Twisted Games (Twisted, #2)(24)

The police had hauled him into medical custody. They were still investigating what happened, but from what I’d gathered, the shooter had deliberately targeted the kid’s father. Something about a business deal gone wrong and bankruptcy. The shooter had been high as a kite, to the point where he hadn’t cared about exacting his revenge in a park full of people.

Thankfully, he’d also been so high he kept rambling about how the kid’s father had done him wrong instead of shooting to kill.

The ambulances had taken the kid and his father away a while ago. The father had suffered heavy blood loss, but he’d stabilized and would pull through. The kid was okay too. Traumatized, but alive. I’d made it a point to check on him before they left.

Thank God.

“You were bleeding.” Bridget brushed her fingers over the bandaged wound, her touch searing straight through the gauze into my bones.

I stiffened, and she froze. “Did that hurt?”

“No.” Not in the way she’d meant anyway.

But the way she was looking at me, like she was afraid I might disappear if she blinked? It made my heart ache like she’d ripped off a piece of it and kept it for herself.

“Bet this wasn’t the way you pictured your graduation night going.” I rubbed a hand over my jaw, my mouth twisting into a grimace. “We should’ve gone straight home after dinner.”

I’d used the lame excuse of walking off our food to justify the trip to the park, but in truth, I’d wanted to extend the night because when we woke up, we would go back to what we were. The princess and her bodyguard, a client and her contractor.

It was all we could be, but that hadn’t stopped crazy thoughts from infiltrating my mind during dinner. Thoughts like how I could’ve stayed there with her all night, even though I normally hated answering questions about my life. Thoughts about whether Bridget tasted as sweet as she looked and how much I wanted to strip away her cool demeanor until I reached the fire underneath. Bask in its warmth, let it burn away the rest of the world until we were the only ones left.

Like I said, crazy thoughts. I’d shoved them aside the second they popped up, but they lingered in the back of my mind still, like the lyrics to a catchy song that wouldn’t go away.

My grimace deepened.

Bridget shook her head. “No. It was a good night until…well, this.” She waved her hand around the park. “If we’d gone home, the kid and his dad might have died.”

“Maybe, but I fucked up.” It didn’t happen often, but I could admit it when it did. “My number one priority as a bodyguard is to protect you, not play savior. I should’ve gotten you out of here and left it at that, but…” A muscle rolled in my jaw.

Bridget waited patiently for me to finish. Even with her hair mussed and dirt smearing her dress from when I’d pushed her onto the ground, she could’ve passed for an angel in the fucked-up hell of my life. Blonde hair, ocean eyes, and a glow that had nothing to do with her outer beauty and everything to do with her inner one.

She was too beautiful to be touched by any part of my ugly past, but something compelled me to continue.

“When I was in high school, I knew a kid.” The memories unfolded like a blood-stained film, and a familiar spear of guilt stabbed at my gut. “Not a friend, but the closest thing I had to one. We lived a few blocks away from each other, and we’d hang out at his house on the weekend.” I’d never invited Travis to my house. I hadn’t wanted him to see what it was like living there.

“One day, I went over and saw him getting mugged at gunpoint right in his front yard. His mom was at work, and it was a rough neighborhood, so those things happened. But Travis refused to hand over his watch. It’d been a gift from his old man, who died when he was young. The mugger didn’t take kindly to the refusal and shot him right there in broad daylight. No one, including me, did a damn thing about it. Our neighborhood had two rules if you wanted to survive: one, keep your mouth shut, and two, mind your own business.”

An acrid taste filled my mouth. I remembered the sight and sound of Travis’s body hitting the ground. The blood oozing from his chest, the surprise in his eyes…and the betrayal when he saw me standing there, watching him die. “I went home, threw up, and promised myself I would never be such a coward again.”

What’s your biggest regret? Inaction.

I’d joined the military to gain a purpose and family I’d never had. I became a bodyguard to absolve myself of sins I could never cleanse.

Lives saved in exchange for lives taken, directly or indirectly.

What’s your biggest fear? Failure.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Bridget said. “You were a kid too. There was nothing you could’ve done against an armed attacker. If you’d tried, you might have died too.”

There it was. Another hitch on the word died.

Bridget looked away, but not before I caught the suspicious sheen in her eyes.

I clenched and unclenched my fists.

Don’t do it. But I’d already fucked up multiple times tonight. What was one more?

“Come here, princess.” I opened one arm. She stepped into it and buried her face in my non-injured shoulder. It was the most vulnerable we’d been in front of the other since we met, and it chipped away at something inside me.

“It’s all right.” I patted her awkwardly on the arm. I was shit at comforting people. “It’s over. Everyone’s fine except for the shithead with the gun. Though I guess tonight was a bad night to leave the bulletproof vest at home.”