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By the time I found a drugstore, tears filled my eyes, begging to fall. But I forced them away, refusing to show the pain from a man I should’ve never allowed into my heart.
After buying sunglasses and a hat, I went into the bathroom to say goodbye to Elle, then hid myself from the world as I went in search of a phone.
I dug my fingers against the unforgiving wooden doors once she was gone, and hung my head as I forced myself to stay there. All I wanted was for her to be in front of me again so I could beg her to forgive me.
My chest’s movements grew more exaggerated as my breaths came rougher, faster. With a roar, I slammed my fists against the door and turned to face what was waiting for me just in time to dodge the first flying object from Libby.
“You’re such an asshole.”
The object thunked against the door just as she launched the second. I caught her shoe before letting it fall to the floor, then met her glare as I turned to leave the room.
“Demitri—”
“Not now,” I ground out, not willing to get into it with my mom when she couldn’t begin to understand.
I sank heavily into my old bed and let my head fall into my hands as I fought the urge to stay there long enough to give her time to leave—give her time to get so far away I wouldn’t be able to find her.
But it became nearly painful when all I could see was how she’d collapsed in Libby’s bathroom.
Her unconscious on this bed.
The hurt in her eyes when I told her to get out.
God, she’d even apologized. A man as savage as John
ny had attacked her—and she’d apologized for defending herself.
“I didn’t . . . I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry for hurting Johnny.” She licked her lips, her eyes begging me to hear the sincerity in her words. “I’m so—”
I gripped at my hair, my body vibrating with the need to move. To find her.
“You may be Boss, but I’m still your mother.”
I lifted my head, my eyes narrowed at where my mom stood, leaning against the doorway. “Not Boss,” I corrected her. “Never.”
She lifted a shoulder then glanced around the room. “Doesn’t matter if you want to be . . . you are. We could’ve easily been pushed out when your dad died. There were other men who had the experience and the drive to take his place. But everyone looked to you.”
“I was thirteen.”
“Says a lot about you, if you ask me. So do the words I just heard you say to that girl. Tell me,” she began as she pushed from the doorframe to come sit beside me, “what guy beats up his best friend—who’s already been stabbed—over a girl, and then talks to the girl the way you did.”
I ground my teeth, my jaw aching under the pressure. “I’m not doing this with you.”
“I’ve seen you look at her at the café.”
My knee started bouncing, the movement becoming faster as I fought to keep myself on the bed and in that house.
“Demitri . . .”
“She’s safer away from me,” I finally said, the words bursting from me like a confession. “I’ve kept myself from her for two years. I’ve never—” I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from saying the words I’d thought so many times before.
They felt like a sin.
Like a middle finger to her memory.
“I knew if I let myself have her, I’d never let her go. And if they found out about her . . . I can’t let them find out about her.”
And they would. I had no doubt about it. Because like I’d thought last night, she glowed so damn bright . . . and when we were together, it was like setting a dry forest on fire in the dead of night. Finding her, letting myself care for her, would be like a beacon to the Holloways.
