Page 70 of His Hostage

“This is what Kaine wants you to do. He wants you to fall into doubt,” I say. “That crew gave us everything we need. And we’re still arguing about whether or not we can trust them. You did this with me too, remember? We’re safe with them. They know these roads better than any other gang. I feel good about this.”

“You might be able to get home, after all,” Rowan says, looking away.

The rest of the ride is driven in silence, and I can tell that Rowan is angry with me again. However, being stuck on a cramped river-boat with four people, I can’t address it.

I squeeze his shoulder, but he keeps his eyes pointed away from mine. I kiss his chest, but he doesn’t give me an ounce of affection.

When we arrive back at the bar, it’s night, and the whole place is behaving like animals. There’s a fight near the dock, and a man falls into the cold water.

The man who was fighting him jumps in, and they start fighting in the water.

“What’s wrong?” I ask Rowan as he walks ahead of everybody else.

“You’re just going to leave me like everybody else, aren’t you?” he asks.

“I thought we talked about this already. I thought everything was okay between us,” I say, feeling the pain start to well up in my heart.

“Nothing is okay. Can’t you see that?” he asks. “I… forget it.”

He walks off ahead and I’m forced to run to catch up to him. “Come on, Rowan. Talk to me. You can’t shun me forever.”

“Oh, I can’t?” He asks, eyes wide. “Watch me.”

“Don’t you dare,” I tell him. “You face me like a man. You talk to me and tell me what’s going on.”

“I love you, okay?” he says, quickly. “I love you, and you’re fucking leaving me. I’ve been shot more than once in my life, but nothing has hurt as bad as this. I keep blocking out the pain, going from place to place, but it never ends. It only gets worse. If you’ll be gone after this, what’s the point?”

“Rowan, who knows what will happen?” I ask him.

“I do. This is how it always ends up being,” he says with misplaced anger in his eyes.

“What are you talking about? You’re speaking in riddles,” I cry.

“It happened with my parents. They didn’t give two shits about me either. I can’t blame them, right? It’s just how the world works. You’re put in one shitty situation after another, until you come face to face with your maker,” he says, shaking his head.

He walks up to the border and points at a bottle of whiskey. The bartender slides the bottle over to him, annoyed we’re back.

Rowan takes two giant swigs out of the bottle and sighs. I grab it out of his hand and drink from it, too. “There, are you happy? We’ll both get drunk and wake up with things still unsolved. What is your problem? I am not your parents,” I tell him. “You think I grew up like a princess? You think everything was handed to me on a silver plate, don’t you?”

“I do,” he says, grabbing the bottle back. “It’s written all over your face. All over that soft and gorgeous body of yours. You don’t know what it’s like to grow up hard.”

“My father was an abusive gambler. He gambled away everything. My college fund, our family mortgage, his life insurance policy. In the end, he didn’t give a shit,” I tell him, tears streaming down my face. “He left me to fend for myself, beating my mom whenever he could. He verbally abused me. That’s why I got married. Ron offered me a way out. But, as it turns out, he was just like my father. He didn’t love me one bit. He wished I was never born.”

“Let’s go,” Jeffco mutters, uncomfortably. The bartender grabs the bottle back from both of us and nods his head forward, motioning for us to get moving.

Rowan looks embarrassed. He walks out the door in a hurry, unable to look back. When we get onto the bike, I place my cheeks against his back and kiss him.

“Rowan,” I say. “I love you. I just don’t want to wake up in a few days and discover that you’re not with me anymore because you got shot, or you were taken prisoner, or you left for another job. I can’t live this life like you can. I just can’t.”

“We

’ll talk later,” he mutters, arrogantly. I hate him when he gets like this. When he shuts down, there’s nothing that will get him to budge. He steps down onto the bike, and it rumbles underneath us. I feel the rubber from the tires lurch forward quickly, and I hold on with a tight grip.

Well, at least he loves me.

I just hope this ends with kisses, rather than bullets.

27

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