Chapter 37
She’s here.
She’s here.
I can see her clearly; see the way her eyes lock onto me, how they trace over my body and she tries to hide how I affect her. I can still read her better than anyone.
The moment that her eyes start to harden, my heart sinks. Not because I don’t know why she’s guarding herself, but because I know. And I agree with it.
My girl should protect herself. Especially with the fucking rug I had to pull out from under her.
I whisper her name and it stops her. Her eyes locking onto mine for a single, breathless moment, it feels like everything is okay.
Like…everything is right. Just as I’m about to ask how she is, my smart chica turns to Asher and babbles on about the shop.
They rib at each other, but I know how much she loves him and he loves her.
It feels like they’re long-lost siblings; separated by time, found again.
Trying not to show just how much her obvious dismissal hurts, I turn my attention to the open notebook on the counter.
At a quick glance, it’s her tattoo. The one that I saw back in high school, the one that’s on her social media. The one I love.
But as I focus closer while Asher and Roxie tease each other, I see that it’s different.
Deeper and much more complex than just Athena.
Straight through her midline, one half of the Greek goddess looks as if she’s hollow, ashed, broken.
It’s artfully and beautifully done, but just looking at it makes my stomach knot up.
Art is subjective…but it’s also healing and emotive. It tells you what the artist is thinking or feeling. And this? This shows me just how hollow she feels inside, but she’s not letting it be visible on the outside.
What have I done?
Roxie walks over and tries to close the notebook, but I slap my hand down quickly so she can’t close it.
“I’ve seen this before,” I say softly, keeping my eyes on the drawing because if I look at her, I might break.
“Yeah.” Her voice is softer than when she was talking to Asher, more guarded. I can’t blame her. My fingers drift over the lines, the shading, the way the beauty and the pain is so clear…
“God, baby, your skills have improved so much,” I mutter. The words tumbling out of my mouth unintentionally. “This is different from the one you posted,” I say, grasping at something to say that’s not going to hurt either of us.
Her eyes widen almost comically, like she’s surprised I saw it. Her adorable mouth opens and closes once like she’s gathering her thoughts before she speaks.
“Yeah, I love that one, but this one is one that… Well, recently, it has felt right.” Her eyes flicker down to it with a heavy sigh. A sigh that tells me what I did–what I had to do–cost her something too. Even if I tried to shield her from it.
“It’s…beautiful. In the most heartbreaking way,” I say, looking at her in a way I hope shows her that I mean no offense, but that I understand. Roxie’s dark eyes soften and she looks down at her notebook.
“I was trying to show duality. How even though something is beautiful on the outside, you never know what’s eating at them inside. You never know if they’re barely holding on, or if they’re already broken just because they’re smiling on the outside.”
I stay silent, and my heart clenches tightly in my chest. She’s hurting and I can’t do a fucking thing about it. I…
I’m a monster.
I can’t truly help anyone. This whole thing proved that, but… If I could be good enough for anyone, I’d want it to be her.
It’s always been her.
I take my hand from her sketchbook and try not to stare with too much longing in my eyes as she pulls it tight to her chest like she’s guarding her own heart.
I wonder what other secrets that book is holding. How deep her hurt goes, how hopeful she might be, how betrayed she must feel. What a big piece of fucking shit she thinks I am.
“So fucking beautiful and so fucking smart. You’re going to kill me for what I had to do, but for you, I’d do everything and more,” I confess in Spanish, speaking quickly and then walk off. I can’t look at her anymore. I can’t stand here trying to hide my love while she’s so skeptical of me.
I stalk off towards the backroom to get myself together. Thankfully, right as I reach the door, I hear the stupidly helpful bell over the door going off which means they’ll have a customer. I can fall apart.
Just for a second.
Making my way directly to the sink, I turn the water as cold as I can and splash some on my face.
I can do this, I can do this, I can do this. Chanting in my head isn’t working.
Can I do this? Just be whatever she needs so that I can be near her?
The faint sound of her laugh fills the room and my shoulders soften.
Yes. I can do this. For her.
I’ll never leave her truly alone again.
I pull a paper towel off the roll and dry my face and hands, and right as I bunch it into a ball to throw away the door opens.
Roxie walks in like she owns the place–and she might as well, I’ll give her whatever she wants–before looking at me.
Her eyes widen again, but then the confident little smirk covers it up, and she walks through the room to the fridge.
“Gonna hide out in here all day?”
“I’ve been back here for two minutes.”
She looks at me with that infuriatingly hot smirk, opening the fridge, grabbing a few things before closing it with her hip.
“Are we going to talk?” she asks, ripping through any pretense with that bravery I’ve always loved.
“What do you want to talk about?” I stand up straight, rolling my shoulders back and wiping any emotion off my face.
“Don’t do that,” Roxie snaps, putting the water bottles down on the circular table in between us. “Don’t shut down like a scared little bitch.”
My eyebrows shoot up.
“A ‘scared little bitch’?” I repeat slowly, throwing away the wadded up ball in my hands.
“Yes,” Roxie says, doubling down and straightening her shoulders.
Her black and white hair is pinned back out of her face so I can see it clearly.
I start to get annoyed that she doesn’t fully understand what I’ve had to endure, but I’m not going to put that on her.
She did everything she could to keep me from Mickey’s grips for as long as she could…
all without needing me to know. And I plan on doing the same.
I love her. I always have and I always will. And for that reason alone, I won’t darken her life anymore. I won’t put her in danger. Killing Mickey showed me just how easy it is for me to lose control. Then doing everything I had to for my uncle shows me how easy it is for me to justify it.
