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“What is it?” she asked quickly. “Bastian? What’s wrong?”
I shook my head.
“Nothing,” I lied. “Just in my head, I guess. You surprised me.”
Her eyes narrowed into a “don’t give me that shit” glare.
Unable to voice what was going on in my head, I turned without a word and headed to the bathroom. I even shut the door to pee though I didn’t usually bother. Too much time in the wild made me kind of oblivious to someone watching me take a piss.
She hammered on the door.
“I’m not buying that!” she called. “Tell me what happened!”
“Can’t hear you, babe!” I called back as I flushed and turned on the water at the sink.
“Open the door!”
“What’s that?”
“Bastian!”
“Huh? What?” I yelled. “Can’t hear ya over the water!”
This went on for a few minutes while I left the water running, shaved, and brushed my teeth. When she finally seemed to give up, I turned off the water and waited another minute before I opened the door. I could hear her in the kitchen, so I went through the bedroom to go out on the balcony to smoke.
Raine obviously wasn’t happy when I came back inside, but I had calmed down enough to put my happy face back on and deny anything was wrong. I only had to put up with a few glares and some snippy remarks about what we were having for dinner. That suited me just fine because it meant I could be just a little bit pissy in return and claim it was because she was grumpy.
Yeah, we guys can have our mind games, too.
Raine dove right into her studies while I did the dishes. I could hear her clacking away on her laptop as I placed clean silverware in the drawer as quietly as possible. When I finished, I stood behind the kitchen island for a few minutes and watched the back of her head as she worked. Her shoulders were stiff and squared, and she didn’t turn to look at me when I came to sit in the chair across from the couch.
Clearly I wasn’t getting anything but the silent treatment tonight, so I cut my losses and went to bed early. Raine continued to ignore me when she finally came into the bedroom. She changed into a set of pale blue short pajamas instead of one of my T-shirts and climbed into bed without a word.
I couldn’t tell her. It would only scare her, and I was paranoid enough for the both of us.
Even with her not speaking to me, I still reached out and wrapped an arm around her waist. Raine remained stiff and turned away from me but didn’t push my hand away. I couldn’t handle it if she did that, which she knew very well. At least I hadn’t pissed her off so much she refused to come to bed. That would have killed me.
Despite the inner turmoil, my dick immediately noticed the close proximity of the only pussy he cared about and started making himself a little more impressive. I had to shift my hips back a bit because I was certain my cock shoving into her side wasn’t going to go over well at all.
I lay my head on the edge of her pillow and watched her. I wanted to tell her I loved her, but my throat was dry, and the words wouldn’t form. Outside, a sudden storm blew up from the east and slammed drops of rain against the balcony doors. I closed my eyes and eventually dozed off, but the nightmares came immediately.
After a few hours of restlessness, I gave up.
With a cigarette in one hand and a lighter in the other, I sat at the table and looked out the glass door of the balcony toward the ocean. The flame rose up and lit the tip of the smoke, and I inhaled in a long, slow motion before blowing smoke out into the room.
Raine would be pissed—well, even more pissed—when she found out I had been smoking inside, but it was pouring outside, and I wasn’t going to get soaked. I’d light a fucking candle or something to cover up the smell though I knew it wouldn’t work.
I couldn’t get the thoughts out of my head. Someone had been here. I couldn’t explain why I knew it, but I did, and it was scaring the shit out of me. All my senses were on hyper-alert, and they sent waves of tension through my muscles until I could barely hold my cigarette.
I kept remembering the cage fight I was in, and the idea of doing that again was extremely attractive. It wasn’t something I could explain to Raine. She wouldn’t get it, and I was a hundred percent sure she wouldn’t approve one iota. I never did tell her where I had been or what I had been doing, but I had been gone a long time. I couldn’t get away with that again.
What if I wasn’t gone so long?
The bar really wasn’t that far away—I’d spent a lot of time just cruising around before I had stopped. I could easily get there in a few minutes, pound some dude, and be back within an hour. Raine would never know.
I looked up at the clock. It was only a few minutes after midnight, which meant the bar was still open and probably still running fights. I could get there in ten minutes, maybe sooner.
A plan formed in my head: I could get up quietly, scrawl out a little note saying I’d be back soon just so she wouldn’t worry if she did wake up, and silently let myself out of the apartment. I couldn’t ride the bike in the storm, but I could take Raine’s Subaru and keep to a reasonable speed all the way to the bar, walk in, beat the shit out of the guy in the cage, and make my way back home.
