“I want to talk about it later. When you’re home and feeling better.”
My heart felt strange—hopeful and afraid all at the same time. “But you stay?”
“Yes. I was thinking—I mean, maybe this is nuts because we’ve been friends forever, but being together is kind of, you know…new?”
“New?” I repeated. The word felt odd in my mouth.
“I—whatever. Fuck it.” He took a heavy breath, and his nose wrinkled. I fought the urge to touch it. “Do you want to find a place together? To live?”
“With me?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I was understanding right. “Same…house? Bed? Kitchen? Coffee mug?”
He laughed again, and fuck, I loved that sound so much. I moved my hand to touch the corner of his lips, and they rose higher into a smile. “I think I’d like to have my own coffee mug, but the rest…yeah. We can share all that.”
“In Salem? I can drive?—”
“No. Boston. Or somewhere near it. Somewhere that will make you happy,” he said.
There was something significant in what he was saying, but my addled brain couldn’t quite put the line between the dots to make the picture.
But we would talk about it later when I could think.
And when we both felt safe.
I was released three days later, and Katya came through on a rental for both me and Micah on the same day that Hunter posted his bond. We only knew because Micah and I were both listed as victims in the case, and the detective Micah spoke to called him to let him know.
But Katya made sure the rental was in neither of our names, and she found a place in Winchester with a gate that required very specific access to be able to get onto the street, let alone anywhere near our house.
All of our friends had a pass, of course, but they were kind enough to let me rest for the duration of my recovery.
By the time I got home, the reality set in that the season was a wash—I wouldn’t be back on the ice until summer, but I was able to look up the games I’d missed, and it seemed like Ferris was working his little rookie ass off to fill my skates.
And he was doing a damn good job of it.
We lost two of the seven games, but he made the other teams work for it. I also had an appointment with the team’s new physical therapist—Ferris’s boyfriend, Quinn.
It had been two months now, and Micah had yet to bring up “the thing” he’d wanted to talk to me about in the hospital. I didn’t remember much while I was on my haze of medications, but I remembered that. I remembered the weight of it in his voice andhow he’d seemed nervous, like maybe I wouldn’t want to go forward with him once I knew.
Of course, Micah could reveal he was an immortal serial killer, and I would simply ask him to teach me how to hide bodies, I loved him that fucking much.
I didn’t say that, of course. He was still jumpy and uncertain, and I wasn’t about to send him running. Even if he continued to promise that running wasn’t on the table.
I was pacing our little rental now, anxious because he was supposed to be home from his roadie soon, and I missed him. A lot.
Hunter’s first hearing was coming up, and the prosecutor said right now the defense was considering the plea deal they’d offered him. There were a grand total of seven charges, and if he pleaded guilty to three of those—the revenge porn, stalking, and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon—he would face six years in prison.
They also tracked down the person who’d given him all of Micah’s information. It was a security guard who’d quit after the first night Hunter had stalked Micah in the arena parking lot. He’d swiped information on where I lived, on Micah’s schedule, and where the team was staying on roadies. He’d given Hunter several key cards to be able to get into the parking lot without checking in with security, and he’d used that information to scam both my front door code and Micah’s out of one of the interns who had access to our files.
That guy had been picked up and offered a pleadeal for information on Hunter, and while it pissed me off, Tyoma assured me he would also handle him. Whatever that meant. I wasn’t going to ask.
My siblings seemed bound and determined to make sure both of them actually paid for their crimes. Especially after learning all the things they’d done to Micah.
Right now, knowing what was coming, all I wanted to do was hold him. I was feeling better, but I was still sore some days and very tired, and I had no idea if it was because of my injuries or the weight of everything that had come with falling in love with Micah.
I would never tell him that, of course. I would never let him know that parts of it had been hard and painful.
Because none of it mattered, and he carried enough on his shoulders as it was.
My heart leapt in my chest when I saw a dark car pulling into the driveway, and I kept myself from running to the door and flinging it open when I saw him get out. He looked good—though he always looked good.
