Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
ISAAK
I glance over at the clock again. One-thirty in the morning, and I’m still not asleep. Fucking bullshit. Kira’s got class in the morning and her alarm’s going off at seven sharp no matter what.
She’s already sprawled across my chest, snoring away. She never did tell me what set her off the day she had that panic attack.
But things have felt… different since that afternoon.
It’s like we both feel the days counting down until the wedding, but neither of us has the guts to say anything about it.
A better man would start pulling away and re-establishing distance between us.
So would a smarter man.
But I never said I was a good man or a smart one, and I can’t help but steal every last second I can get with her before she marries that slick, rich fuck and gets all she dreamed of. I’ve been around long enough to know that you don’t come across someone like Kira Roberts often. She’s a once-in-a-lifetime kind of woman.
I close my eyes and breathe out. Sleep . Go the fuck to sleep .
My eyes pop right back open again not five minutes later.
My buddy Art always said if a man was very, very lucky, he’d find his own Angelique Boyer in his lifetime. Angelique Boyer was, in Arturo’s words, “a French-Mexican goddess” and his telenovela crush who always stood as the epitome of female perfection to him. Art once wept real tears telling me about her role in Teresa .
I don’t know much about telenovelas, but I do recognize that Kira is special like nothing else I’ve come across. She’s not like the girls I occasionally had as foster sisters. I mean, some were fine.
But a few were meaner than the little orange scorpions that sting you in the back brush when you pick up a rock too fast. I learned to keep my distance from all girls after run-ins with a couple of those. At least until we were all teenagers and some girls started flirting with me and reaching for my dick. Those girls weren’t usually that impressive, either, and they were always wanting things from me that I didn’t have to give.
I don’t know what exactly Kira wants from me either, if anything.
And if she did want something? Would you bolt like you’ve done before when any woman demands more?
Immediately my gut clenches. Kira’s different. She’s not just any woman
She doesn’t make you want to run. You knew it wasn’t right with any of those women.
I nod to myself. With them, it was best to leave before they got too attached. I was just saving everyone the heartbreak.
But what about Kira? I inhale quick and breathe in her fancy shampoo that I swear I could get high off. It sure makes my cock spring to life. Which is no fucking help since it’s about five more goddamn hours since I can bury it in her sweet little cunt again. Maybe while she grabs a quick shower before school?
Whoa, buddy . I force my eyes shut and try to ignore Kira’s leg flung over my thigh.
But even when I get my stiffy under control over the next fifteen minutes, I’m pretty sure the rest of me is still goddamned obsessed.
I know the truth.
She’s the one woman who makes me want to stay.
I sigh, the last of my boner deflating. Because even if I want to stay, I’d be a bastard to ignore the fact that I’m not the kind of man who can give her all the things she deserves. All the things she’s accustomed to.
I can’t give her some fancy life. I’m never gonna be able to walk into her mama and daddy’s mansion and not be gossiped about for being a hillbilly who doesn’t know what the hell a fucking bidet is.
Even if she said it was fine at first, in the end, she’d be sorry. I’d be nothing but an embarrassment. If I don’t get my security company off the ground like I dream about—and let’s be fuckin’ honest, nobody’s dreams come true, not when you come from where I do—I’ll just stay an unemployed goddamn hick who never even went to college. Especially if her father takes a notion to make sure it never goes anywhere.
The differences between us will become even more apparent the longer we’re together. Eventually, she’ll despise me for how I ruined her life. Especially when she was just weeks away from marrying Prince Charming?—
On my chest, Kira interrupts my dark thoughts with the most adorable little snort, then snuggles deeper into my arms.
I squeeze my eyes shut hard again and squeeze her just a little tighter. The truth is, I’m here to be her protector. Even from a gorilla like me.
But fuck, I’m gonna miss the feel of her in my arms.
I drift to sleep in the dark with her, focusing on the sensation of her body pressing into mine. Then I drift some more.
I don’t know how much later it is when I look around, and there’s so much sunlight, I immediately know where I am.
The wind blows, and I taste fucking sand in my mouth. It’s gritty in my teeth and blasting against our faces, our fucking wind scarves never doing shit.
Everything hates us here. The wind, the sun, the sand, the people. After six and a half years, I’m inclined to agree that it’s about time to kick us the fuck out. We’re always burnt or have rashes or are dehydrated, shitting blood cause of god knows what from being in a place we’ve got no fucking business being.
“Aw shit, look out, here comes Elmer’s,” Art chuckles, and then the rest of the guys sitting in the truck around me laugh.
Another guy runs up to the truck and hops up, one of Art’s friends, and everyone pats him on the back as they help him onto the last seat on the bench.
“Sorry, Elmer’s,” Art says, leaning past me to talk to the awkward boy loping up to the full truck and looking up at me expectantly. “This truck’s full. Think there’s still room in the one ahead of us.”
Clear disappointment washes across Elmer’s face, and he looks at me with a moment’s hopefulness. “Wanna come with me, DT?”
