Page 5

“Good to see you too, buddy. I thought you’d be at least a little happy to see me.”

“H-happy? You’re supposed to be fucking dead? What the fuck?”

“Garrett!” Voices shouted from outside the car, and Garrett forgot he was still in the gym’s parking lot.

Spinning away from Rafe, he found Tobias and Chase standing several feet away with concern on their faces.

Garrett lowered his window and did his best to put on a friendly expression for his gym friends.

Now was not the time for an introduction, so he had to do his best to get the fuck out of here before they noticed the very not dead man in his backseat. Thank goodness for his tinted windows.

Fuck! If Rafe had been alive this whole fucking time, Garrett was going to kill him.

“Hey, my bad,” Garrett said through his open window. “Everything’s good. I thought I saw a giant spider in my car but it was nothing.”

Garrett didn’t even have time to mock the visible shiver that went through Tobias’ body. The guy was a six-four, two hundred pound retired hockey player used to facing ninety mph shots on net, but he apparently drew the line at creepy crawlies.

“You sure?” Chase asked as he gazed up at his boyfriend, a small smirk revealing he caught Tobias’ reaction. That was good enough.

“Yup, all good. Just realized I gotta take care of some things so I’m gonna miss breakfast. Congrats on the new relationship. See you tomorrow,” Garrett said, and winced as he slammed on the accelerator, peeling away from the guys. Hopefully, he hadn’t left marks on the asphalt. When he reached the exit to the gym’s lot, he turned left, traveling deeper into the industrial park where Tobias’ gym sat instead of heading right to go home.

“Start fucking talking, Hernandez,” Garrett said between clenched teeth as he raced toward one of the empty lots in the back. He glanced in the rearview mirror every few seconds to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

Oh fuck. Am I hallucinating? Have I finally lost it?

A loud sigh from the backseat disrupted his spiraling.

“You’re a lot madder than I expected you to be,” Rafe muttered, making Garrett see red.

He pulled behind one of the buildings without security cameras. Workers wouldn’t arrive until at least mid-day. He slammed the car into park once they were tucked away.

Garrett closed his eyes and took a deep breath, squeezing the steering wheel and his shifter until his fingers went numb.

Slowly opening his eyes, he found the veins in his hands raised and his knuckles white. He wanted to let go, but it terrified him to think that his grip might be the only thing tethering him to reality.

Taking another deep breath, he focused on five things he could see.

A stray orange cat darting under a tractor trailer. A squirrel running past his car. A barren tree’s branches swaying in the crisp breeze. The frost in the corners of his windshield. And a quick dart of his eyes to his rearview mirror showed his fucking dead best friend looking more forlorn than he had any right to be.

Garrett seethed as his world crumbled. This was real.

How is this real?

He jumped at a touch on his shoulder and instinctively dove for his glove compartment, but it was empty.

“Uh, you looking for this?” Rafe asked, holding up Garrett’s police-issued gun, his hand wrapped around its barrel rather than the grip. A tiny part of him settled, seeing Rafe wasn’t about to shoot him, but his anger soon returned like a violent tidal wave ready to rip him apart.

“What are you doing with my gun? How the fuck are you alive, and what the absolute fuck are you doing here?”

A stabbing pain hit him in his gut as he focused on Rafe. How long had he dreamed of those eyes, those sweet brown irises laughing at his jokes, smiling over a bland meal they could barely stomach, gazing at him from above while he thrusted—

No. Not anymore. Those dreams tormented him for years, and he wouldn’t have them coming back and dragging him down. Not again.

But how could he avoid it when Rafe Hernandez sat in his backseat like no time had passed at all?

“I’m holding your gun because I know how you react to surprises, and I really didn’t want to get shot,” Rafe said as he held the gun out to Garrett to take back. “I know you’re not gonna shoot me now, so you can take it.”

“Don’t be so sure about that,” Garrett said as he took the gun, but kept it nearby, letting it rest against his thigh.