Chapter 28
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
Trav
My phone won’t stop buzzing, but instead of the person—the only fucking person—I want to call me, it’s Maxwell.
I stood him up for our spa date, and he’s been relentless.
Texting and calling. I didn’t expect him to show up, but of course he had, and of course it was when Dirk got back.
I turn the fucking thing off, missing the days you could pick it up and slam it onto the receiver.
Don’t give a fuck about Maxwell.
I’m in hell. That’s what life is without my pretty boy—damnation. I haven’t been able to pull in a full breath since he walked away. All my resolve fell out of me. Dirk might not want to resent me if I go after Robin, but he will, and I can’t fucking risk that.
And there was something else there. It’s buried so deep, I’m not even sure he knows it’s still bothering him.
Choose. Us.
His mother didn’t choose him. He needs a man who will always choose him.
I’m in a lose-lose situation. In option A, I leave my son vulnerable to a predator; in option B, I cause a rift between me and the love of my life. I risk carving a hole in his chest that’ll always make him doubt us. It was enough to shake me out of the murder-focused rage and breathe.
If only I could get Dash’s battered arms out of my head, maybe that would clear up some room for rational thinking, but I’m only juuuuust out of kill mode.
Rational’s a little hard to come by, but I was calm enough to entertain other ideas.
I hope Dirk likes my new plan. Speaking of Dirk, he gets one more day without me, and then I drag his ass back here.
We don’t exist without the other, period.
I could use the extra day to get my head right.
Bryce strolls through the door for Dirk’s shift. This’ll be fun. Bryce is too green to take one of Dirk’s shifts, but I didn’t have many options. I wasn’t gonna call Dash or anyone from their crew. That would raise questions, and questions are the last thing I need right now.
But naturally, along with Bryce, his guard dog, Maverick, glides in, surveying the restaurant for potential threats. Hmph. If he’s gonna be here, he should work. Or maybe I should kick him out—no Elkingtons allowed.
Bryce heads into the back, while Maverick chats up the hostees, charming his way into the table he wants. There’s no way he didn’t catch that I was behind the bar top, but he knows he can’t sweet-talk me.
I wave down the hostess he’s flashing his Elkington smolder at, with plans of slipping that knowledge to Bryce later, and she directs him to me. Maverick shrugs, taking a seat where I point at the bar top.
“Why are you bothering the hosts?”
“Oh? Do you seat your own guests now? I thought that was the hostess’s job?”
“You’re not a guest, Maverick, more like a cockroach I can’t get rid of.”
“Don’t take your marital problems out on me.”
How does he know about me and Dirk’s spat? There are too many possibilities to know for sure.
“I’ll have soda water, lots of lemon and lime.”
“No scotch today?” I raise a brow. Most twenty-somethings drink beer, while he sips Johnnie Walker Blue.
“No more booze for me, period. Hockey season’s on the horizon. I take my career seriously.”
I might have gotten a tad too invested in the drama this summer, because I’m curious to know what kind of solution he’s got in store for him and Bryce.
Their situation is especially challenging—it’s not one but two hockey schedules to sort out.
Maverick will play for Vancouver, and Bryce travels with his older brother’s team in New York to help with Stanley.
“Who’s gonna keep an eye on your boyfriend while you play hockey?” I pour him the soda, shoving the insert filled with lemons and limes toward him.
Maverick looks around, eyes darting toward the kitchen door. “Don’t call him that. He gets pissed when I call him that.”
“You didn’t care before.”
“Things change. I’m on thin ice with him. Didn’t you notice he wasn’t speaking to me?”
It’s hard to say if Bryce is ever really speaking to him, but I’m shocked that he cares, especially with him following Bryce around like an overprotective guard dog. That can’t be wanted either, or is it? I dunno, it’s hard to keep up with them.
“But anyway, I’ll have someone tailing him, of course. They’ll report to me daily.”
“You think stalking him’s gonna get you on his good side?”
“Call it whatever you want, he’ll be alive.”
“Is Bryce … in danger?”
“Not yet, and it’s gonna stay that way. Having him followed’s the only way I can monitor every threat.”
My questions today aren’t critiques, even if I’m making them sound that way.
I wanna know the way he thinks just to make sure it’s not too close to my own.
But at this point, I might as well admit—at least to myself—that Maxwell is right.
There’s at least some part of me that’s like the Elkingtons.
It’s because the darkness isn’t a theory to us, a written warning, a flight of the imagination.
We know the darkness exists. We’ve seen it. Lived it. Dealt with it.
We don’t tell our kids there’s a monster under the bed to scare them, we tell them because we met him, have felt his claws ripping through our skin, and never want him to get to them.
Fuck, maybe it’s not assurance that I don’t think like them, maybe it’s more like assurance that it’s okay that I do.
I shouldn’t be getting any kind of assurance from Maverick.
The door opens again, this time it’s a different oversized hockey player who doesn’t come in here alone too often. Sutter talks to the hostess first, and she points toward the bar. He plunks down beside Maverick at the bar top.
“Here to pick up an order to-go. Casey says you make the best poutine and now—thanks to a conversation he had with your son—I have to try to be romantic. Getting him his favorite poutine’s romantic, yeah?
” He reaches for the bowl of nuts, helping himself to a handful.
Don’t think he’s actually looking for confirmation.
“Beer?” I offer.
“Love one.”
I pour him a pint and slide it across the bar. “On the house. That’s for putting extra locks up in the house. I know they were for Casey, but they’ll protect Dash, too.”
“’Preciate it, but it’s just a standard thing I do. I’ll do the same when we move into the new house. They told us about Robin—you know we’ll keep an eye out too, yeah?”
I nod. I did, but it helps a lot having him say it.
