All I had wanted wasto forget and something inside of me had insisted that Aiyanna would be the perfect one to help me forget. But as soon as I tasted her lips and felt her hesitate, I knew I had been wrong. She wasn’t like any other girl at the bar that I could use to numb myself. That was the dangerous part.
She didn’t make me numb. She set me on fire and that was the one thing I didn’t want to happen.
Chapter Twenty
Aiyanna
My phone buzzedwith a text message.How many times do I need to beg? I just want my daughter back.
Blocked.
“Uh hem,” A feminine voice spoke up from in front of me. I placed my phone down and looked for Mikey.Gone. The girl in front of me was the blonde that hung out with Derek. She liked frozen margaritas. Her brown eyes watched me with mischief. “You’re Aiyanna, right? We met downtown a few months ago? It seems like a lifetime now.”
I nodded my head. I wasn’t sure I was ready to have a real conversation with this woman. This woman was one of them. I knew talking to her would change things even more.
“This is probably really weird,” She started. “But I saw you leaving Derek’s last night.”
Deadpanned. My face feels warm and I don’t know what to say yet again. I wished I had gone with the long bright wig, instead of this short number. I feel like I have nowhere to hide. She must sense this because she backpedals and holds her hands out in front of her. “I wasn’t insinuating anything, I just wanted to talk. He has been even more distant since what happened and I want to know that he’s talking to someone.”
I felt myself relax a notch.
She continued on. She was rather adorable. She was a good foot shorter than me and her hair was curled around her heart-shaped face. She waved her hands around animatedly as she spoke. “My daughter adores him and I just want to know that he will make it through this.”
“He’s a big boy, he can handle himself.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew how wrong they were. How bad they tasted. How terrible it sounded. I had no idea what had happened over there and yet, here I was making assumptions that he was fine when I knew it was the opposite.
The woman leans forward and I instantly remember her name. Elise. “Derek has been through a lot. He’s lost a lot. I don’t know if he will recover from losing Brody too.”
Her words bring me back to that night he showed me his tattoos. I remember the names scrawled across his skin. “What happened?”
“Brody was shot in front of him.” Elise looks down at her little hands. Her fingernails are painted blue and I instantly know that I like her. That I want to be friends with her. “He tried to save him and Brody died in his arms.”
That wasn’t what I was asking but now that it’s out, I want it to be taken back. I didn’t want to know. Now I have to feel and hurt and grieve and I desperately didn’t want to.
“I wasn’t asking about that,” I bite my lip and try to keep my voice from trembling. “I was asking about the names that are tattooed on his body. The people that he thinks he killed.”
She puffed her cheeks out and shrugged. “That’s not a story for me to tell. Ask Derek. The worst he’ll do is grunt.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at that. She was right.
“Just be careful, he doesn’t get close to many and I don’t want to see you get hurt.” Elise reached for my hands but then thought better of it and pulled away.
“I can promise you that he won’t be able to break a heart that wasn’t there to begin with.” I shrug a shoulder up. “I lost mine when I lost my mother.”
Elise looked at the floor. “I lost my father.”
I wished I had lost mine too.
The key clicked in the lock and I breathed a sigh of relief. I needed to take another break from this place. All of the people and all of the stories that I could hear above the pounding music. After a few weeks of working all day and night, I was starting to get burnt out again. But I needed something, anything to help keep me busy.
“You should really look into getting a security detail for when you leave this place.” My body jumped at the sound of Derek’s voice so close. “I can’t tell you how many losers were out here waiting for you to go to your car.”
I turned around with a smile on my face and gestured to the corner of the bar where Vince was waiting. He stepped out of the shadows a look of surprise flashed across Derek’s handsome face. “Vince hangs around until I get in my car safely. You don’t have to worry about that.”
Vince watched Derek and they both sized each other up before Vince nodded in my direction and walked away. He didn’t live too far away and always insisted that he liked to walk home each night. I didn’t know how his wife felt comfortable with it, but Vince was a pretty scary dude. My eyes shifted back to the broody guy leaning against his motorcycle.
“He must like you,” I remarked. “He wouldn’t have left if he thought I was in danger.”
“Do you think you’re in danger?” His voice took an icy tilt to it and for a minute, I wondered how much danger Derek could bring into my life.
