AllFreeNovel
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I push from the couch. “Fuck my life. How did I get in the middle of this shit?”
“No, no. Kat is going to be in the middle,” Ryder calls as I head for my bathroom. “I want a replay of that night but we need to switch ends. I wanna know how tight she clenches as she sucks your—” I swing the door closed cutting off his words. I don’t need to hear them. They’re not going to make any of this fucking better.
Twisting the shower on, I strip out of my clothes and stand under the still ice-cold spray.
Resting my palms on the tiled wall, I let the water rain down on my back as I hang my head.
I just need a motherfucking minute to get my shit together.
By the time I re-emerge feeling a little more alive after a night without any sleep, I have to give my living space a double-take.
It’s… tidy.
“How long was I in there?” I ask, watching my best friend as he carries a bag full of trash toward the back door.
“So long I was considering coming to check that you hadn’t drowned,” he deadpans.
“In the shower?”
He shrugs and takes the trash out.
“You didn’t need to do all this,” I say when he returns.
“Yeah well, I don’t wanna live in a shithole so…”
“You really don’t need to—”
“Shut your fucking mouth, Styx. I practically live here part-time anyway, I’ll just officially move some shit in. How much do you owe on your rent?”
“Ry—”
“No. Fuck that, Styx. Now is the time to start fessing up. We’re fixing all this shit, starting with this place and then we’ll start working on a plan for getting our girl to forgive us.”
My teeth grind as he claims my girl. “Fine,” I hiss, not having it in me to argue right now.
Thankfully, when I walk through to the kitchen, I don’t get the pleasure of standing on the remnants of my plates and glasses. Ry might have worked his magic on the floor, but the place is still trashed. Pretty much everything I own has been thrown around the place, but with Kat in the hospital, I can’t bring myself to care about any of it. It’s just stuff. She’s the only important thing in all this.
“Coffee?” I ask, pulling open the cupboard that used to house my mugs. “Motherfucker.”
“I’ll order in,” Ryder offers. “We’re gonna need to pick up some groceries as well.”
“After coffee, yeah?”
I flop onto the couch, stretching my legs out, and I swear my eyes grow heavy before my head even hits the cushion.
* * *
The rumble of an engine drags me from my sleep, and when I drag my heavy eyelids open, I find Ryder crashed out on the other couch.
The mess of my living room is a painful reminder of what we’re in the middle of dealing with, but it nowhere near hurts as much as the pain in my chest.
Loud hammering on the door makes me wince. I barely get to my feet before the front door swings open and a determined-looking Diesel storms in.
I fed him a load of bullshit lies about Kat getting hurt at the club last night when I finally got to speak to him earlier to let him know she was in the hospital. As far as I know, he bought it. Or at least I thought he did until I looked at his murderous face. One glance around my place told him everything he needed to know.
“Hey, how’s—”
“There was no incident at the club last night, was there?” he asks, his eyes studying the cuts and bruises on my face before glancing over at Ryder, who I assume is now also awake.
