Page 33 of Reacher
“Promise me you guys won’t do anything stupid with that. The fact that Ice had it, rather than you guys, worries me. Be safe.”
Tori nodded again. “We will. Look, I really appreciate this. Let me pay you for doing it.”
“Forget it. I don’t even want to think about this ever again.”
She chewed her lip. “I’m sorry if this makes things difficult between you and Reacher. I don’t want that. I don’t want anyone to suffer for what… for my issues.”
“Me either. I need to get back, before I’m missing when he gets back. Again. Mind you… last time worked out really well, if you know what I mean.” I wiggled my eyebrows and she giggled.
“Only an idiot would miss your point, and I’m definitely not an idiot.”
I stared at her arm, hiding the drugs behind her back.
“I’m not so sure about that, babe.”
We heard heavy footsteps coming up the stairs, so she hurriedly closed the door, and I started walking towards the stairs.
“Hi Alicia.” It was Ryder, and he looked exhausted.
“How’s Ice?”
He sighed, and even that sounded like pure exhaustion.
“Same. Silent, still, pale as fuck. It’s so weird. I mean, the guy never sleeps. I… it’s weird that it’s all he can do now. He’ll hate the fact that we’ve all seen him like this.”
I patted his arm gently. “He’ll be fine. He has all of you behind him, right?”
He nodded. “You were here to see Tori?”
“Yeah. Girl talk and stuff, you know.”
He glanced down the stairs at the sound of a voice bellowing his name.Reacher.
“Fuck. I don’t even get five minutes?”
I shrugged, walking past him to stare down at Reacher, who was glaring up the stairs, but hopefully couldn’t see me, or I’d be wondering what I’d done to piss him off. I mean, that he might already know about, since he couldn’t know about the infirmary visit, right?
“I can distract him for a few minutes if you want to see Tori.”
“Nah… let’s get this out of the way, then I can spend the rest of the evening with her.”
Reacher watched us approaching, a deep frown on his face. He twitched in my direction, like he wanted to grab hold of me or something, and I almost went straight to him, except for feeling like my betrayal of him was tainting me right now, painted across my skin. I prayed he’d never find out.
“Ally? Why were you uh… what are you doing out of our room?”
I pointed behind him at the bar, forcing myself to focus on him, and not what I just did to save someone else’s relationship, maybe at the expense of my own.
“I thought I’d grab something to eat if you’re gonna be in meetings?” He stared at me for a long moment, then cursed, turning his glare on Ryder.
“Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll join you. Can you order for me?”
I forced a carefree shrug.
“Whatever.” I watched his jaw clench, and grinned, loving the way it felt to push him. I was already looking forward to the retribution later. Maybe I hadn’t just thrown everything away after all, maybe he wouldn’t find out, and we could just be happy.
Reacher
Fuckingwomanlovedpushingmy buttons. It pissed me off that I had to put that on hold to deal with Ryder.
