Chapter 4 #2
“Tell Nate not to get drunk.”
“That’s asking a lot.”
“Tell him anyway.”
The line went dead.
I lowered the burner phone and stared at it for a second before sliding it into the pocket of my linen shorts.
Linen shorts.
If my old self could see me now, he’d put me down out of mercy.
Nate appeared beside me with two more Pacíficos and a grin that said he had seen too much and planned to weaponize all of it.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Shit’s hot.”
“Shit’s always hot. That’s why we’re in Mexico.”
I gave him a look.
He handed me a beer. “Actual answer.”
“JD flipped the table. Got evidence on the girls. Group chats, videos, Snapchats, grave camera. They defaced Mandy’s grave more than once, and this time they got caught.”
Nate’s grin disappeared.
“Are you kidding me?”
“No.”
“Destiny know?”
“Not yet.”
“Regan?”
“Regan knows everything.”
Nate nodded solemnly. “The general.”
I twisted the cap off the fresh bottle.
Nate leaned against the umbrella pole and followed my gaze.
Destiny was walking out of the pool now, water sliding down her legs, her hair slicked back, bruises fading but not gone. She reached for her towel and wrapped it around herself, then looked our way like she could feel the conversation tugging at her.
I forced myself to look at the ocean.
Nate sighed.
“Brother.”
“Don’t.”
“I haven’t even said anything.”
“You’re breathing like you’re about to annoy me.”
“That’s just my natural rhythm.” He took a drink. “I think you need to find a vacation hookup.”
My head turned slowly.
Nate held up one hand. “Hear me out.”
“No.”
“Your eyes keep going one way, and that way is not good.”
“My eyes are doing security.”
“Your eyes are writing poetry and lying to both of us.”
I took a drink instead of answering.
Nate dropped into the chair beside me, stretching his legs out like we really were two idiots on vacation.
“She’s all wrong for you,” he said.
I laughed once. “You think I don’t know that?”
“Do you?”
“Edge’s daughter,” I said. “Santa Fe patch’s princess. Seventeen for four more days. A walking war zone with a family tree full of explosives. Yeah, Nate. I know.”
“Good.”
“I would never.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I mean that.”
“I know you mean it right now.”
I looked at him.
He didn’t flinch.
That was why Nate survived as long as he had. He smiled like a fool, but he didn’t scare easy.
“I was there for her,” I said. “That’s all this is. We went through some shit together. She needed somebody. I happened to be standing there.”
“You kissed her.”
My fingers tightened around the bottle.
Nate nodded slowly. “There it is.”
“It was a kiss.”
“I didn’t say it was more.”
“You’re saying plenty.”
“I’m saying you look at her like that kiss rewired your brain.”
I leaned back and lowered my voice. “Careful.”
“Or what? You’ll hit me in your frat boy shorts?”
I almost smiled.
He didn’t.
That was worse.
“Dylan,” Nate said. “I’ve ridden with you. I’ve bled with you. I know how many club girls you’ve walked away from. I know how you don’t let anyone in. I know you can flirt with a room full of women and leave alone because some part of you is locked up so tight even you don’t have the key.”
I looked away.
“And now that girl gets one kiss at a grave and you’re sitting here watching the ocean like it owes you answers.”
“She’s trouble with a capital T.”
“She’s way past capital T. She’s the whole damn alphabet.”
“She’s also hurt.”
“I know.”
“She’s young.”
“I know.”
“She’s leaving everything she knows because grown people made a mess big enough to swallow her.”
“I know that too.”
“Then stop telling me to find a hookup like this is spring break.”
Nate was quiet for a second.
Then he said, “Maybe that’s exactly why you should.”
My eyes cut back to him.
He lifted his bottle slightly. “Not because you need one. Because she does.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means maybe she needs the memo in a way she’ll actually believe. You go flirt. You find some woman at the pool. You disappear for an hour. Nothing dramatic. Just enough to show her and Regan that you are not waiting around for a seventeen-year-old girl to turn legal so you can?—”
“Finish that sentence and I break your nose.”
Nate stopped.
The air between us went sharp.
I leaned closer, voice low and even. “I am not using some woman’s body as a message. I am not humiliating Destiny because you think pain teaches faster than words. And I am sure as hell not putting on a performance in front of Regan like I need witnesses to prove I’m not a creep.”
Nate studied me.
Then he nodded once.
“Good,” he said.
I blinked. “Good?”
“Yeah.” He took a drink. “Wanted to see if your head was still attached.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“Professionally.”
I dragged a hand down my face, remembered there was no beard there, and hated the world all over again.
