Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-one
CHRISTIAN
There was only one thing Christian hated more than flying and that was airports. This airport was worse than most because it was some big-ass international one.
Actually, scrap that—there was something even higher than airports on his shit list. Flamingoes.
Normal ones might be okay, but not the rainbow-hued ones he was currently sporting in retina-searing cotton. He’d made a tactical error and said something about not wanting crap from TSA about the bloodstains on his t-shirt. Dave had instantly rooted around in his bag and offered one of his shirts.
He’d had no choice but to borrow from Dave, because he had no realistic chance of getting his stuff back from where he’d left it at the pack house. The loss of those boots hurt, but probably less than showing up there to reclaim them would.
Despite the fact they were at an airport and his eyeballs were threatening to melt from the relentless glare of rainbow flamingoes, he was beginning to feel better.
The two hours’ sleep he’d gotten in the car had helped things along.
He was stiff as hell, it felt as if a miner with a pickaxe had taken up residence in his cheekbone, and he’d be black and blue all over before long, but it didn’t matter.
Not when they’d possibly found out what they’d come for and Dave’s eyes were as warm and happy as they were.
What had happened in that shithole of a town had changed things between them.
“We should come back here for our honeymoon,” Christian said once they were through security. And then he stopped dead, causing some woman to ram her case into the back of his legs on the crowded concourse, because what the everlasting fuck?
“I’m beginning to think you should get your head checked out,” Dave said.
“Just need coffee,” Christian said, and was relieved to find he seemed to be back in control of his words.
They ended up in a coffee shop, where Christian went from longing for coffee to the smell of espresso hitting him like a gut punch. Suddenly, he wasn’t craving coffee so much as trying not to throw up.
Dave was studying the selection of teas on offer, and there was something almost like desperation in his face.
“You okay?” Christian asked.
Dave didn’t look up. “They only have chamomile.”
Christian winced. Tea-related trauma. Devastating.
They settled at a table, Christian with water and Dave with something Christian didn’t dare ask about. Christian’s head still hurt, but his brain was beginning to work again, picking through everything that had happened.
“You trust Blondie’s word about not burying them?” he asked.
“Yeah, I do. Which means if he didn’t go back and take care of them, someone else did.” Then Dave rolled his eyes, impatient with himself. “Obviously. What I mean is, we have no idea who, but it might be that one or more of Jesse’s pack survived.”
“Maybe,” Christian said, unsure whether he believed it or not. Maybe he didn’t want to believe it and be disappointed. Unlike Dave, who’d rather think the best and risk the letdown. They probably balanced one another out.
He popped another of the pain pills and decided Blondie hadn’t been wrong to insist he have them. They were definitely taking the edge off. He left Dave staring into his teacup as if it held the meaning of life while he went in search of a bathroom.
On his way back, he passed a clothing store and ducked in, hoping to find a shirt that didn’t need a warning label.
He wouldn’t usually waste money like that, but that envelope had held a thousand bucks, so he could afford it.
Or so he thought, till he saw the prices.
A hundred and twenty-five bucks for a shirt?
For fuck’s sake, it wasn’t spun from unicorn hair.
He was leaving, a lot faster than he’d gone in, when something in the jewelry display cabinet caught his eye.
He backtracked, not sure what it was he’d seen, but as soon as he looked at the pieces laid out, he knew.
It was a bangle in silver that had been worked to look like braided ropes.
The ropes held a small piece of turquoise that was almost exactly the color of Dave’s eyes.
“Hey,” he said to the woman behind the counter, her lashes dark and precise around eyes that widened when she saw the battered state of his face. Or maybe it was the shirt. God knew, it horrified him. “Can I get a look at that?”
She passed it over, but the whole time looked like she thought he was about to whip out a gun and rob the place. Hadn’t she realized he’d gone through airport fucking security?
He ignored her as he turned the bracelet around in his hands. He wasn’t one for jewelry, but Dave sometimes wore a bracelet as well as his necklace. And something about it looked like it had been designed for Dave.
The feeling that had made him say that wild shit about honeymoons came back to nag at him. Something important had happened to them here. They should have something tangible to remind them.
“I’ll take it,” he said as he passed it back to her, and tried not to whimper at the price she quoted.
He got his money out while she wrapped it, and yeah, okay, that wasn’t exactly going to convince her that he was a legitimate customer, handing over used bills from a bundle in a dirty envelope. As he counted them out on the glass top of the counter, something else caught his eye.
“Hold it,” he said. “Show me that instead.”
Her strained smile wavered, maybe because she could see the cuts and bruising on his knuckles where he was pointing. Or maybe because she thought she was losing the sale. He didn’t care either way because the bracelet had seemed perfect, but this—this was meant to be.