I usually let Elmer’s hang around because, frankly, I always felt bad for kids like him back at the homes. I never wanted to be one of the mean kids.
But I’ve finally got brothers here. Brothers who’ve got my back and always include me. And none of them like Elmer’s.
We all gotta grow up sometime.
“Sorry, man.” I kick at the floor with my boot. “I got a seat already.”
Disappointment washes over his face as if I just punched him in the stomach.
This is why no one likes Elmer’s. He’s got no game face. He takes everything so personally, and it shows plain as day on his face. That, and he never stops talking. He doesn’t know when to let other guys talk, and if you try to just low-key befriend him, he thinks you’re suddenly his best friend and sticks to your ass like Elmer’s glue. I was just his newest target.
But seeing him still just standing there, staring up so disappointed at me while the sandy wind whips his hair all crazy, makes me feel like shit. So I call down, “Maybe I’ll catch you later, huh?”
And just like that, his face brightens back up, which makes me feel like even more of a piece of shit.
Art just shakes his head beside me. “Man, you gotta stop giving him hope like that, or he’s gonna be stuck to you for the rest of the tour.”
I shrug. “It’s not that long. Maybe if we can just get him to shut up, he can hang around in the background.”
“No one can ever get Elmer’s to shut up,” Banjo says from behind me.
“Maybe if we glued his mouth shut,” says Art, always ready with the comeback.
Everyone laughs at that.
I shake my head at them and lean back against the side of the Humvee, letting my eyes fall shut. My eyes are so goddamn gritty, and I swear it always smells like BO, motor oil, and smoke on these transports. I can’t imagine ever getting this goddamn smell out of my nose.
I try to picture Angelique Boyer. Art brought her up on the computer the last time we got internet privileges. Some guys have folks back home they want screen time with. Not Art and me. I roll Angelique’s name around on my tongue. She was smokin’ hot. I bet she smells nice. Nothing like this truck full of stinking grunts.
I’m still trying to envision Angelique when the fucking blast hits?—
No one even screams until it’s too late.
—And then it’s just my voice screaming in the dark.
And someone yelling my name.
“Isaak. Isaak, wake up! Isaak!”
My eyes pop open as I shoot up in bed. I look around but can’t see a thing in the total darkness.
“What?” I shout, my arms flailing outwards. “What is it? Where?”
I suck in a breath of air, expecting diesel-choked smoke.
Instead, the air is fresh and smells feminine. Something sweet, maybe floral. A woman’s shampoo.
“Isaak?” comes a quiet voice. From the other side of the bed. As in, from the floor.
I blink hard, all my wits suddenly flooding back in.
“Kira!” I scramble over to the other side of the bed, my eyes finally adjusted to the darkness to recognize and remember I’m in Domhnall’s guest bedroom.
Of course I am. Where the fuck else would I be?
And there, laid out on the floor, is Kira. She’s on her back, lit by a tiny shaft of moonlight coming through the bottom of the blackout curtains.
“Fuck. Are you okay?” I ask, reaching down for her hand.
She takes it and pulls herself up to a sitting position, then climbs back on the bed. “I’m fine.” She pulls out her mussed ponytail and redoes it.
“How’d you end up down there?”
“I just fell off the bed. You were getting a little… intense in your dream, then you suddenly woke up.”
My guts fall out my ass. “Did I push you off the bed?”
I stumble off the opposite side of the bed from her, then drag my hands down my face. “Fuck!”
“You didn’t push me! I was just surprised and sort of toppled off!”
“I never should’ve slept in the same bed as you. Fucking selfish and stupid.” I snatch my pillow off the bed and stomp over to the couch by the window.
“Isaak,” Kira cries, getting up on her knees on the bed. “What are you doing?”
“What I shoulda been doin’ the whole time.” I punch the pillow and lie down on the couch. “It was fucking stupid to risk you like that.”
“Get back in this bed,” she demands.
“Nothing’s getting me back in that bed, Princess. Especially you.”
“I’m not a fucking princess . I told you I fell off the bed. You didn’t knock me off.”
“Good. Then try to stay on this time.” I punch my pillow again and turn on my side, back to her. The couch isn’t long enough for my entire body, so on my side is the only way to fit. I curl my legs up and breathe out.
Not that I especially want to go back to sleep any fucking time soon.
“Isaak—”
“I said I’m fine,” I snap. “Now leave it alone and go back to sleep.”
“Fine!”
I glance back just long enough to see her yank the covers back over herself while muttering something like ugh, men! to herself.
Then I curl into myself again on the couch and squeeze my eyes shut.
I always said the sandbox could kiss my ass forever the day I left it behind. I had no fucking clue it would just keep haunting me long after I climbed on the C-17 that flew me out of that goddamned place.
Soon enough, Kira’s gentle snores quietly fill the room again. It relaxes me. Some.
But mostly, I just lie there, paralyzed in a cold sweat, alone with my ghosts.