Page 72 of Stitch
Reacher and Alicia followed Ice in, both fully dressed and clearly more awake than I felt.
“He left me.”
Reacher groaned, running a hand through his hair before he looked straight at Ice.
“Get tracking him. He must have his phone.”
“He has mine too. He… everything’s still in the mobile home.”
“What happened, love?”
I met Reacher’s eyes as he sat down on a chair and faced me.
“I don’t know… I was talking to Ice, and he freaked out.”
“I touched her, and I know I shouldn’t have, because that set him off.” Reacher shot a glare in Ice’s direction, before turning back to me. Ice was tapping away at a tablet and muttering to himself already anyway.
“I asked Ice for a favour, and when Stitch saw us talking, he went off at me. Well, at Ice, actually.”
“If he touched you, I’m surprised Stitch didn’t take him down. You don’t touch a brother’s old lady.”
Sadness filled me at the reminder that I wasn’t even that to him. I saw the same sadness reflected on Alicia’s face in that moment, and saw how it hurt her that she was a wife, but not an old lady. She deserved that fucking title for sure. She was like a mother to the club members.
“You know, you should just make her your old lady, regardless of any opposition. She’s your old lady already, in her heart, where it counts.”
Reacher’s frown smoothed, and he caught Alicia’s hand, dragging it into his lap to wrap both hands around it.
“I appreciate that, but get back to what happened with Stitch. Why were you talking to Ice?”
I heard Ice groan, and took a deep breath, because I’d started all this mess, and it wasn’t fair of me to have dragged him into our business like that, even though he’d refused. He’d been right to refuse too, but it still left us without answers.
“I asked him to hack something for me, and he refused. He’s right to say hell no, but I was desperate.”
Reacher didn’t look away from me.
“Hack what? Stop dragging this out, Cammy, because right now my brother is out there hurting, and likely doing something dangerous or stupid. Sometimes a man needs to be saved from himself, you feeling me?”
Oh god.I hadn’t even thought about him hurting himself, but hadn’t he just lost everything he thought he had? At least, that was how he saw everything, so what the hell were we doing sitting here?
“Oh god.” I was up and out of the seat, and Lissa’s attempt to grab me missed by an inch. Reacher caught me at the door, however, and hauled me back by myarm. Something he wouldn’t have been able to do if only Stitch were here with us right now.
“Speak, dammit.”
I swallowed hard. “I told him that I couldn’t go on like this. That it was breaking my heart.”
“For fuck’s sake!” Reacher stormed from the room, with Alicia offering me an apologetic smile as she hurried after him.
Lissa caught my arm, but I was still standing there dumbly, knowing the weight of the words I’d carelessly spoken to a man on the edge. Whatever happened next would be entirely my fault.
“You broke up with him?”
“No! God no, that’s not what I meant, but I think that’s how he took it.”
Ice stood up, looking at both of us before he headed for the door.
“Let’s go.”
Stitch
