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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Valen
I expected the wrath of shit Fallon had to feed me the next day when Louana and I finally climbed out of the bed, collected our shit, and made our way out of the hotel and back toward Navesink Bank.
We were both uncharacteristically quiet on the ride, lost in our own thoughts.
After the talk the night before, we’d both crashed hard and long, leaving very little time to think shit through, to wrap out heads around how much had changed in just a day.
Everything.
Everything had changed.
Back to how it always should have been.
I would never say that I shouldn’t have ever left.
I did still stand by my belief that, when we were younger, when our love leaned heavily toward obsession, we were going to end up being toxic to each other eventually.
But getting to be close with her again, even just running my fingers through her hair, and feeling her soft curves press up against me, reminded me of how many years without her I’d endured, even when I always knew there would never be anyone else like her.
Even just driving in silence back home together felt… right. It was like pieces had clicked back into place, completing something that had been incomplete for many years.
“Chickenshit,” I grumbled at her when she helped me out of the car then said she was going to grab coffee and talk to Gala and Jazzy about an apartment.
We both knew what she was doing.
Avoiding getting her ass handed to her by Fallon.
Or having to listen to him do it to me.
“Oh, I’m sure I am going to be chewed out later. I just need some coffee in me first,” she said, shooting me a smile, then waving at Voss who came out to check on me.
Really, I wasn’t sure what the fuck I’d done in my life to deserve not only the best woman I’d ever met, but also a truly fucking loyal friend, but I was going to make sure both of them knew I was ride-or-die for them too. You know, when I could breathe without almost doubling over in pain.
I’d played it down for Louana’s sake the night before, knowing she would fret over me if I let her know how in agony I was. She was clearly fucking exhausted, both physically and emotionally. She needed to rest, not worry about me.
But after the ride, and the many pot holes and speed bumps that Louana had never been the type to slow down for, I was pretty fucking miserable.
“Here,” Voss said, opening his palm to show me a pain pill resting there. The good kind, not the over-the-counter stuff that wasn’t touching the pain.
“Thanks, man,” I said, taking it and throwing it back without a drink.
“You’re sweatin’,” he observed.
“Ride in a car with Lulu when you’re covered in wounds and bruises, and you’d be sweating too,” I said. “So, is he pissed off?”
“Fallon? Not as much as your old man,” he said, giving me a wicked smirk before turning and opening the door for me, inviting me to the gallows where my loved ones were waiting to string me up.
“My fath—“ I started, confusion making my brows knit, since he’d been pretty chill on the phone the night before. But as soon as I walked inside, my gaze landed on him, and my voice fell away.
Because I wasn’t sure I’d ever actually seen my father look pissed off before. Not toward any of us anyway.
I always figured that because my father’s childhood was so horrific, something so dark and life-changing that it sent his life in a new trajectory, making him spend the next few decades traveling all over the world doing odd, criminal jobs, that it had sort of made it impossible for him to take shit too seriously, to get too worked up over anything.
“What the fucking shite, Valen?” he grumbled at me in that accent of his that was a little bit all over the place, and impossible to pin down.
“Dad…” I started.
