Aidan nodded. Lifted the gun. “I’m sorry, Greg. Really I am.” He fired.
The shot seemed to echo, again and again, traveling across the tossing grasses in waves. Aidan turned away from the slumped form in the chair and set off at a fast walk, past Carter and Fox, away from the light of the truck. His hands curled into fists and the skin was tight with dried blood. His stomach heaved, and he just managed to make it into the shadows before he doubled over and threw up.
He retched for a long time afterward, eyes shut tight, breathing through his mouth in fitful gasps.
A hand landed on his shoulder, the touch radiating comfort. “That was good,” Fox said in his even, calming London accent. “I’m proud of you.”
He wasn’t proud of himself, though.
~*~
Sam knew sleep would evade her, so she didn’t even try. She sat up against her headboard in bed, laptop on her stomach, working on the novel she was writing for school. She’d begun a few weeks ago with the best of intentions: a contemporary, literary novel full of witticisms and post-modern observations. Instead, her imagination had taken hold and it was fast turning into a Gothic sob fest of a book.
When her phone rang, she was glad of the distraction. But then she caught the time on her bedside clock and fear spiked in the pit of her belly. It was almost three in the morning, which meant this wasn’t a social call.
The screen told her it was Aidan.
“Hello?” she said, trying not to sound as worried as she felt. He didn’t respond at first. “Aidan?”
He breathed across the phone, the sound like the rustling of leaves. “I wanna see you.” His voice was all wrong.
Sam sat up and put her laptop off onto the bed. “Where are you?” In her mind, she was already in her car and headed toward him. That voice…a shudder passed through her.
“I don’t want you on the road this late. I’ll come by.” Then: “Can Icome by?”
Turning him away didn’t cross her mind. “Of course.”
She was waiting in the kitchen when she heard his bike pull up. She had the door open before he reached it, and he didn’t pause, didn’t give her any space or wait to judge her reaction. He came in from the cold night on a fast lunge, grabbed her up and clasped her tight to his chest. Her feet were lifted off the floor and he carried her back into the kitchen, heeled the door shut.
And then he just held her for long moments, arms tight as iron bands around her back. He was shivering.
Sam waited, hands clasped loosely to his shoulders, letting him work through it. “Do you want to tell me about it?” she asked.
He took a deep breath and let it out against her neck, breath warm, eliciting little tingles of excitement across her skin. “No.”
A chill moved through her – the good kind. She knew without question that she was at one of those on-the-brink moments. If she wanted to, she could step back, turn him gently away, and offer friendship. She could coax him to talk out his problems like a rational adult, provide suggestions. And then she could go back to bed, alone, stare at her computer screen until her eyes glazed over with tears.
But she knew this moment had the potential to go a very different way. And he’d told her he loved her. And his life was upside down. And there was a bloody gaping hole in her heart, one she’d ripped herself when she pushed him away.
Sam pulled back, just far enough to see his face, the total devastation in his dark eyes. A lump formed in her throat. “No more secrets,” she whispered. “That’s the only way we can do this. It has to be all or nothing, Aidan. Full bore, no matter how bad things get. I can’t live without you,” she admitted. “But I can’t live a lie, either.”
He nodded, face grave. Took a deep breath. “I killed a man tonight.”
“By…accident?”
“I shot him in the heart at point blank range. For Kev,” he added. “I had to go through him to get to Kev.”
Sam clutched his biceps and listened to the pounding of her heart, waiting for the revulsion to set it.
It didn’t.
She lifted her hands and pressed them to his face, the bristly planes of his cheeks. She held him still, searched his eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, because clearly, it had devastated him.
His smile was grim and humorless. “My life’s not pretty. It’s never gonna be.”
“Nobody’s is.”
When he kissed her, she knew her fate was sealed: good or bad, through bullets or babies, she was with Aidan. She’d never really had a choice in the matter anyway.
