her that I’d loved him all along.

That it’d always been so much more than a crush.

That it was everything.

That Ollie was everything.

Which was exactly why I was grinning like a fool as I hurried the last few steps down the sidewalk and swung open the door to the old building.