Page 84 of Wasted Lust

And I might never forgive him for that. I might hate him until the end of time for making me do that.

I pace in front of the ambulance as they check her over, worried out of my mind even though none of the blood belongs to her. I can’t help it. I lost a lot today and I can’t bear the thought of losing her too. I need to know she’s OK. Not physically. Mentally. What can she possibly be thinking right now? After all that talk of saving Nick. What is running through her mind now that the shock is wearing off and she has to come to terms with what she did?

It takes them thirty minutes to declare her fine, and then they hand her back off to me. She looks me up and down and I’m waiting for it. I’m waiting for what I know is surely floating around in her head right now.

You got what you wanted.

But I didn’t. I didn’t get what I wanted. I never wanted this.

I hold my breath when she opens her mouth to speak.

“Where the hell did you get a Kevlar shirt made by Roberto Moreno Diseñador?”

I laugh, I can’t help it. “Who?”

“That shirt.” She sniffs. Her crying stopped as soon as she got to the ambulance. Sasha Aston is not a crier. Not in front of anyone but me, anyway. “It’s a Roberto shirt. That’s his logo on the pocket.”

I look down at the white dress shirt parading as a Kevlar vest. It’s got a hole in it, right in the center of my chest where Max shot me. But sure enough, Sasha’s finger traces a logo embroidered with white thread, so that you can’t see it unless you know what to look for.

“That’s how James shot me, Jax. When everyone thought I was dead. He gave me a Roberto original. Where did you get this?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. It was on the plane when I went to meet Adam this morning. He had one too. And it was a good thing, because Max Barlow shot us both. These designer shirts saved our lives.”

“There’s something in the pocket.” She unbuttons it and withdraws a key. We both stare at it for several seconds, confused.

“Sasha!” her pilot friend calls from across the yellow police-line tape. “Sasha!”

We walk over there together. Her legs are steady now, but we’re both silent as we think about these shirts. Putting the pieces together in a new way.

“I’m OK, Harrison,” Sasha says when we get close enough. “I’m fine, but Nick…” She stops talking to stop the tears.

Harrison holds her from across the tape. They embrace like that for a few minutes and then he pulls back and extends his hand. “I’m Sasha’s friend, Harrison.”

“Jax,” I say, unable to call myself by my last name. I just can’t be a Barlow anymore. Not after what I found out today.

“I have a message from Nick, Sasha. He sent me a text just before that gunshot.”

“What?” Sasha looks at the cell phone Harrison is holding out to her. “What’s it say?”

“Read it,” Harrison replies. “I have no idea what it means.”

Sasha takes the phone and squints down at the message.

“Well?” I say, impatient. “Tell me what he says.”

She looks up at me, her face changing from confusion to understanding before my eyes. “It says, I left you a gift at that hotel room.”

My own understanding creeps in slowly. “The hotel where he left you ten years ago?”

She nods up at me.

“Let’s go,” Harrison says. “We can be in Rock Springs, Wyoming in three and a half hours.” He doesn’t wait for us to answer, just takes off across the field in the direction of the airstrip here in Falls City.

Sasha walks off after him, not even looking back at me.

And I follow. With a new appreciation for what it means to be friends with Sasha Aston.

People love her fiercely. She’s right. They will die for her. Even sick and twisted fucks like Nick Tate will give their lives for her. Carting her ass around in a private plane is nothing to this pilot.