Fire Inside (Chaos #2)(73)

Whatever. Bottom line: in the end, all would be well.

Looking at Hop, I realized he would not be at one with my plan.

“Come again?” he asked, and his tone was scary.

I threw out my hand with the wineglass in it, thankful it was low so the wine didn’t slosh out. “They’re worried I’m not healing, moving on appropriately after Elliott, burying myself in work, so they’re setting me up.”

“They’re setting you up,” he repeated, his voice still scary.

“Hop, it isn’t a big deal,” I told him and watched his head jerk.

“Are you going?” Now he didn’t sound scary. He sounded disbelieving and more than a little bit angry.

“It isn’t a big deal. I’ll go and, after, explain I wasn’t attracted to him. They’ll think I’m moving on and all will be good.”

“You’ll go,” Hop stated.

“Just one date,” I assured him.

“Just one date,” Hop again repeated after me.

“Hop—”

I stopped abruptly when he leaned into me and roared, “Are you outta your f**kin’ mind?”

Yes, definitely not at one with my plan.

I lifted both hands placatingly and started, “Hop—”

He took two steps toward me, his body shuddered to a halt like he was controlling his movements, but just barely and he clipped, “Tell me exactly what went down.”

I held his eyes and explained exactly what went down.

Hop held mine when I was done and asked, “And your solution to this problem is to go out with this f**kin’ guy?”

“It’s the easiest solution I can think of.” I told him something I thought was obvious.

“I don’t know, Lanie. I can think of an easier one,” he retorted, and his sarcasm wasn’t lost on me.

“Hop, honestly, you don’t—”

He interrupted me, “You wanna know my solution?”

I figured I knew it, I didn’t want him to verbalize it, but I nodded anyway.

“Maybe, I don’t know, but it might be easier, babe, just to f**kin’ tell them you got a life and that life is movin’ on with me.” He planted his hands on his hips. “Fuck, I don’t even know why you didn’t tell Tack that shit straight out when he proposed that ludicrous f**kin’ idea.”

As he spoke, his mood deteriorated. This was reflected in the way he rapped out his words.

But at his words my lungs seized, so I had to force out my cry of, “We can’t do that!”

He threw his hands up in the air. “Why the f**k not?”

I knew he was ticked. I knew why he was ticked.

But something was happening. Something I was trying to ignore. Something that was building inside me so huge it was impossible to ignore.

Panic.

Sheer, unadulterated panic.

“We can’t do that,” I repeated.

“And why the f**k not, Lanie?”

“We just can’t,” I told him.

“Are you shitting me?” he asked.

“No, I’m not,” I answered, that feeling growing, eating away huge, gluttonous bites of me.

Hop studied me a moment, his expression shifting, and he was talking quieter when he asked, “Ever?”

“Ever what?” I asked back.

“You don’t wanna tell them now. Are you ever gonna wanna tell them?”

Oh God.

How could I be standing there at the same time being eaten alive?

“Lanie?” Hop called but I just stood immobile, losing entire chunks of me to my monster. “Lanie!” Hop clipped, before he strode toward me, pulled the glass out of my hand, set it aside and wrapped his fingers around my upper arms. “Jesus, babe, what the f**k?”

“No, not ever. We can’t ever tell them about us,” I whispered, staring into his eyes.

He moved his hands to either side of my head and dipped his face close.

His eyes roamed my features before he murmured, “It’s got you. Fuck, Jesus, I’m standin’ here watchin’ that monster tear you apart.”

“We can’t tell them,” I stated.

“Why?” he asked.

“We can’t ever tell them,” I declared, my voice getting loud.

“Why, baby?” he asked, his voice going gentle.

“I don’t want them to know,” I told him.

“Why don’t you want them to know, honey?” he pushed.

“They can’t know.”

“Lanie, get this shit out.”

I stared into his eyes, feeling his warm hands on either side of my head, his body close. and the monster shoved its arm down my throat and dredged up, “She told me.”

“Keep goin’,” Hop encouraged.

“To break it off with him.”

Hop closed his eyes.

“I didn’t.”

Hop opened his eyes.

“Tyra told me to break it off with Elliott after we got kidnapped by the Russian Mob that first time.”

“Okay, Lanie, baby, that’s good, it’s enough. Shut this shit down now.”

I didn’t shut it down. The monster was dragging it out.

“I didn’t listen. I told her through better or worse.”