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Hands off.
Which made me wonder why the hell he’d helped me out the night before by covering for me.
“Hey,” I murmured as I double-checked our surroundings to make sure there was no one to see us. Hawke had been adamant that he didn’t want his new neighbors to get suspicious about strange vehicles and men scoping out the neighborhood, so we’d taken a lot of extra steps to go as unnoticed as possible.
“All clear,” Cain said and then he was rolling up his window.
I placed my hand on it and was glad he stopped the upward movement since I hadn’t been sure he would.
“Thanks for last night,” I managed to get out, though the words felt foreign on my tongue. Gratitude wasn’t something I was good at feeling…or showing.
Cain was looking straight ahead and it was still too dark to see his face, so I was surprised when he leaned forward and flipped the dial on his interior lights just enough to illuminate his face. But when I saw the seriousness in his gaze, I wasn’t so sure it was a good thing.
“I don’t give a shit if you try to fuck the demons out of your system, but if I ever see you get in a car again after you’ve been drinking, losing your job will be the least of your worries.”
I bit back the urge to tell the man to go to hell and merely nodded as the shame washed over me. While I hadn’t been falling down drunk the night before after leaving Caterer Guy trembling in a heap on the sodden grass, I’d definitely been too impaired to be behind the wheel, even for the two-mile drive to the motel. The fact that Cain had clearly seen what I’d been up to last night after being dismissed by Ronan and Memphis was humiliating to say the least. It was one thing for someone to think I liked fucking anything that moved, but for him to have seen me in such a rare show of weakness…
“Why?” I asked Cain, needing to know what had made him stick his neck out for someone he clearly didn’t give two shits about. But he turned his cold eyes back towards the windshield and then flipped off the interior lights, plunging his emotionless face into darkness.
“Merry Christmas, Dante,” he murmured as he rolled up his window.
“Merry Christmas,” I said quietly as I turned and went to my own car. I nearly laughed at the irony that it was only the third time today that someone had said those words to me, yet that was still three more times than I’d heard them in the past ten years.
I dropped into the driver’s seat and reached for my phone. Disappointment flared when there were no text messages or missed calls, but I shoved the useless emotion away and then dialed the number I’d memorized long ago and that had become a lifeline of sorts.
“You know what to do,” was all the recorded voice said just before the beep. It wasn’t really a surprise that the guy hadn’t answered…he never did. Just like he never called me back either.
“Hey, it’s me,” I muttered as I leaned back against the seat and fought the weariness that invaded my entire body. “Just wanted to see if you’d heard anything new.”
I didn’t bother to ask him to call me back before hanging up the phone. There was no point. I’d been waiting for his call for more than eight months and it hadn’t come.
Because nothing had changed.
Because I wasn’t getting that second chance, no matter how badly I wanted it.
Meu melhor...
I actually laughed out loud. The only thing I was “best” at was fucking up. I knew it…the people around me knew it…
My eyes drifted to Hawke and Tate’s house and I thought about the little boy who’d made me forget for the briefest of moments who I was, and made me remember a time when I’d been someone’s hero.
No way I could be that again, but I’d sure as hell make sure the little boy in that house got his damn Pop-pop back.
Even if the man in question did think I was no better than shit to be scraped off his shoe.
It was a sentiment that I was all too familiar with…and that I’d rightfully earned.
Chapter Two
Magnus
“Guess what, Pop-pop?” Matty said excitedly as the image on my iPad tilted momentarily. I realized Matty was trying to get more comfortable and had laid back against Tate’s chest.
“What?” I asked dutifully, ignoring the heavy bass of the music coming from the living room. I was once again grateful to Ronan for arranging a hotel room in Austin that had bedrooms separate from the living area, though I suspected my adamant insistence on two separate hotel rooms had influenced the decision.
