Page 46 of Hold the Line

The sharp pain in my chest was an overreaction. Once my body caught up with my brain, it would dissipate. Deacon and I had only been seeing each other a couple weeks. Our proximity had intensified what should have still been casual, and I’d let myself get carried away from the nostalgia of it all.

When it came down to it, we were so new we were barely a blip. We hadn’t gone public with…whatever we were, so ending it would be like it had never happened. Being neighbors might be awkward for a time, but that would fade. I was sure of it.

If this pain in my chest would just get the message.

I’d allowed myself to be hidden away by a man once, and it hadn’t ended well. I should have known this time would be the same. But Deacon was so different from Jared. I’d let myself believe his reasons for not wanting to go to Grey’s or spend time at Sugar Rush.

I groaned again, wishing Hannah was still upstairs. She’d be down in an instant to stroke my hair while cussing out Deacon and every other man who’d done us wrong. Just thinking about what she might’ve said made me smile. I could almost hear her voice.

“Goddamn no-good men. What use are they anyway?”

“I know a good place to bury the body. They’d never find him.”

“No one ignores my Phoebe.”

The sound of Deacon’s truck pulling into the driveway made me stiffen. He must’ve left the bar shortly after I had.

Was he bringing one of those women home with him?

I couldn’t stop myself from going to the window even as my stomach clenched. As hard as I’d worked to convince myself none of this mattered, the wave of relief that crashed over me at seeing him alone was so immense my knees went weak.

It seemed my body was still warring with my brain. I hadn’t made the decision to open my door until it had already happened.

Deacon paused with one foot on the stairs, his head jerking up to find me standing there. Neither of us said a word. I folded my arms around my middle. He stared.

No, staring wasn’t the right word. His eyes scanned me inch by inch, like he was committing every facet to memory.

“Deacon,” I whispered.

The sound of my voice snapped him out of his momentary pause. His boots hit the stairs hard. When he reached my landing, he stopped but didn’t face me, giving me the rigid lines of his profile.

“You always knew I was a piece of shit.”

His eyes slid sideways toward me then darted away just as quickly before he continued up to his apartment. The door closing behind him sounded like finality—the ending of some of the sweetest weeks I’d ever experienced.

“You always knew I was a piece of shit.”

I hadn’t thought that. Not once. Even now, with my chest cracked down the middle, I didn’t think it.

But it didn’t really matter what I thought. Whatever Deacon and I could have had was over before it had really begun.

Chapter Twenty

Deacon

Mysandwichtastedlikesawdust, but I chewed by rote anyway. Chris’s eyes were on me, waiting for me to start talking. If I kept my mouth full, I could put him off until our lunch break was over.

“You’re not getting out of this.”

I took another bite.

“You canceled our Saturday night plans without an explanation, and today, you look like death warmed over. Do you really believe I’m going to let you off the hook?” He nudged my shoulder. “Talk, dammit. What happened?”

I swallowed hard and looked out at the highway. We were on our asses on the side of a grassy hill next to the road, the sun bathing our spot with warmth, the traffic whizzing by in a nice, low hum. It wasn’t the worst place in the world to be, not with my best friend sitting next to me and a few other decent guys on our crew around us, but I might as well have been back in prison. Looking over my shoulder every day wasn’t freedom.

“It’s over,” I muttered. “It was never going to work.”

“What’s that mean?”

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