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The question lands like a wrecking ball but I don’t react. “We never wanted this. I didn’t want this.”
She seems to sense how on edge I am and she gives me a thoughtful look. I can almost see the questions running through her mind. But then, she simply dabs her mouth. “I guess there is the plus side. You can now justify your vices.”
Thank fuck for the escape she just gave me. I lean back on the chair and study her, watching her slim, ivory neck as she swallows. Delicate. Kissable. “Am I to believe you have no vices?”
She smiles, and it’s as if the sun has shined right there at that table. I’ve seen a lot of female smiles—demure, seductive. I haven’t seen a lot of sunshine smiles. “Still like my Snickers bars.”
I grin, reaching inside the fridge again, before dropping a package of peanut M&Ms on the table. She laughs. “Your version of my Snickers bar?”
“You betcha, sweet plum.” I give her a wink.
She snorts. Feminine. Cute. “Sweet plum? That’s a new one.”
“What can I say? You inspire my creativity.”
She waves that off jokingly and picks up the candy. “You keep M&Ms in the fridge?”
“Oh yeah. I love them that way. Try one.”
She laughs and opens the bag, popping one in her mouth. “It’s very crunchy,” she observes, finishing off the bite. “I think I’d eat them slower and make them last this way.” She glances around the room, her mood sobering slightly. “What is this place?”
“I head up the citywide effort to stop ICE from being sold on the streets. We have a few safe houses through the city I make use of as needed.”
“Because it’s hurting people.”
“Yes,” I confirm. “And like all drug dealers, they don’t care who they hurt. They care about money. Back to the candy and why I freeze it. This place is a dump. The air doesn’t work half the time, and they melt, which turns a bag of peanut M&Ms into a bag of messy peanuts, and that’s just not right. And yes, it makes me eat them slower.”
“Judging from the Dr. Pepper stock,” she observes, “you come to this safe house often.”
“Places like this have ears to the pavement you won’t find anywhere else.”
“Not even the high-rise, high-security resorts?”
“They each have their value, but the resort crowd requires a lot of time and even more of the green stuff. And why give away the green if you don’t have to? Places like this one—you can get a guy to sell out his best friend and his wife for a cigarette.” I drape an arm over the back of the chair. “This is life in the fast lane. The down and dirty of the city.”
Her brows deep dive. “God. The fast lane. My brother used that exact term so many times.”
“It’s a soldier’s mentality. We like action. We like fast.”
“My father wouldn’t have agreed. He’d have taken strategic over the fast lane any day. He was always trying to slow my brother down and make him think.”
“Because you act fast doesn’t mean you aren’t thinking,” I argue, defending myself through her brother. “It simply means you size up the situation and act before fear rears its ugly head, and you talk yourself out of it. Fear can get you killed.”
A distant look touches her expression. “The last time my brother was home on leave, we went to the movies. On the way home, we witnessed a bad car wreck. A drunk driver swerved into the lane and hit another car head-on with his pickup truck.” Her gaze fixes on me. “Kevin didn’t think about the danger. The car was on fire, and there was a kid inside, and he went after him as if there were no consequences. He pulled that kid out of the car and saved his life. I’ve never been so scared in my life, not even inside Zodius City. I was afraid he was going to burn to death. Afraid the car would explode. Afraid of losing my brother.”
“I’m sorry. I know you loved them both very much.”
She nods shortly. “It was amazing Kevin came out of it all unscathed. He was a hero. He saved those people’s lives.”
“That’s what soldiers do, Layla. We save lives.”
“I know,” she says solemnly. “But that doesn’t make losing someone you love any easier. Being the wife or child of a soldier is far more terrifying than even Julian to me. I don’t ever again want to feel what I felt when I lost my father and brother.”
She’s telling me we have no future, whether she realizes it or not. I already know. I do, and it guts me, but I can’t even make love to her without putting her in danger, marking her for the Trackers. I’m bad for her in all kinds of ways.
She’s too damn good for me, in all kinds of ways, but I find I still want to know her. I still need to know her. “Is that why you haven’t told your mother about your cancer?” I ask.
“I didn’t want to scare her,” she confirms. “I thought I’d deal with it and make it go away.”
