Page 138 of Burn

I don’t, but I let her think I do before I find the liquor cabinet.

I pour a drink and take a sip of it. Then another, then the entire bottle’s gone before I know it and I’m using a water bottle to disguise it from my mother because she’s watching me like a hawk. She knows I’m struggling today and always warns me about turning to alcohol to numb the pain. The problem is no amount of whiskey willevernumb this pain.

An hour later, Jacey finds me again. This time she’s glaring at Daphne. “I’m going to punch Daphne,” she tells me, stealing my water bottle, taking a sniff of it and then handing it back to me. “She knew him what, like two weeks?”

I laugh, the action slow as I blink just as slowly. “I don’t know . . . it was at least a few months.”

She rolls her eyes. “Still. She’s acting like she knew him for years.”

Attempting to sit up, I have to scoot over on the chair to get Jacey off my lap as she sits beside me in a chair that’snotmeant for two people. “Let’s be fair here,” I point out. “When Patrick Swayze died, you cried for a week and told me twice . . .twice, you weren’t sure if you could go to work.”

“Oh, whatever.” She blows me off, rolling her eyes. “You’re just being an asshole now.”

“It’s what I’m good at.” My stare moves over the room to Daphne being comforted in the opposite corner by my mother as if she’s lost the love of her life. “Okay.” I lean back trying to push Jacey off the chair completely. “You have a point.”

“How much do you want to bet she tells someone they were engaged?”

“Oh, probably.” And then I feel the need to add, “They weren’t.”

She nods, tears falling from her reddened eyes. “I know.”

It’s a minute later when I lean forward, my elbows on my knees. Twisting my head, I stare at her and knock my knee into hers. “He wanted to marry you.”

Jacey laughs, shaking her head. It’s the last thing she wants to believe. “I’m not in the mood to be lied to.”

“I’m not lying to you. Corbin found a ring in his locker.”

Jacey takes off to the bathroom, crying, and I think maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned the last part.

Nobody will miss Evan like Jacey will. Especially not now that she’s pregnant with his baby, a baby she’s going to have to raise on her own.

I can’t say their relationship was ever pure. Evan and Jacey hurt a lot of people along the way, including themselves. But their love, it was real and fucking deep. It can still be felt, even now, in this room, overshadowing everything else in it.

I’m pissed off they can’t have a chance at forever together, especially now. She fucking deserves it after everything he put her through, and I’m angry at him, at the world, at everything that she can’t have her happy ever after.

As I’m leaving my parents’ house that night, I find Mila leaning against the wall.

She waits for me to speak, her comfort radiating from her.

Standing before her, I bury my hands in the pockets of my black slacks and take a step closer, wondering at what point she’ll tell me to leave her alone or run away from me. I’ve known her three months and asked her to come to my brother’s funeral. I still don’t know why I did, just that I didn’t want to be here without her.

And as I look at her now, time stops, sounds cease, everything around us silent when her hand touches my cheek. “Let’s go back to your place.”

Removing my right hand from my pocket, I take her hand that’s not on my cheek drawing her into my chest. “Thank you for being here for me today.”

Our eyes lock as we gauge each other and try to figure out the next step in this unfamiliar dance we seem to be involved in. The one where I step around what I really want to say and she lets me.

With a sigh, Mila melts into my embrace, her head dropping to my chest. “I’ll always be here for you.”

I scramble to think of something to say to her, something to ease her worries that I don’t care for her, but I’ve got nothing, at least not words.

Sometimes there’s a pain you can’t touch. Nothing can. Nothing even comes close to breaking through the steel barrier surrounding it.

And then there are times when one person has the ability to do just that.

Determinate

A code given by dispatch (Alpha-Echo) showing the severity of a call and how you should respond.

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