Ace
Let’s see. I’ve puked six times, and cried so hard my eyes have dried into raisins. It was a four-hour drive from Spokane back to Seattle, but there weren’t any flights until late the next day, so it was faster to get to the car rental place as soon as they opened and jump onto the highway.
Luke drove. I was too much of a mess.
Yeah, Luke.
Don’t know why it surprised me that he came with, exactly. It makes sense that Coach wouldn’t be able to leave the team, and I’d have to go on my own. It’s even believable that I wasn’t in a state to drive and would need someone to do it. But when Luke was shoving his items into his duffle bag, I was shocked.
“If you think I’m letting you go to the hospital alone, princess, you don’t know me very well.”
I went on autopilot after that, letting him take care of everything. He grabbed me by the hand, and we were out of the hotel before the team was up.
“Try to sleep if you can, baby,” he said.
But I couldn’t. What if these were the last minutes that I was awake while Dad was alive? Might sound stupid, but I would rather be awake, suffocating under all my regrets about our relationship over the past few years, than sleep through them.
We might not make it there in time. East made that fucking clear.
He’s there, of course. Probably can’t wait for my dad to go, so he can cash in on whatever Dad surely left him in the will. They’re not married yet, but I know what Dad’s like. He’ll have changed that thing as soon as they were engaged.
East’s voice, though.
I want to be mad at him, so fucking bad, and he’s the best target for my rage.But his voice.The raw, jagged words that bled through the phone were the definition of heartbreak. They might haunt me for the rest of my fucking life.
Luke pulls over in the hospital parking lot and turns off the car.
“What are you doing?” I croak.
“What does it look like? I’m coming with you.”
“No. I need you to stay here.”
Luke scoffs. “Like hell that’s happening.”
“I’m not ready to tell them about you.”
“No one knows who we are here—I’ll wait in the lobby.”
He’s right. But my insides scream at me. He can’t come with me—hecan’t. “I don’t need you in there breathing down my fucking neck while I try to keep it together. Just stay the fuck here.”
My voice isn’t me. It’s a screech. It’s desperate. It’s afraid. My lip trembles as my chest feels like it might cave in. I must look like a wild thing.
Luke takes a heavy breath as if it’s taking all his will to stay still. “I really don’t think?—”
“I don’t even know what the fuck your real job is,” I blurt out.
“Ace—”
“No. This is feral. Batshit. You’re not a professor, everybody knows that, so what is it you do, huh? Bet it’s the mafia. You’re in the mafia, and I just can’t be with someone who … I dunno, does mafia shit.”
“Mafia shit?” Luke raises a brow. “It sounds like you know a lot about mafia goings-on. You’ve done your research on ‘us’, clearly.”
Okay, so the mafia comment was wild. But it doesn’t make my first comment any less true.
“Just stay the fuck here, okay?” My heart’s racing, and I can’t catch up with it.
Luke’s fingers curl around the steering wheel, physically holding himself in place this time. “Fine. I’ll wait.”
