Aflame (Fall Away #4)(9)

I would be coming home again.

She nods. “I do,” she says, her voice turning clipped. “You didn’t come in here to tell me you’ll be back. That you’ll call or we’ll text. You came in here to break up with me.”

She pulls away and tries to turn around, but I catch her. “Baby, come here.”

But she brings her arms down, severing my hold. “Oh, just get out!” she shouts, looking up at me with fire in her eyes. “You cut off everyone who loves you. You’re pathetic. I should be used to this by now.”

“Tate—”

“Just leave!” she shouts and walks for her bedroom door, yanking it open. “I’m sick of the sight of you, Jared. Just go.”

I shake my head, narrowing my eyes on her. “No,” I argue. “I need you to understand.”

She lifts a defiant chin. “All I’ll ever understand is that you needed to live a life without me in it, so just go and do that.”

“I don’t want this.” I search for the words to get her back. “Not like this. I don’t want to hurt you. Just sit down, so we can talk. I can’t leave you like this,” I press. Why can’t she understand? I’m not leaving her. I’m coming back.

But she shakes her head. “And I won’t let you stay. You need to be free? Then, go. Get out.”

I swallow the hard lump in my throat and watch her. What the hell’s happening? Regret races through my brain as I think that maybe I should’ve done this differently. Sat her down and eased into it. But I don’t know how to do that shit. I don’t know how to be gentle.

Fuck, I’d blindsided her. Even though we’d been distant the past week, I knew she wasn’t expecting this.

After everything I’d done to her over the years, she still doesn’t trust me. She doesn’t see that I’m trying to be strong. That I’m trying to be a man. All she sees right now is me causing her more pain, and she’s had enough.

“Now,” she orders, her tears drying on her face.

I let my eyes fall, and every muscle in my arms tenses with the urge to charge her. Take her, hold her to me, and will her to melt into me like she always does. I have to have Tate in my life.

She’ll wait for me.

And as I grab my bag and leave, I know that I’ll be back. I have to do this, but I will be back for her.

I didn’t even need a year, either. Only six months.

Turns out six months was too long.

***

“Awesome,” Pasha bit out, peering out the window of her first-class seat. “I totally get what they mean by ‘flyover state’ now.”

I ignored her distaste for whatever she was seeing out there and stuffed my iPad into my carry-on, nudging it back under my seat with my foot.

“Cheer up,” I sighed. “We have cars and liquor and cigarettes in Shelburne Falls, too. It will feel just like home to you.”

She settled back into her seat, and I could feel her little scowl directed at the seat in front of her. “Looking forward to it.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “I do get to get drunk tonight, right?” she confirmed.

I grinned and closed my eyes against the popping in my ears as we descended. “As long as you are glued to my side, I don’t give a shit what you do.”

I could hear her short, aggravated breaths, and I wondered—probably as much as she did—why I felt the need to drag her with me. “This is weird,” she grumbled. “You’re weird. Why do I have to be here?”

“Because I pay—”

“You to,” she finished. “Well, someday when you want a kidney, it’s really going to cost you, man.”

I licked my lips, envisioning an invisible hand pressing on my heart to slow that f*cker down. In a minute, I’d be back at home base, and even though Tate wasn’t there, I was nervous. Seeing my house, her house next door, our old high school . . . and my best friend, who wasn’t talking to me . . .

Jesus, I was a little bitch.

I twisted my head, still lying on the headrest. “Pasha?” I mumbled softly. “What do you want me to say? That I can’t chew my food without you these days?” I shrugged. “I’d rather have you around and not need you than need you and not have you.”

Her dark eyebrows—the right one adorned with two barbells—pinched together, and she looked over at me like I’d grown a horn. I’m sure she knew it, but I’d certainly never admitted it before. I relied on her a lot, and it was a perfect arrangement, because she liked to be needed. Neglect did that to people.

As much as I liked her dad, he was about as good a parent as my mom was when I was growing up.

Pasha turned out well, though. She reeled me back in when I was drowning and made a lot of decisions for me when I couldn’t. She got me out of the pit crew and turned me on to motorcycles, hooked me up with sponsors and investors, and convinced me to buy into the shop. None of this happened over calm and reasonable business dinners—more like her screaming at me to get my head out of my ass—but before I knew it, I had so much shit going on, there was no time to think. She filled my life with noise when the quiet was too dangerous.

I not only needed her, but I wanted her around.

And now she knew it.

She was probably going to ask for another f*cking raise.