Chapter 3 #2
“Good,” she grinned, a little dreamily, and I barely held back a wince. “So what’s next? When are they letting you out? I figured I could move in with you while you’re recuperating and—”
“Wait, what?”
“You don’t think I’m going to leave you alone in this, do you?” Her tone suggested I was silly for even thinking it. She reached for my hand and took it in both of hers, clasping me with surprising strength. “We’re a team now, Lane.”
Oh.
Oh no.
This was not good.
“Addie,” I started, taking my hand back. Hers dropped to her sides, expression morphing to stunned confusion. “This is not…that.”
“But I thought—you invited me to your brother’s wedding, Lane. I thought you’d finally manned up and were ready to give this thing a shot.”
I couldn’t admit the real reason I’d asked her to Crew’s wedding was because I’d been too much of a coward to ask who I really wanted, which made me an asshole for leading her on.
“That’s not…” I started, then trailed off, attempting to marshal my thoughts into an explanation that would let her down easy. “We’re colleagues, Addie. Friends. And I appreciate all your help on cases over the years, but I can’t give you anything more than that.”
“I can give you time,” she said quickly. “Let you get healed up, then we can revisit this conversation. Whenever you’re ready.”
I started shaking my head before she even finished speaking.
I’d never be ready.
At least not for her.
I watched, admittedly fascinated, as her expression changed once again. How she made such a good cop eluded me at the moment, because right now, everything she was thinking was clear as day on her face.
It wasn’t only her face that changed, though. Addie’s entire demeanor shifted, her confusion ebbing to something more…sinister. That was the only way to describe it. Malice radiated from her eyes, and anger lined every dip and curve of her body.
“There’s someone else, isn’t there?”
“Not exactly.”
Not an outright lie, but not the full truth either.
“It’s Sutton.”
While I absolutely did not want to get into it with her, had been trying to spare her feelings as best as I could, I wasn’t going to lie directly to her face.
“Yes.”
The situation was far more complicated than that, but I could never be with Addie, not when I felt the way I did about Sutton.
“So you’ve just been leading me on all these years?”
“What? No, of course not.”
We’d met on a case nearly a decade ago, and while I could admit there’d been some flirting, most of it had come from her. I racked my brain, our interactions over the years flashing through, but I couldn’t pick out anything that would’ve given her the idea I’d been leading her on.
At least, not until asking her to Crew’s wedding.
Which, admittedly, was not a great look but only an isolated incident. It didn’t warrant all of…this.
My temples pulsed, and I lifted my hand to rub them.
Fuck, I was not in the right headspace for this.
“No, I get it, Lane. You get shot and she starts acting like she’s cared about you all along. Acting like you haven’t hated each other all this time.”
What the fuck was she talking about?
“I have never once said I hated Sutton.”
How I felt about Sutton was complicated as hell, though less so after my weird coma dream, but hate was not tangled up in the mess.
Addie snorted derisively. “You may as well have for how poorly you two get along.”
“It’s not like that. There’s…history there.”
History I wouldn’t be getting into with anyone but Sutton. Hell, my own family didn’t even know how deeply Sutton was rooted into my goddamn bones.
Addie’s eyes flashed, mouth twisting into a sneer. “So you’ve been fucking her behind my back.”
“Behind your back? Addie, we”—I gestured wildly between us, a bad idea given the sharp, stabbing pain it garnered in my chest—“aren’t together! We never have been!”
Damn, shouting made my throat burn again. I was too fucking fragile for this, but Addie didn’t seem to care. If looks could kill, I’d be a dead man.
“What was the wedding then? Pity?”
“No. I thought there might be something here worth exploring.” Maybe I’d been deluding myself the entire time, but I had thought that to some extent. Otherwise I wouldn’t have gone there. “But now I see it for the mistake it was.”
Addie’s face went blank, eyes shuttering, body going deathly still.
She’d run the gamut of concerning emotions in the last five minutes, but I had to admit: this was the scariest of all.
“Fuck you, Lane,” she spat before turning on her heel and stalking out the door.
She disappeared from sight, but shortly after, I heard an oof from the hallway, followed by, “Oh, hey, Addie.”
Trey.
Addie didn’t offer a response that I could hear, and a moment later, my older brother appeared in the doorway to my room, eyes darting confusedly between me and the hallway.
I blinked in shock, still trying to process the last ten minutes.
Rubbing my forehead, I squeezed my eyes shut against the ache that had spread from my temples.
When I opened them again, Trey’s expression had morphed from happy teasing to concern.
“You good?” he asked, pulling a chair up to my bedside.
“Yeah,” I said. “That was just…weird.”
“What happened?” Trey asked.
I explained, which had Trey doubled over in a fit of laughter.
When he composed himself, he said, “And that, little brother”—Trey gestured to where Addie had disappeared—“is why you don’t shit where you eat.”
“I will kill you with my bare hands.”
Trey raised a brow in the direction of my left arm, which was in a sling to keep it immobile while my gunshot wound healed. “One-handed?”
“That’s all I’d need.”
He grinned. “Keep telling yourself that.”
Fucking annoying brothers. I supposed I should be thankful they weren’t all here to witness the aftermath of that showdown with Addie.
“I’m glad you finally cut her loose, though.”
One of my brows curved upward, eyes popping open to narrow on him. “Finally?”
“Please, bro.” He laughed. “You’ve only been entertaining the idea because you couldn’t have who you really wanted.” Fuck, am I that transparent? I thought, careful to school my expression, though I wasn’t sure it mattered. Trey continued. “Now, though…I think your circumstances have changed.”
“What do you mean?”
Trey raised his hands, shaking his head. “Oh no, little brother. I’m not getting anywhere near that. You can figure your shit out for yourself. I’ve got my own unrequited love to deal with.”
I had so many questions about that last statement, but I let it go. Like he said, I had my own shit to worry about.
“I wish I knew what she was thinking,” I murmured.
“Well, again, I’m not getting involved. But…for what it’s worth, the way Sutton screamed when you went down? That wasn’t the reaction of someone who doesn’t care about you. In fact, I think it was the opposite. That’s all I’ll say.”
My gaze whipped back to his. “She…screamed?”
“Like she’d been the one who’d gotten shot.”