Page 14

The scent of ash stung my nostrils, and my eyes watered under the intensity of the smoke-damaged apartment I owned.

Home. The word felt strange now.

I’d only just renovated it a year ago, which rubbed salt in my already wounded mood. “What a fucking mess,” I muttered, swiping my fingers over the ash coating the kitchen countertop.

Colt moved further into the apartment, surveying the smoke-damaged surroundings. His eyes roamed over the room. “You’re lucky, could have burned to the ground. They did a good job.”

The interior was a write off, that was obvious. Badly damaged by smoke, a layer of gray coated every surface. I made my way over to the pool table, eyeing it closely. Everything else could be replaced.

This couldn’t.

My chest released when I realized a quick repolish and a new felt top would have it looking as good as new again. Nothing I couldn’t do myself. Over the years, I’d moved on from carpentry to investing in property, but it was still a handy trade to have in my back pocket when needed.

By the looks of it, the pool table was the only thing in the main living area I could salvage. Striding into the bedroom, which I hoped had been spared, I was proven wrong. Between air vents and blown-out windows, it had been hit the hardest.

Shards of glass splayed across my bedding, streaks of black climbing the walls like a demonic vine. I shook my head in disbelief. This would take months to restore. Striding to the cupboard, I opened it to find my guitar stashed in the back behind smoke-damaged clothing. I breathed a sigh of relief, noting it was in okay condition. Grabbing it, I walked back into the main living area.

Colt’s gaze dropped to my guitar. A knowing look passed between us. He knew how important my guitar was to me. He understood my love of music and knew me better than anyone. Music was my way of dealing with my life.

Being a blood mage was something I didn’t shout from the rooftops. I downplayed it more than anything. The fewer people who knew about me, the lower their risk of being hurt. But that wasn’t the only thing I hid from the world. Only one person knew my secret: Colt, because, fuck, he saved me from succumbing to something I didn’t wish to think about. Also, I needed to offload to someone. He was like my big brother and knew everything.

I hid my grimace as recent memories surfaced momentarily before shoving them from my mind again just as quickly.

“New bed?” he asked.

“Yep.”

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his faded blue jeans. “Think Ty’s got a spare. Could get you by for a bit.”

A laugh rumbled from my chest. “I’m sleeping in no bed of his.” It felt wrong to laugh. But what could I do? I couldn’t change this.

Colt smirked. “Good call. Any idea what started the fire?”

“Electrical fault after the storm earlier in the week.”

“Unlucky.” He walked over to the pool table, picking up the number eight ball, swiping his thumb through its ashen coating. “Want a lift with this onto the truck?” He sank the ball into the nearest pocket, and the roll as it descended beneath reverberated through the apartment.

“You think it would fit?” I asked doubtfully. Colt had a pickup, but it was a full-size pool table. His truck bed was surely half the size of this thing, which would make the trip definitely not legal.

“Pretty sure no one’s going to fuck with you when it’s all you’ve got left.”

He had a point.

Colt rolled up the sleeves of his flannel shirt. “Sorry, bad choice of words.”

“All good.”

I knew he meant well. He was correct. No one in their right mind would fuck with someone who had just lost everything they owned. And the pool table was my pride and joy. When I’d given up building and taken more of an investment approach to property, I’d built it out of pleasure and enjoyed the process. I knew then that I’d made the right choice in moving on from the building industry, because it was the first thing I’d enjoyed building in years. I would salvage this pool table out of stubbornness alone.

Surveying the room, I couldn’t find where to begin. What a fucking mess. The entire apartment needed stripping out, it needed new furniture, new carpet, and the walls relined and painted. I wasn’t sure how I would restore it between the hours required of me to run the bar. Morgan still did the odd night shift for me every week, but I struggled to comprehend how I could make it happen. It would take time. Something I didn’t have spare right now. I felt time race ahead of me most days, and, on some, I struggled to keep up. To finish the bare minimum. Between that and the fact I was pushing thirty, time was like a fucking neon sign blaring bright pink in a dark alley.

I could fuck like time didn’t matter. Invest every penny I made into timeless assets. But the truth always gnawed at my sides. I wasn’t getting any younger.

The sound of the front door opening turned my head toward it.

“Fuck.” Ty grabbed the doorframe momentarily before stepping inside, brushing his hands on his jeans. He scanned the room before him. “This place is wrecked.”

His expression changed the second he saw me.