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Moving slowly toward her, he paused near her dresser. His hand reaching out and touching the things there. Her hair brush, a bracelet, a scarf. Then he picked up a bottle of her perfume and brought it to his nose, inhaling the fragrance. She watched his eyes slide closed.
“What are you doing here?”
He moved toward her. “I came to check on you. Are you okay, Princess?”
She spun back toward the dressing table and began working the studs out of her ears. “I’m fine. I don’t know how you got in here, but please leave.”
“Had to sneak through the back. The front is covered up with news media. That must be rough on you.”
She met his eyes in the mirror. “Yes, it is. Especially the photographers. Snapping pictures of us in our grief and printing lies about my father in the paper.”
“Are they lies, Shannon?”
She spun on him then. “Get out! I don’t know how you got in, but go back the way you came. I don’t need your picture showing up in the paper and them speculating about you and why you’d be here.” She could see that stung by the way his jaw clenched. Why was he here? To torment her about her father some more?
“Shannon, if you’d just give me a chance to explain-”
“There’s nothing to explain. We’re done. Just go.”
“We are not done, Shannon. We are so far from done-”
“What don’t you understand? I want you gone!” She reached around to unlatch the necklace Crash had given her, and then she stood and held it out to him. “Here. Take it. I don’t want it. And I don’t want you.”
Crash’s eyes fell to the pendant dangling from her hand. He’d spent almost a grand on it at that jewelry store at the hotel in Reno the night of her birthday. That probably wasn’t a lot of money to her, but to him it had been. He watched the stone setting swing from her hands. “Keep it, Princess.”
She shook her hand. “Take it. I don’t want it.”
He reluctantly reached out, and she dropped it into his palm.
“Thanks for everything you did for me, Crash. I mean that. But I need you to go now.”
“Shannon. Goddamn, Princess, I don’t want to do this.”
“Please. Please just go, Crash.” She turned back to the dressing table, dropping her head, and closing her eyes, she prayed for strength. She wanted so bad to run into his arms.
“I didn’t say anything to him that wasn’t true, Shannon. I love you. More than he ever did.”
His words cut her like a knife. Was it because they were true? Or was it because his confession of love came too late. Her dream of Crash being her white knight in shining armor had died with her father. She didn’t think she could ever get past the fact that his words had driven her father to kill himself. And she didn’t know if she could ever forgive him.
He reached around her, the necklace dangling from his hand. He set it gently on the dressing table. “If you ever need me, for anything, sweetheart, you know where I am.”
She stared down on the pendant, sparkling up at her, remembering how happy she was when he’d given it to her. When she finally looked up into the mirror, he was gone.
*****
Weeks went by, and Cole watched his brother slide into a state of apathy, his carefree attitude and positive outlook on life gone. Gone like a flame that had been blown out in a cold wind. Crash had begun spending all his time at the club, rarely going home to his loft. Cole imagined it was because the place reminded him too much of Shannon.
Cole sat at the bar in the clubhouse, across the L shaped bar from Crash and watched as he poured himself another shot from the bottle of Jack sitting in front of him. He wondered why he was even bothering with the shot glass. When he could stand it no longer, he shouted to him over the loud music blasting through the clubhouse, “All you’re doin’ is pourin’ whiskey on the hurt.”
Crash turned to him with a vacant look in his eyes. “It’s my hurt. If I want to drown it, I will.”
Cole shook his head. He picked up his drink and walked over to him, taking the barstool next to Crash. Looking over at him, Cole observed, “She’s got you messed up.”
Crash nodded. “I ain’t never felt like this, brother.” He was silent for a moment, then continued. “I’ve let a lot of women walk out my door. Even with Erin, I never got it. Never
realized what that does to a person. But now I know how it feels when someone lets you walk out that door and doesn’t even try to stop you. It hurts, brother. It tears your fucking heart out.”
An hour later, Crash was playing pool, and Cole was sitting at the bar.
