Page 89 of Full Throttle

I couldn’t speak.

There was only him.

Cain slowly pushed off the counter, his arms hanging at his sides as his throat worked. “What the hell did you just say?” he clipped coldly.

Because I was stupid and apparently liked doing stupid things, I repeated his words back to him. “You heard me.”

“You chased me.”

“Yes.”

“You loved me.”

My heart resumed beating, skipping every other beat as my breath hitched. “Yes.”

I didn’t know what to expect when my truth came out to him. Hell, I never intended on telling this truth to him, and I never had the chance to imagine how it would play out. I’d been so sure of myself and the feelings I’d buried. I moved on. I was good. I was steady.

Until this morning.

Until that fucking meeting.

However, the last thing I expected was to see fury rolling off Cain in waves and that captivating upper lip curling.

“What?” I bit off, rage building inside me now to match his.

He looked away, shaking his head as a quiet, cruel laugh escaped him. “You stand here, years later, and say that shit to me now.”

“I—”

“Were you chasing me seven years ago, Nik? Or had you given up by then?” he asked, cutting me off sharply.

I leaned forward, my gut twisting. “Yes,” I hissed. I knew what he was referring to.

That fucking letter.

“You get my letter, baby?” he asked, darkness rolling off his tongue as his head ticked to the side. “Or did it get lost in the mail?”

I straightened, reaching into the back pocket of my jeans, my fingers wrapping around the worn paper. The ink was faded now due to how many times I read the fucking thing and the tears that fell on it. The paper was discolored and wrinkled from sitting in a box for two years, because I was finally living for myself and not anyone else.

That didn’t last long, because when I found Cain’s t-shirt during my move to Denver, it sent me into a spiral, and my wounded heart had cried out for mercy. I didn’t give it to her; instead, I read his letter over and over again until the images of him in that alley with another woman flooded my mind.

Slowly, I pulled the letter from my pocket, and when I brought it around to my front, Cain stiffened. “Yeah, I got your fucking letter,” I quipped, tossing it onto the island in between us. He remained silent and, with each passing second, he grew colder as his eyes fixated on his letter.

“I see,” he finally said, his voice quiet. The fury was still there, but it had diminished slightly, revealing pain.

A chill swept over me at the sight.

All at once, I wasn’t looking at the hardened man, a ruthless street racer. Instead, I was looking at the sad little boy who used to climb into my bedroom at midnight just to hear me read a fairytale to him. The same little boy who used to hide his bruises from me, brushing them off and saying his brother and him got into a fight.

It was never his brother.

It was always his mother.

“Cain,” I whispered, my voice cracking slightly.

“I didn’t even want to write the damn thing,” he said, more so to himself than me. “Tried over and over, wasted an entire notebook on that fucking letter.” His pale blue seas lifted to meet my eyes and, suddenly, I was drowning in them, unable to escape. “I waited for you to come.”

It was a slap in the face, but I refused to flinch, remaining silent.

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