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“I know.”
She nods, smiling softly as she plays and cuddles with the dog. “She said hello.”
“Okay.”
There’s a field of explosives in the room, sensitive to touch, and it’s like we’re trying to step around them as we navigate the conversation. We don’t want to venture too close to the betrayal, to what we did, or there will be an explosion. Of what? Pain? Regret?
“It’s good that Tanker’s doing better,” she says, as she strokes him.
I know what she’s doing. Changing the subject.
But I can’t blame her.
Sitting forward, I nod. “Yeah, he’s calmed down a little now. He needs the crate so he can get used to the sound. If it’s a short storm he’ll stay in there until it’s over. But with one like this, the little man knows he has to get stronger, he has to toughen up. And he does, every time. But he always needs that hour or so in the crate, to get his confidence up.”
Her smile widens, radiant, eyes glimmering like miniature suns. “You sound like you love him.”
My chest tightens at the word.
Love.
I thought I understood how hopeless it was this morning. I thought I knew how pointless it was to try to love, to try to care when there’s a black hole in my chest sucking all the light out or trying to. Trying to empty me and make me dead inside.
But then my angel, my Rayla, crashed into my life and rearranges my insides. Suddenly there’s potential there, more than there ever was, flaring and surging and roaring into me. Every second I’m not with her is like I’m being pulled apart at the seams. That’s the pain of holding myself back from her.
I clear my throat and my thoughts. “Yes, I love the little bastard.”
“Millie said to ask how you got him.”
Her voice falters when she says my daughter’s name.
It’s like she’s calling some spirit into existence, like she thinks she’s going to bring the weight of the betrayal crushing down on us, killing us for what we did. And what we still might do.
“That old story.” I laugh gruffly. “It’s nothing.”
She raises an eyebrow, sassy. “Now I have to know.”
“It’s not a big deal. Anybody would have done it.”
“Would have done what?”
The rain pommels and pounds against the cabin, every second, until it’s like I can’t hear the guilt and the regret and the shame. All I can hear is my desire for this woman, looking up at me with those wide innocent eyes, with her hair falling in tempting wild curls around her.
“Saved him,” I whisper huskily. “I was down south for some research. That’s another reason I like to keep myself hidden online. I travel for research whenever I can, and I like to pretend I’m a nobody. People are more comfortable being themselves around a drifter.”
My mind flashes back to that evening, the smell of piss in the air, the sound of his cries.
“What happened?” she asks softly. Tanker has curled up in her lap and she’s stroking him gently. His eyes close and he sleeps peacefully, oblivious to the storm. “Roman?”
I swallow. “I was walking by to my hotel late one night and I heard him barking. These high-pitched, soul-searing yaps. Jesus. They were like being cut with a knife. So I followed the noise and I found these guys, these four motherfuckers, and they were…”
“They were what?”
I clench my fists as the memory returns to me with abrupt vividness like I’ve just been dropped inside of it. “They had sparklers, the kind you get on the Fourth of July, and they were poking at him. Having a whale of a time. So I… I did something that was maybe wrong. Maybe I should’ve called the cops. But they were poking at that the little dog, Rayla, and they were laughing. They were making him squeal.”
She blinks and her eyes glisten with tears. “What did you do?”
I clench my teeth, my words coming out as a growl. “I went to work on those bastards. I ran at them and we fought. It was a wild and bloody fight. They knocked out two of my teeth and broke my hand. But I got them worse. I knocked one motherfucker out with a shot clean to the face. I choked one of them out, and the other two cowards ran.
“And then I took Tanker for myself. I swore to him that day I’d never let anything bad happen to him. Maybe that’s why I baby him sometimes but look at him. He’s brave. He’s strong. He just needed a chance.”
“A chance,” she murmurs, staring as though she’s mesmerized. “Is that what…”
“What?” I urge when she trails off. “Say it.”
“What we need, a chance?” she finishes. “Me and you? Do we need a chance?”
Our gazes lock, fuse together like there’s something alive and demanding our attention. It’s like our desire is a separate thing, far more primal and ruthless than our minds. We know we have to put Millie first, but our bond is a loud and dangerous thing, roaring out each second, threatening to crumble us.