I was barely good enough for Roxie before… Now? Now I’m barely good enough for her to step on. But that’s okay.
I’ll lean down on my hands and knees, giving her a perfect stepping stool, if it means she rises.
“Roxie,” I say as monotone as I possibly can, putting a bored expression on my face. “You don’t understand what I had to do. What I had to deal with. Trust me, this is the best outcome.”
Roxie chuckles, crossing her arms over her chest defiantly.
“Oh really.” She doesn’t say it as a question, but as a challenge.
“Really.”
“Let me paint a little picture for you, a timeline, so maybe you can get it through that thick skull of yours as to why I’m so confused.”
Oh, here we go.
“You save me from Mickey, we fall in love, you help me in every possible way, and tell me I’m the love of your life,” she speaks so defiantly, so strongly that it’s clear she’s not trying to convince herself that what happened between us wasn’t real. She knows it was.
And that strength of hers… Fuck, it’s one of the reasons I love her so goddamn much. She’s not going to let the hurt she feels taint the memories.
“And then, you arrive at The Underground, after telling me not to worry, on the night of the fight that would keep Mickey from taking Ashes, from hurting you, and that would wipe out my debt, and you tell me I’m nothing.
That it was all a lie?” She chuckles, raising her eyebrows and a smirk on her lips that’s making me crave a taste of her.
I bite my lip unconsciously and when her smirk widens, I realize she fucking saw it.
There’s that bratty twinkle in her eye now.
“Nah, I don’t buy it. Not for a second.”
“Roxie…”
“No.” The one word rings through the back room so loudly that it sucks the air from my lungs almost.
“Roxanne,” I try again, but me calling her by her full name makes it worse. Just like I knew it would.
“Don’t you fucking try, Terecino. Be honest. Now.”
I cringe, cowering just a little. I try to prevent my shoulders from curling in. Why am I so fucking nervous around this little five foot something, intimidatingly beautiful, woman? I’m Ty Hernandez for fuck’s sake. The Destroyer. But then I look at her brown eyes and my heart skips a few beats.
I know exactly why.
And I’m exactly where I want to be.
“Roxie,” I say softly, begging her with my eyes to not make me say it. To try and protect from this, from me, as much as I can. “Please, don’t do this.”
Roxie’s silent as she stares at me, her eyes narrowing while her head tilts.
She’s trying to read between what I’m saying and not saying.
As if my body language alone will scream, “I killed the man who raped, abused and tortured you! In order to save us both, I had to reach out to my cartel uncle and be his fucking hitman for six tortuous weeks in order to pay him off to cover for us! I’ve killed at least six people by now, I definitely put more than that in the hospital, and the worst part is, I can compartmentalize it!
I can rationalize it and I… I don’t regret it. Because it kept you safe.”
Fuck.
“What did you do?” she asks softly in tone, but not in bite.
“What I had to.”
“For whom?”
My eyebrows push together because that… That wasn’t what I expected from her. ‘What did you have to do? Why did you have to?’ Not…
“For us.”
Her arms drop to her sides and I watch as her knuckles whiten as she clenches her hands into fists.
“I thought we were done with that. This sacrificial bullsh—”
I cut her off, stepping forward aggressively. “That’s what we do, Roxie. I protect you and you protect me. That’s what we do.”
Her lip curls up in a sneer. “You son of a bitch.”
“Call me what you want, amor, I did what I had to. Just. Like. You.” I punctuate each word aggressively. “You can’t be sitting up there on your high horse when I haven’t forgotten you did the exact same thing.”
“But I did it for us, you did it to break us apart,” she snaps back.
“You don’t know the stakes, Westin.”
“So tell me, Hernandez.” She spits out my last name in a way that’s meant to be mean but just comes out as teasing. I take a deep breath and grind my molars in frustration.
“Here?”
“Right here.” When did we get so close? Somehow between the snapping at each other and frustrations, we’ve gravitated towards each other and now… Now she’s closer than I’ve been able to be to her in weeks. I can smell her shampoo. I can feel her body heat.
I want her so badly it hurts.
“Roxie,” I groan her name under my breath and she shakes her head in frustration.
“Fucking spit it out, Ty, I’m not letting you leave this room until you tell me.”
I clench my fists at my sides to try to keep myself grounded, but everything in me is screaming to reach out and grab her. Pull her to me and never let her out of my sight again.
“Stop pushing it. Maybe if you’re a good girl, I’ll tell you when I’m ready,” I say roughly under my breath and push past her, grabbing one of the energy drinks that Asher must have kept stocked for me from the fridge.
Roxie purses her lips at me like she wants to argue…but I catch a little bit of heat flare in her eyes as soon as she registers that I’ve called her a good girl. All too soon that little bit of warmth goes out with the space I’ve forced between us.
“You’re such a dick,” she grumbles and I nod. I know I am.
Popping open the top to the drink, I’m immediately hit with the spray as the carbonated sticky syrup explodes in my face.
“Fuck!” I yell, both startled and fucking annoyed now. The sugary drink drenches my face and shirt and I just know my skin is going to be sticky for the rest of the day, no matter if I shower or not.
“Oh no,” Roxie says, completely deadpanned from the side, and she picks up the bottles from the table.
“Man, that sucks. It’s like someone shook up your drink.
Who would do something so inconvenient?” She cocks an eyebrow at me, a smirk gracing her beautiful pouty mouth.
The look in her eye is begging me to start something, to say something.
But I’m sticky with sugary neon liquid dripping off my face, watching her walk out of the door with a victorious smile.
I love her.