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Without my permission, a tear spilled over onto my cheek. “Promise?” It came out a husky, trembling whisper but he heard me loud and clear.
“Yes, Kin, I promise. I won’t go anywhere ever again unless you come with me.” His hold on my chin tightened when I tried to pull free, wanting to hide my feelings from him. I wanted to believe him, ached to believe him, but he couldn’t keep that promise. He couldn’t. His contract with First Bass would be up in a few months and then the one Tainted Knights signed with Emmie Armstrong would take effect. He would be running around everywhere with the band to get their name out there more, and I would still be right here.
Raising my hand, I caught his hand and pulled it away just enough so I could lower my head to kiss his palm. “Don’t make me that promise, Jace. Make this one.” I sucked in a deep breath. “Promise me, that no matter where you go, you’ll come back. That’s all I want. For you to come back to me every time you go away. I’ll be waiting, right here, for you to always come back.”
Blue eyes turned brighter and I caught my breath when I realized that he was fighting his own tears. “Fuck, Kin. You just destroyed me, baby.” He sucked in a harsh breath and stood. In the next second he was scooping me up in his arms and walking toward a closed door on the other side of the apartment. “That’s enough talking for one night, I think. Now…” He paused to open the door and then kicked it shut as he walked to his bed. “Now, I just want to hold you.” He sat me on the edge of the bed carefully, then reached for the comforter and pulled it back. “Just hold you, Kin. As much as I’m dying for you right now, I want to take things slow this time. Is that okay?”
My heart contracted for the hundredth time that night. “Yeah,” I assured him with a trembling smile. “That’s more than okay, Jace.”
Chapter 19
Jace
My phone was ringing, and it wouldn’t fucking stop. I’d already let it go to voicemail twice, but no sooner had the damn thing quieted, it had started making noise again. Groaning, I pressed a kiss to the back of Kin’s sweet-smelling head and blindly reached for my phone. “Yeah?” I grumbled, still half asleep.
“Jace,” Natalie Cutter’s voice filled my ears.
Something in her tone had me sitting straight up in bed, my heart already pounding. I heard concern and fear in her tone and it had me on red alert. “Nat, what’s wrong?”
Harris’s stepmom let out a harsh sigh. “I just got a call from Emmie. She said something was going on with Harris. I can’t get him to answer his phone and Jenna’s keeps going straight to voicemail. I’m on my way over there now, but can you go up and check on him? I’m going to lose my mind if I don’t know he’s okay soon.”
I glanced down at Kin, who was still sleeping peacefully. She was snuggled deep into one of my pillows, her beautiful face turned away from me with the smallest of smiles ghosting across her lips. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to fall back to sleep with her until I knew if my friend was okay, I climbed out of bed, careful not to wake Kin. “I’m on my way up there now,” I assured her. I pulled out my keys and found the extra that Harris had given me months before when he’d accidently locked himself out of his apartment and had needed to call a locksmith at three in the morning.
“Thanks, Jace.” Natalie seemed relieved now.
“No problem. I’ll call you back, okay?”
“I appreciate it. I’ll be there within the next twenty minutes.”
Hanging up, I put my phone in my pocket and stepped into the already waiting elevator. It took less than thirty seconds to go up the several floors that separated my apartment from the one Harris shared with Jenna Stevenson. Using my key, I opened the door and stepped into the dark apartment. Switching on lights as I went, I called out Harris’s name, already heading toward the bedroom I knew was his.
“Harris? You okay, man? Your mom just called me. She’s worried about your ass.” I didn’t hear anything coming from his room and paused with my hand on the doorknob. For some reason dread tightened in my gut as I forced myself to slowly open the door.
There was a shadowy outline of Harris’s big body on the bed and I reached for the light switch. “Yo, man…” Whatever I was going to say died on my tongue as I saw Harris.
He was completely naked on his bed. He was turned on his side, but his body was so still I knew something was wrong. His chest didn’t move with the deep breaths that came with sleep and he was in a position that would have been uncomfortable for me, let alone a guy of Harris’s size.
Without a second thought, I hurried to the bed. Touching a hand to his shoulder, I found his body ice cold. I shook him, trying to wake him up. “Harris,” I called loudly in his ear. “Hey, wake up. Your mom will be here soon.”
He didn’t even flinch at the loudness of my voice. My heart pounding in my ears, I searched for a pulse. It took a few tries, but finally I found it. Slow and irregular. I felt a thump-thump-thump against my index and middle fingers in a pattern that scared the hell out of me.
I shook his shoulder again. “Wake the fuck up,” I roared in his ear, scared out of my mind that I was going to watch him die.
“What’s going on?”
I didn’t even turn to look at Jenna as she rushed into the room. “Harris?” she muttered, then she was beside me. Screaming. “Harris. Harris, wake up. Wake up. Wake up.”
Under my hold I felt him jerk and then start to shake. It took me a few seconds to realize he was convulsing. Holy fuck. Something white started to foam around his mouth.
“Oh, my God,” Jenna cried as she helped me hold on to him. “He’s OD’ing.” She let go and reached for the landline phone beside the bed. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. What did you take?” she whispered as if to herself. “What the hell were you doing?”
From the phone I heard the distinct voice of a female. “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”
Jenna’s voice shook as she spoke. “My roommate is overdosing.”
“What did he take?” the operator asked, sounding
calm and cool. She probably took calls like this every day.