Nate’s mouth curved. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t think you’d do it.”
“Then why say it?”
“Because you needed to hear yourself say why you wouldn’t.”
I stared at him.
He smiled. “I’m deep now. Mexico changed me.”
“I liked you better shallow.”
“No, you didn’t.”
No.
I didn’t.
Nate looked toward Destiny again, but this time his expression was softer.
“She’s going to be eighteen in four days,” he said.
“That doesn’t magically fix anything.”
“I know.”
“She’ll still be healing.”
“I know.”
“She’ll still be Edge’s daughter.”
“That one’s permanent.”
“She’ll still be leaving one fire and stepping into another.”
“Probably.”
“And I’m still me.”
Nate tapped his bottle against mine lightly. “That might be the biggest problem.”
I swallowed the rest of my answer.
Because he was right.
Destiny wasn’t the only trouble here.
I was.
A man like me didn’t get clean love. Not because I didn’t want it. Because wanting something clean didn’t make my hands clean enough to hold it.
Nate stood. “I’m getting more beers.”
“We have beers.”
“I’m getting emotional support beers.”
“Tell Callum you’re not getting drunk.”
“Tell Callum my frat persona has needs.”
“Nate.”
He grinned. “Bro.”
Then he walked off toward the bar, leaving me alone with the ocean, the sun, and all the things I was pretending not to feel.
I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes.
Big mistake.
The darkness behind my lids wasn’t dark for long.
It turned silver.
Moonlight over a graveyard.
A rusted fence.
Wildflowers trembling against stone.
Red paint smeared across Destiny’s hands.
Her voice shaking as she promised a dead woman she was going to write a better story.
Then her face tilted toward mine.
Her tears quiet.
Her mouth soft.
Her kiss tasting like salt, grief, and something terrifyingly close to fate.
Destiny.
Even her name was a warning.
That night at the grave, fate and Destiny had felt like the same damn thing.
I had kissed her once because I thought I could survive once.
I was wrong.
Once had followed me across the border. Once had sat beside me on the plane. Once had watched me shave my beard and put on sunglasses and pretend to be harmless. Once was out by the pool now, wrapped in a towel, healing in the Mexican sun while half of New Mexico sharpened knives behind her back.
That was the moment I had tied myself to her.
I knew it as sure as I knew the feel of a throttle under my palm and a gun tucked cold against my spine.
That kind of tie would be trouble for the rest of my life.
So why did the thought of her moving on someday, smiling at some clean-handed boy who had never seen her with red paint on her fingers, burn so damn bad?
I opened my eyes.
Across the pool, Destiny was looking at me.
Her sunglasses hid her eyes.
Mine hid mine.
For a second, neither one of us looked away.
Then Regan stepped onto the terrace and called her name.
Destiny turned.
The tie pulled.
I picked up my beer and took a long drink, cold enough to hurt my throat.
Good.
I needed something to hurt somewhere safer.
By sunset, I had flirted with six college girls, accepted three fake Instagram follows on an account Nate had created in under five minutes, and endured dinner with a table full of sorority girls who thought we were “mysterious older frat guys with trauma energy.”
Nate called it excellent cover.
I called it punishment.
He loved every second of it, naturally. Leaned into the whole thing like he’d been born to wear linen, say “bro” with a straight face, and make girls named Madison, Brielle, and Kenzie laugh into overpriced margaritas.
He told them we were staying at a hotel down the strip.
He invented a business major, a failed lacrosse career, and one fake heartbreak so convincing I almost believed him.
I mostly sat there with a cold beer, sunglasses on even after the sun started dipping low, and let the girls decide quiet meant complicated.
Women loved complicated.
I knew that. I had used that. I wasn’t proud of it, but I wasn’t in the business of lying to myself either.
The problem was I didn’t care if they thought I was complicated. I didn’t care when one of them touched my arm. I didn’t care when another leaned close enough for her perfume to get in my throat. I didn’t care when Nate shot me a look over his glass that said, See? Easy. Normal. Harmless.
Because every time I laughed at something I didn’t find funny, my mind went back down the beach.
Toward the private villa tucked beyond the public strip.
Toward Destiny.
I couldn’t see her from here. That was the point. The villa sat far enough away from the beach bars and resort lights to keep her hidden, with gates, guards, cameras, and enough landscaping to make the place look like rich people privacy instead of protective custody.
But distance didn’t matter.
I knew exactly where she was.
Earlier, she had watched us leave from the pool terrace, towel wrapped around her waist, sunglasses covering half her face, mouth set in a hard little line. She hadn’t said a word. Didn’t need to.
Destiny pissed off was a weather system.