Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jett
I don’t even know what the fuck I’m doing now.
She was in my hands. In my mouth. Under my fucking ribs.
She took it all. Every jagged edge I’ve ever sharpened to cut people out, and begged for more.
And I gave it to her. Not just the brutal kind of fucking I usually hand out. No. I gave her something real.
And then she opened her mouth and gave me names.
Benji. Hank. Rhys.
Fuck this.
I tear down the back roads so fast gravel kicks up behind me. The wind in my face should cool me down, rip the heat out of my skin, but it doesn’t do shit.
Is she still sitting on that motel bed I fucked her in? Still tasting me while ketchup packets congeal around her like blood? A fucked-up picnic of whatever the hell we almost were.
I take the corner too fast. Let the back tire slide a little. Feels better than thinking.
I don’t even make a conscious decision before pulling into the dirt lot of the shittiest bar in town. The kind of place with cracked pool cues, crusty beer taps, and at least ten assholes ready to throw fists with any motherfucker who holds eye contact too long.
I am that motherfucker right now.
But none of them are whoever the fuckers Benji and Hank are… or Rhys. Dr. Hartwell?
I should fight someone. I should throw a punch so hard I forget how her fucking laugh felt on my tongue. Instead I call the number they gave me in anger management. Because I’m trying.
“Crisis hotline how can I help you?” A woman says like this is customer service and not the thin line between me and a felony.
“I’m about to kill someone,” I say.
“Patient number?” she asks like I said I’m having a panic attack and not about to unload on a whole bar.
“Ryk237.” I look toward the side of the building. A couple’s fucking against the cinderblock wall. Her leg’s around his hip. Her head’s thrown back. She looks like Delilah.
God. Fuck. Her fucking name.
“Please hold.” The line clicks.
Great. Guess murder isn’t a priority tonight.
“Where are you, Mr. Ryker?” Rhys’s voice comes over the line.
Of course it’s him. Not only does he live in her head, he gets to play savior too.
I snort. “Did you fuck her in your office?”
He sighs. That long, tight sigh that says he’s above this and also very, very tired. “I have not engaged or encouraged her attention.”
But he knows he has it. Because Delilah is not subtle. She’s violently suggestive. My grip tightens around the phone. “She’s fucking other men,” I say.
“How does that make you feel?” he asks.
I bark out a laugh that doesn’t sound human. “Don’t pull your clinical bullshit with me. I fucked her. I gave her something I don’t even give myself. I let her in. And then she tells me I’m not the only one.”
There’s a long silence. Long enough for me to hear the clatter of a pool cue inside.
“She said your name,” I say quietly. “You were one of them. How the hell do I compete with a man like you?”
“I hear you are saying you don’t feel like you are good enough for Miss Darling,” he says, soft like he’s walking me back from a ledge.
I stare at my tank. At the reaper she kissed even after I threatened her. I brush a finger over her scrunchie that somehow made its way back to my wrist. “I’m not good for anyone. She’s…”
“She’s choosing you,” Rhys says carefully. “Maybe she’s choosing more than one of you. But she’s not hiding. She’s giving you her chaos. Her honesty. That’s not nothing.”
“No,” I whisper. “It’s everything. I want to hurt Hank.”
“Because he hurt her,” Rhys says.
“Because he got to hurt her. Because I wasn’t there to stop it.” I grind my teeth. “And now I don’t know what the fuck to do with this feeling in my chest that doesn’t go away no matter how fast I drive.”
“You don’t need to fix everything tonight,” he says.
“I want to kill Benji,” I say, low like a confession, loud like a war drum. Because more than Hank, when she said the name Benji she went soft eyed. “I hit Chad,” I add, because if we’re listing sins, might as well toss that one on the pyre.
“Tell me where you are,” Rhys says.
I rattle off the bar name.
“I’m on the way. Don’t go inside.”
I don’t answer right away. Just stare at the couple fucking on the wall like if I watch long enough, I’ll forget the sound she made when she whispered my name like a secret she wanted to keep.
“Can’t promise that,” I finally say.
“Jett?”
I hang up.
I’m already halfway to the door when I feel my phone vibrating again in my pocket. Probably him. Maybe her. I don’t look. I don’t want to see her name. Don’t want to see some chirpy text about ketchup or ghosts or how her panties are haunted now that I touched them.
The music bleeds through the cracked window panes.
Something loud and screaming and angry, perfect for what’s crawling up my throat.
This place is a pit. Smells like blood and beer and bastards.
One pool table. Three guys throwing darts like it’s target practice. No one looks up when I walk in. Good.
I don’t want them to look.
I want to look at Benji. The one I can’t fight. The one she thinks about when I’m inside her.
Fuck, I’d rather get punched in the mouth than picture that. Her smiling for him. Sweet for him. Curious and cruel and fucking hers the way she was with me.
The way she isn’t now.
“You got a problem?” one of the dart-throwers says.
“You offering one?” I ask, walking up on him, looking for someone to break.
He squares up. Big guy. Tattooed knuckles. Doesn’t matter. I want pain. Want to earn the bruise under my eye, the cracked knuckle, the breath knocked from my lungs. Want someone else to bleed so I don’t.
I let the first punch come. Roll with it. Taste blood.
The next part’s a blur of fists and shouting and something crashing behind me. I get him on the ground. That’s when the bouncer yanks me off, and fucking Rhys is there.
Calm. Crisp. Untouched by chaos.
“Let go of him. He’s mine,” Rhys says to the bouncer, flashing some badge or therapist voodoo. I don’t know. I’m busy spitting blood onto the floor and trying not to cry.
Not from pain. Not from the punch.
From the fact that she picked me. Not perfect Rhys. Not safe Benji. Me. And I wrecked it the second I tried to hold on.
“Let’s go,” Rhys says, not asking. He puts a hand on my shoulder and steers me out like a violent animal that only listens to one voice.
I don’t fight him.
Because I’m tired. Because there’s nothing left to say. Because I fucked the one thing that felt like hope and I don’t know how to fix it without losing what’s left of myself.