Page 47 of Renegade Ruin

“I’m asking you to make my days easier.”

Her stone facade cracks, and she closes her eyes, shutting me out. “I can’t heal you, Bishop,” she whispers, her voice strangled.

Can’t. Not won’t.

For fuck’s sake, that’s what you heard?

Leave me the fuck alone,I chastise my teammates.You aren’t here and I’m fucking trying.

“I’m not asking you to heal me.”

Willow’s eyes pop open, and what once were stony pools of blue are now a raging storm. “No, you’re asking me to let you use me.”

“No. Fuck. This is coming out all wrong. To be honest, it made a lot more sense in my head.” I run a hand through my hair, and I regret not making myself a glass of scotch. “It’s crazy. I know that, but I’m desperate. I can’t lose baseball, and I can’t—talking isn’t something I want to do. I need action. Something tangible.”

“So, fucking the grief away is your answer? For how long? How long does that last?” Willow pushes off the desk and stands in front of me, her knees now inches from mine. “I gave you one night. I gave you your distraction. All I’m hearing is you, you, you. You think you’re the only one who’s desperate to run from these feelings? Well, let me tell you, Bishop Lawson, you’re not. You don’t own the cornerstone on grief. Some of us don’t get the luxury of falling apart and coming up with half-cocked ideas to cope. Some of us only get the fleeting moments and then have to get up every morning, and put on our big girl panties, and figure out how the hell we’re going to make something of nothing, knowing damn well we’re going to hate ourselves for the bullshit games we have to play. Some of us have to learn to live whileplaying with one hand tied behind our back. When are you going to realize—” Her eyes go wide, matching my own. Except where I’m stunned into silence, she’s choking on the tears streaming down her face.

I haven’t seen her lose it like this since the morning she showed up on those courthouse steps. Even then, she held it together. First for me, and then for the team when that reporter showed up. Then on the plane, when her panic was as palpable as the air at thirty-thousand feet, she managed to keep it together enough to help me.

Fuck, I’m an idiot.

No shit,Jackson whispers, but I can’t focus on him. Not when Willow has actively let her wall down in front of me.

“Fuck. I’m sorry,” she stammers, her curse hitting me like a freight train. “I shouldn’t be taking this out on you. It’s just been a rough day.”

She makes a move to step back, but I grab her wrist, keeping her in front of me. Her eyes dart to my fingers and then back to mine, and I give her a pointed look.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Willow huffs a laugh. “With you?”

“We used to talk before,” I say with a sheepish shrug, remembering all the hopes and dreams we shared under the umbrella of orgasms and stolen moments.

She yanks her arm and turns away, her eyes locked on the wood floor worn into what looks like a path from pacing. “Pillow talk with you is barely an almost when it comes to talking.”

Hurt aches in my chest, accompanied by the spider web of grief—tangling, suffocating me with every passing moment. “I gave you a piece of me on those nights.”

I did. Before our lives were upended, I gave her more than I gave most because I still had hope.

“And I treasured it.” Willow scoffs, not bothering to hide her own hurt any longer. “Can you say the same?”

I want to say I did, I do, but my actions since then won’t let me. Lost in my own emotions, I’ve failed her on every front since the crash.

The question is, what are you going to do about it now?

I suck in a gasp at the new voice making an appearance in my head. It’s Norah. She was always the voice of reason. The person who never shied away from asking the hard questions. I suppose in death it wouldn’t be any different. But I don’t have an answer for her. I came here with a plan and even though it now seems half thought out, the weight of it still holds true.

One night wasn’t enough to distract us—me—for more than a week. And I get the feeling it’s the same for Willow. She wasn’t joking in the hotel when she said she needed it as much as I did. She’s not keeping it together—she’s falling apart—and even though there’s every reason we shouldn’t do it together, I want to look past every single one.

I slide to the edge of the chair and rest my forearms on my thighs, looking up at where Willow stands. “Let me ask you this. Was your day better or worse after last Sunday night?”

Even though she still won’t face me completely, her eyes slowly track to meet mine. I love that with her walls down, I can see her mind working as she chews on the question. She opens her mouth then closes it, repeating the movement once, then twice.

“Don’t lie to me now, Willow. What’s your gut say.”

She lets out a sigh that feels a lot like she’s trying to rebuild those walls. “That’s not the point. I shouldn’t have lost it on you like that. It’s unprofessional at best and?—”

My words cut off her nervous ramble. “Because me showing up here and asking to fuck the grief away is all sorts of professional.”

---