Better When He's Bad (Welcome to the Point #1)(88)
I snorted and rubbed my hands over my face. I didn’t even feel like a human.
“You’re just saying that because she’s gorgeous and has those big blue eyes.”
“I’m saying it because her actions almost got Dovie killed and forced me to watch my little brother hold a gun to his own head. Do I want to throttle her for that? Yes, but I also know what it’s like to feel like you’re trapped by something bigger than you and more powerful than you with no way out. I knew Novak was never going to just let you go and I pu**yfooted around the law and tried to be the good guy, play it legal all along. Looking back . . . maybe I wish I had been just a little bit more like you. Maybe I could have saved everyone a whole lot of heartache by breaking the rules.”
“It’s not in your makeup, Officer King.”
“I dunno about that, Bax. We do have half of the same DNA. Good luck with your girl.”
The door closed behind him with a soft click and I tottered into the bathroom to try and drown some of the drunk out of me. It took longer than it should have. By the time I got out, the water was cold and I had wrinkled fingers. I had to run a razor over my face and brush my teeth, twice, to even get to a semirespectable state. I still wasn’t a hundred percent sober, but most of the fog had cleared and I was coherent enough to dig my cell out of the drawer it had been living in since I got out, and call Race.
It rang for a long time and I didn’t think he was going to answer, which made my heart start to thump and tick an unsteady rhythm in my chest. I could drive all over the town until I found her, and I would do it if that’s what it took, but I had wasted enough time and I just wanted to go to her.
“So you made it?” He sounded annoyed and I couldn’t say I blamed him.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“You’re an ass**le. You get that, right?”
I let my head fall forward on my neck and stared at the carpet between my feet. “I just got the same thing from Titus. Yeah, I get it.”
“Look, dude, I get you not wanting her to see you all jailed up. And I even get staying away for her own good . . . it actually makes me want to kick your ass less, but this total freeze-out, not cool. You really hurt her.”
I blew out a breath. “Well, where is she at so I can go unhurt her?”
“It doesn’t work that way. She almost died, almost watched you die, and Novak messed her up pretty good. All she wanted was you, or to at least do right by you, and you stonewalled her. I don’t know that she wants to see you anymore.”
I snapped my teeth together and felt my blood start to heat up to the point that there wasn’t any way for the whiskey not to burn out of it.
“I have to talk to her, have to try and make it right.”
He sighed. “What do you know about making anything right?”
It was a valid question, but I wasn’t going to point out he was the one who had set in motion the events that had led me to his sister’s front door in the first place.
“I know that Dovie is right. I know that being with her changed me, and being with me changed her. I’m never going to be a great guy, Race, but I sure as shit will do everything in my power to make sure nothing bad ever happens to her.”
He gave a bitter laugh that made me want to punch him in the face through the phone.
“Aren’t you the worst thing that could happen to her, Bax?”
I growled, actually growled at him, and clenched my hand around the phone. “Help me out or don’t. I’ll track her down on my own, Race. And like it or not, I’m going to make this happen with your sister, so you can be on board, or you can get run over by it. You’ve been like a brother to me, but I have no problem taking you down if you get in my way with Dovie.”
He laughed a real laugh and it skittered across my skin. “Good, because if you hurt her again, I’ll rip your intestines out and string you up with them.”
“Where is she?”
“Where you should have been the second you got sprung from the feds. Go home, Bax. It’s about time you knew what that felt like.”
Before I could question him any more, he hung up on me and left me with blood ringing in my ears, and boiling steadily under the surface of my skin. I struggled into a pair of jeans and pulled on a long-sleeved thermal. I shoved my feet into my boots and headed out the door. When the wood thudded shut behind me, I knew I wasn’t ever coming back here. This seedy apartment in the worst part of the Point belonged to the guy I used to be. There were still large chunks of him ingrained in my being, but now there were bigger parts of the guy I wanted to be for Dovie. Sure, that guy wasn’t going to wear khakis and go to a nine-to-five job, and there was a really good chance I hadn’t seen the last of the inside of a jail cell, but the guy I was now wasn’t convinced that was all there was to my future anymore was bars or a body bag, and that gave me something I had never had before . . . hope.
I made the trip to the little house at the base of the Hill in record time, even though speeding after two weeks of steady drinking was probably an awful idea, and a DUI was the last thing I needed. I wasn’t surprised to see the lights on when I pulled the Runner into the driveway. I had tried to give this house to my mom to let her make it a home, to try and make up for the shitty hand she had been dealt in life, but she had never appreciated it, never been able to get out from under the demons and addictions that held her captive. Leave it to Dovie, to sweet, strong, unbreakable Dovie, to take this place and turn it into what it was always meant to be . . . a home.