Page 65 of Torch
“Seriously, don’t worry about me. You do you. You wanna leave, you fucking leave, because that’s what people do, right? They let you care for them, and then they fucking destroy you. Like this fucking shitty life isn’t hard enough already, why the fuck would I expect anyone to stick around for me?”
I felt like I’d been kicked, because that wasn’t what I’d meant at all, but suddenly he was pushing me away, like he’d expected me to go this whole time.
“You’ve had your fun with your bit of rough, doc. Go back to your posh life, and your posh house, and that posh fucking car of yours. Not like you need to stick around now, right? The threat to your safety is fucking gone. So now you need to be too.”
“Torch, I was-”
“I said leave, so get the fuck out of here.” He got off the bed and stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door and locking it. I waited for him. I waited ten minutes. Then twenty. Why the hell wasn’t he coming out of there?
It was some dumb assumption he’d made, and I needed to set it right, but after half an hour of him avoiding me, I couldn’t take it anymore. Rejection burned like fire. It really fucking hurt. He thought I’d rejected him, so now he was rejecting me.
I dressed quickly, and grabbed my things, letting myself out of his room, and heading down the stairs. The clubhouse was quiet, almost eerily so, because fewer people were staying in it now that the threat was gone. It wasn’t the only thing gone, was it? Where was the love I thought I’d found? The home. Thefuture.
“Doc, are you leaving?” Reacher was sitting in the bar with a coffee, looking as worn out as I felt right now.
“Yeah,” I said wearily, heading past him before he could try and talk to me more. I had about enough composure to get me through the gates, and then I was going to lose it. How could I have just been dumped, when I thought we were starting a life together.
A sob tried to escape, but I choked it back, starting to run for the door, even though I knew I wouldn’t make it out now with any semblance of dignity.
A gentle arm wrapped around me, and tugged me away from the front doors, and into a small room. An office.
“Seems like you need to talk to someone, doc, and I’m not letting you leave here in this state, you hear me?” When the Club President spoke, who the hell was I to argue? I fell heavily into the seat he guided me to, and buried my face in my hands.
“Let me see if I can figure this out. Torch just shoved you away, because he’s a fucking idiot who can’t see the best thing that’s ever happened to him, even though you’re right there in front of him. How am I doing so far?”
Thirty-Two
Iwasafuckingasshole. The second the door closed behind her, I stepped out of the bathroom, half hoping she’d pretended to leave, that she’d realised I was being a complete fucker, and didn’t want her to go. This was how I operated though. I fucked things up, when they got really fucking good.
I’d never been with a woman as long as I’d been with Grace, and I fucking threw it away, because I was a pathetic pussy, who thought one fucking disagreement meant a relationship was doomed, because what the fuck did I know about this stuff?
I almost followed her, almost begged her to come back to me, hell, I even dialled her phone, but I ended the call after two rings, because I realised I had no fucking right to try and get her back, after treating her like that.
My usual MO was to fuck and move on. Get pussy, get ass, whatever, then fucking go home, and forget about whoever the hell I was with, but she got under my skin. She got in my fucking head, and Jesus, my heart, and I didn’t want to let her go. Yet one fucking disagreement, and I was throwing her away, like what we had wasn’t worth clinging to with a fucking death grip.
I was such a fucking dickhead, wasn’t I? I finished dressing, because I’d only half dressed earlier, and slid on my cut, the final piece of my wardrobe, and the most important garment I owned, because it represented everything that mattered to me. Everything but her. I needed to find her, and beg her to come back to me.
We were no longer under a lockdown, so of course I could have fucking just got out of here and hunted her down. Maybe she wasn’t even at the gates yet. Fuck. I’d mocked everything about her life, like her being successful and powerful was something to be ashamed of. How could I be so proud of all she’d fucking achieved for herself, while simultaneously knocking her for the same damn thing?
I stepped out of my room and ran for the stairs, and cursed as someone stepped up in front of me, with his hands up.
“Back off, brother. I’m not letting you down there, so back off.” Why the fuck Grease, aka Tesio, thought he had any right to fucking dictate to me, I had no idea, but I also didn’t know why he was trying to keep me in the damn building. Wait, what was he saying?
“Down where?”
He rolled his eyes, starting to look and act so much like one of us, that you could almost forget he was fucking mafia underneath it all.
“Where you do think, asshat?”
Micro. He thought I was coming down for him, and I had been planning that just an hour ago, right? Now though, I had a higher priority, and he was getting in my fucking way.
“Move now. I need to be somewhere.”
“No, you don’t, man. The one strict order they gave me was to keep you away from him, especially if you have your bag of… uh…” he glanced at both of my hands as I lifted them up, to show I held nothing in them. “You’re not here for Micro, are you?”
I shook my head. “Did my pretty fucking lady come by here?”
He shrugged, running a hand through his inky black hair.
