Risk (Gentry Boys #2)(61)

We all turned at the sound of the door opening. Saylor walked in, followed by Truly. They both appeared grim and pale. My stomach did a little backflip.

Cord went right to Say, hugging her. “Where’d you go, babe?”

She tried to smile. “We just had a girl’s outing. I’m fine.” She glanced at Truly. “We’re fine, right?”

Truly didn’t answer. She was staring at me. Something about the way she stared at me unleashed a trumpet of alarm.

I took her hand and led her back to my room, leaving the rest of them behind. I heard Cord questioning Saylor and her tired responses. Chase was quiet.

It was the first time Truly and I had ever gone to a bedroom without our hands all over each other. She crossed her arms and leaned against the closed door. I sat on the edge of the bed and waited for her to say something.

“I thought,” she said, blinking away tears, “that it was like a game. That you were just going to go throw a few punches, maybe suffer some bruises, and that would be it.” Her voice broke. “But that might not be it. Right, Creed?”

This was even worse than making Saylor cry. “I can’t get out of it, honey. I’m sorry.”

Truly nodded miserably. “I know.” She inhaled deeply, exhaling slowly. “So when is it?”

There was no point in lying. I couldn’t lie to her anyway. “Day after tomorrow.”

“Can I go?”

“No!” I hadn’t meant to shout. But the idea of Truly standing there on the sidelines in the midst of all that violence was awful.

She didn’t seem surprised though. “Day after tomorrow,” she repeated softly. “And what happens after that, Creedence?”

I had to lay it out on the table. I owed her that much. “Either I’ll be around or I won’t be.”

A soft cry escaped her lips. She immediately put her hand over her mouth as if to pull the sound back inside.

I couldn’t f*cking stand it. I stood up. “Baby.”

She collided with me, burying her face in my shoulder. I stroked her hair and wished I could make her promises. It would be selfish to give them to her now though. It would only hurt her more if I wasn’t around to keep them.

Truly lifted her head and placed her hands on either side of my face. “Damn you, Creedence Gentry.” She kissed my lips and then left the room. I heard Saylor calling her name as she walked out the front door but she didn’t answer.

There were murmured voices in the next room but I didn’t join them. I sat down in the middle of the floor. Life, it seemed, had come to a standstill. This shit I’d gotten mixed up in was consuming us all. Everyone I gave a damn about was in pain.

When a shadow darkened my doorway I looked up. Chase was standing there with my coffee cup. He held it out to me. “Warmed it up in the microwave.”

“Thanks” I said, accepting the cup.

Chase nodded and trudged off to his own room. They all went about their business as best they could. Cord left for work. Chase went to school. Saylor was still around but she stayed away from me. I didn’t blame her.

The knock at the front door brought me to my feet in an instant. I hoped it was Truly, even though I knew it was better if it wasn’t.

Instead, when I opened the door I saw someone unexpected.

“Deck,” I said, more than a little surprised. He was living down in Emblem and the last time he’d made it up to Tempe was a year ago. Since we weren’t in the habit of making casual visits to our hometown we hadn’t seen him since, although he did call every so often.

My cousin grinned at me. Five years older than us, Declan Gentry was a wild scoundrel and we’d grown up doing our best to be just like him. He was always in and out of trouble, always in and out of the beds of half the women in Emblem from the time he knew what to do with his dick. His daddy, our Uncle Chrome, was the original model. Even though Chrome was Benton’s brother and had all the same hard edges, he had none of his cruelty, at least not towards us. Chrome was the only one who had ever bothered to take the time to teach us what it meant to be men.

“Can I come in or what?” Declan asked. He had the dark, sensual looks of his mother but his cocky grin was all Gentry.

I held the door and let him through it. Before I shut it again I saw Deck’s bike in the parking lot. I wondered what kind of a whim brought him up here but that was Deck; you wouldn’t hear from him for months and then he would just show up one day.

“Glad to see you, man,” I said and meant it, slapping him on the back.

He stopped in the middle of the living room and looked around. “Glad to see you too.” He pushed his hair out of his eyes and crossed his arms. “What’s new, Creedence?”

Saylor poked her head into the room. Declan nodded to her. She seemed oddly unsurprised to see him.

“Thought I heard you,” she said.

“You thought right.” He glanced at me and cleared his throat. “Anyone feel like offering a guy a glass of water?”

Saylor went to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. She handed it to him as she avoided looking at me.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” she muttered and then went back to her room.

Declan quickly drank the entire bottle of water. When he finished he flattened it between his hands. “You gonna talk, cuz?”