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I hadn’t actually called Riel before.
Nor had I texted him.
Not before Luca had been captured, and definitely not after.
But, I was beginning to find it harder and harder to stay away from him.
And, after last night, I decided that maybe I was doing an injustice to myself by staying away.
Maybe this was the path that I was supposed to take now.
I mean, I love Luca. Love him with all of my heart.
But it had been over two years since I’d seen him last. Two years since he’d been gone from my life. A year and a half since I’d found out that he’d gone missing.
I struggled to remember my dream from earlier and found that I couldn’t quite remember the dream.
But somehow I knew that Luca was there. That he played a part in my dreams, just like he always did.
“Gabriel is still there, baby. Don’t let him quit.”
I frowned hard.
Gabriel is still there?
What the hell did that mean?
Sighing in frustration, I waited for the call to connect.
I wasn’t surprised when he sounded a hundred percent awake when he answered after three rings.
“Hello?” he rasped, his voice dark, menacing and rough.
I swallowed hard at the sound of that voice.
God, why did it do things to me?
“Riel?” I said softly. “It’s Frankie.”
The roughness didn’t go out of his voice, but the menace did.
“Frankie?” he sounded adorably confused. “What’s wrong?”
I looked over at the police cars across the street, then told him everything I knew.
“Where do you live?” he asked.
He sounded like he was moving outside, because I could hear the wind picking up, blowing hard, just as it was doing here.
“I live off of Spruce,” I said, reciting the directions that would bring him here from any direction.
“I’m just down the road from you,” he said. “I was going to call, but I’ll just go ask.”
Before I could ask him why he was just down the road from me—he lived clear across town according to Gabe and Ember—he hung up.
I looked at my phone that was now black, then looked back up at the flashing lights.
Then sighed.
My eyes once again went to my neighbors, and this time I didn’t stop the urge to stare.
I wanted what they had.
I wanted a family. I wanted a husband. I wanted to sit outside on my porch with my arms wrapped around them, wondering what was going on across the street.
I wanted it all.
But, the problem was, I couldn’t have it all.
I had to start over.
Had to find someone to have it all with.
A sharp cough had me looking up just in time to see a reflective flash of yellow light up the night about five houses down.
When the reflection got closer and closer, I realized that the reflection was actually a running belt that was wrapped around Riel’s waist.
The closer he got, the sweatier I realized he was.
At first, I thought that his t-shirt was a dark, dark gray.
Only, it wasn’t dark gray. It was light gray.
The only reason I could tell that was because there was one single spot at the bottom of Riel’s t-shirt that was untouched by his sweat.
“Hey,” I said, standing up. “You’re running?”
I wanted to smack myself in the face the moment those words came out of my mouth.
“Yeah.” He grinned. “I am.”
I shook my head at my words.
“How far did you go?” I asked curiously.
He shrugged. “I have no idea. I just run. An hour and a half or so. Sleep seems to be coming in waves for me. When I can’t sleep, and it’s late enough, I just get up and run.”
His explanation made my heart hurt.
When Luca hadn’t been able to sleep, I’d stayed up with him and watched Netflix until I would fall asleep again.
He’d never turn the show on himself.
But when I turned it on, he finally had the excuse he needed to watch it.
He loathed disturbing me.
Then, I’d thought it was adorable.
Now, I just wished he was there to wake me up at night again.
Something in which I immediately felt guilty about seeing as I was starting to wish that Riel would wake me up at night, too.
If he would just text me, I’d text him back.
Hell, I would’ve even joined him on the run.
“Are you running home after this? Or would you like a ride?” I questioned.
He eyed my attire.
“You look like you’re about to run,” he said. “Which way are you going?”
I shrugged. “I was just going to run. I didn’t have a destination or an amount in mind. But now I’m not sure if I can make it for the run and back home to shower before we’re supposed to meet Gabe and Ember since they agreed to a breakfast date.”
He tilted his head.
“My place is two miles away,” he said. “As long as you cut through the park, anyway. You could just change into a shirt of mine when we got to my place. Or you could keep your clothes on. I could change my shirt and we could just go dressed like this. They have outdoor seating so it wouldn’t be too bad.”