“And you know, Trav, if I were you, I’d have Robin followed, too.” He hitches one shoulder in a crooked shrug. “Just sayin’.”
The expo appears from the kitchen with Sutter’s to-go order. He downs his pint. “Thanks, Trav. I’d better go. I walked here, and that means I gotta walk to Kits. Case is already relentlessly texting me.”
But he’s grinning as if he’s lucky to be pestered. Doubt he’d say as much.
Maverick’s still watching the kitchen door like a bloodhound, even after Sutter’s gone. “Don’t you ever relax? He’s not going anywhere, Maverick.”
“You’re a fucking hypocrite. As if you relax around your man. No, our men know they’re never alone. Guys like us don’t trust the world with our men.”
Going after Robin means leaving Dirk vulnerable. Means trusting the world with him, when I don’t.
Maverick’s smirking.
“What?” I ask. I haven’t said anything, but maybe the lion slipped out of my eyes.
“I’m glad there are more of us.”
“More of us?”
Bryce is next out of the kitchen door, dressed for work. His gaze finds Maverick immediately, scowling. Then he stalks toward the hostess stand, presumably to find out which section the bartenders have tonight.
“That’s my cue, Nolan,” Maverick says. “But I second Sutter’s idea, for the record. Trail Robin. Have the rest of us on standby. You don’t have to do this alone.”
He swipes his soda from the bar top, with my glaring eyes at his back. Is Maverick a bad guy or a good guy? I can’t tell.
I turn my phone on, hoping Dirk’s finally texted me and we can end this fight. There are several messages from Maxwell, which I ignore, but there’s also one from Dash. Reading it sets my heart off at a gallop.
Dash
First of all, I approve. Second, I think the wedding should be in Tofino.
Squinting at my phone, I read the message again. Wedding? Does Dash…? Okay, enough of this.
Me
There a reason I’m getting suggestions for wedding venues from Dash?
Pretty Boy
He figured us out.
Yeah, no shit.
He started planning our wedding, so I’m gonna go ahead and say he’s fine with it.
Me
Get your ass over here, Dirk.
Pretty Boy
No.
Me
Don’t make me retrieve you.
He doesn’t respond, but it feels more like a dare than a real no. And if Dash and Stacey know anyway, guess it’s fine for me to show up at their house.
Fuck an extra day. Your time is up, pretty boy. Time to throw you over my bike and drag you back to my bed, caveman style.
The scent of burnt rubber laced with gasoline rides the wind, and the low rumble of my bike vibrates through my chest until it roars to a stop on the sidewalk outside the two-story character home.
I kill the engine’s deep growl, and silence rushes in, only the odd call of a crow echoing off the pavement.
I hop off, removing my helmet, leather jacket creaking.
Wet air brushes my skin—it’s gonna rain.
There’s movement at the window, curtains swaying, and then Dash runs out—barefoot—arms open. Bet he’s the distraction, or maybe he’s here to calm me down, talk sense into me. None of that’s happening.
“Hey, Dad!”
I hug my son, spin him, and set him down. I carry on toward the house like I’m the fucking Terminator.
“Shit,” he says. “Dad. Dad, wait!”
I’m not giving Dirk the chance to run away. He wouldn’t want me to.
My boots are loud on every step, so he knows what’s coming for him. He could keep running, sure, but he’s not a coward. He knows when it’s time to face the music.
Stacey’s next. The voice of reason, I guess. “Trav, I think we should talk—”
My growl cuts him off. Maybe the steam on my face, too. Anyone standing between me and my man’s gonna see the wrong end of my fists. “Where?”
Stacey sighs. “Kitchen.”
I stalk into the kitchen. Dirk’s there, trying to be nonchalant, leaning against the counter, but I detect the slight tremble of his limbs. He’s nicely terrified. “Are you coming willingly, or is everyone gonna see how I deal with you?”
Dirk becomes the perfect mixture of arousal and anger, gritting his teeth, eyes blown wide, his breath catching.
Yeah, I fucking said that, pretty boy—in front of people.
I step toward him, he takes a step back, forgetting he’s against the counter and there’s nowhere to go. “I … I … fuck,” he murmurs.
Digging my fingers deep into his hair, I tug hard enough to ignite pain, then I capture his cry with my mouth.
I trap him in a kiss, denying him breath.
I catch his tongue, kissing him until he scratches my arms. I allow him just enough oxygen to sustain him and then take him under again.
I take him under until he remembers how mine he is.
When I release him, he’s chasing me for more. I rub a thumb over his bottom lip instead, leaning my mouth to his ear, so my words can be just for him. “Every breath you breathe is mine. You’re mine.”
“You’re my fucking breath, Trav.” A tear falls from his left eye.
“Enough then. You’re coming home to my bed for a while. They know now.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. Does this mean you’re not—”
“We’ll talk about that.”
“Alright, then. Take me home. I don’t wanna be where you’re not, anyway. Love my friends, but I love you more.”
“Hey!” Dash says from behind us. I spin, but don’t let go of Dirk. Stacey has his arms around Dash from behind.
Dirk shrugs. “You’re a close second.”
“Fair,” Dash says.
They fist-bump on the way by. I’m kinda glad I don’t need to carry Dirk outta here. I would have, but it’s better I don’t chance throwing my back out. I’m strong, but I’m still human. Once Dirk’s in a helmet and leather, I fire up my bike.
Idrag him through the restaurant by the hand—hand holding’s something we don’t get to do often—and up to my apartment. Then it’s just the two of us facing off.
“I know we’re both pissed at each other, but it’s also been two days—two fucking days—of radio silence. I’m missing you, and I’m fucking horny. Sex first, talking later?”
“Why are you still fucking talking, Trav?”
He attacks. His mouth’s on mine, and his hands crisply undo my belt. There’s jangling, and it falls to the floor.