Page 47 of Cold Foot Revenge
“Are you okay?”
She forced a smile. He could tell it was an effort. “I’m great.”
Dylan pulled out of the parking spot and drove around the building to park out back. “I’m no shifter and I can’t hear a lie, but I can still sense a lie. It’s okay to not be great right now, Wolf Mask. Tonight was wild.”
“Yeah, but I’ve had wilder.”
He backed in between two trucks that were jacked up like his, and turned to her as he put it into park. “That’s okay.”
“What’s the wildest night you’ve had?” she asked, and there was combativeness to her voice.
“Ooooh I see. This is the part where we fight because you don’t know what to do with your fear, right?”
“Fuck off,” she muttered, ripping her glare away from him to give it to a blue dumpster across the small back parking lot.
It stung. He gritted his teeth against a response and shook his head. He wasn’t going to do it. Not when she was raw and emotional like this. He got out and saw her move to open her door out of his peripheral vision.
“Stop,” he ground out. “Wait for me.”
“What?” she snapped.
He blew out a steadying breath. “A little patience, Roxy. Let me get your door.”
“You don’t have to do that, Dylan. You don’t have to be a gentleman with me. I’m just a stripper you met a few days ago.”
Whoo, she was looking for a way to burn it down right now.
“That’s not what you are to me,” he said low. “Wait.”
Roxy searched his face, and whatever she saw there, she took her hand off the handle and did wait for him to come around the front and open her door. She even let him help her down, after a second of hesitation to touch his hand.
She was going to figure him out eventually though—her damage didn’t scare him. Not even a little.
He’d been built to weather storms, and that’s what was building now.
He was comfortable in the chaos. He wouldn’t choose the chaos, but he was comfortable in it.
She moved to take her hand from his grasp as he shut the truck door, but he held onto it tight. Nope. She wasn’t going to do the dumb distance shit.
Thank God for tiny blessings, that woman let him lead her to the first-floor motel room, her hand soft in his. He felt her looking around while he beeped the key card on the door and let them in, and he hated that. Hated that she felt hunted.
One more day.
When they were inside and the door closed and locked behind them, he rounded on her and pulled her against him.
“Stop,” she said, pushing against his chest.
He released her and leveled her with a look. “Won’t work, so you stop it.”
Roxy’s eyes were glowing with defiance, and she crossed her arms over her chest, staring at the pattern of the outdated floral wallpaper. Her lip trembled and he hated it.
“I watched my brother die,” he said softly.
She glanced at him, and then back to the wallpaper.
“I searched the damn bar, texted him half a dozen times. It wasn’t like him to disappear. I was always the one who ran off and found a group of strangers to buy random shots with.It was me who would go home with a random girl and forget to text him that I was leaving. I was the problem child, Roxy. I was the chaotic one who couldn’t hold down a job, and my taste in relationships was shit, and I drank too much, and I didn’t give a fuck if my friends had to spend half their night tracking me down, as long as I was having fun. Garret never, ever did that. He was the one who kept everyone together, and made sure everyone was good. He was the good one, Rox. He was good. Fuck,” he muttered as the vision of Garret’s body by that dumpster flashed across her mind and he knew he would tell someone for the first time ever what it was really like. “When Garret disappeared at that bar, I just had this feeling something was wrong. I panicked. I asked everyone if they’d seen him. I went to the bars next door and looked for him. Checked that his truck was still parked out front twice. Called his name down the street. I walked the long way around the building looking for him. Looking for anyone who could tell me where my brother was.” He cleared his throat and sank down on the edge of the bed, and cracked his knuckles. “I found him by that dumpster out back, where the cameras are dead. Leech or Grave, or whoever had injected that shit into his body weren’t around. Or if they were, I couldn’t see them. The alley was dark, but I could still see him good enough. Garret was having a seizure when I found him. There was foam on his mouth and his eyes were rolled back in his head, and I was yelling for help. ‘Somebody help my brother. Somebody call 9-1-1,’” he said softly. Screaming at the top of my lungs and no one came. No one heard me. No one helped. I’d left my phone inside—.” His voice cracked on the last word and he swallowed hard. “Do you know how many times I’ve kicked myself for not having my phone with me? Who does that? Who goes on a search for someone and leaves their phone in the damn bar? Me. The fuck-up. The chaotic one. Garret would’ve done it better if it was the other way around,and Roxy…do you know how many times I’ve wished it was me instead?” He nearly choked on the admission.
She relaxed her arms to her side now, and her eyes had lost that spark of defensiveness. Understanding swam there now.
