Chapter Twenty-Five Reed
Chapter Twenty-Five
Reed
Hollis lowered her hand from her mouth, shoulders trembling. She looked at me like she was standing on a cliff’s edge and I was the only solid ground left. “I, um, need a minute alone. Excuse me.” She took off before anyone could stop her, and Ranger wasted no time in trailing after her.
“Plan on enlightening the rest of us what that was about?” Ryder removed his ball cap, dragging his hand through his hair.
I glanced at Audrey, curious whether Hollis had told her about this. She read my thoughts and shared, “While we were watching movies yesterday, she pulled me aside out of Chase’s earshot and told me about the dream.”
“Mind filling them in, then?” I asked, and she nodded.
I picked up Hollis’s phone and handed it to Alex. “Destroy this while I’m gone.” I left the kitchen, my heart thundering and nerves stretching tight every step closer to her room, torn on how to handle her, the “reset” revelation—all of it.
At her door, I propped my hand up on the wall alongside it, trying to make up my mind.
Plan A: rationalize my way through what we’d learned while remaining in operator mode.
Plan B: do the opposite of A. Be irrational.
Be a civilian. Be like a teen from the ’80s with a boom box on my shoulder standing outside a girl’s house, about to declare my feelings for her through a song.
What song could I possibly pick to explain what I was feeling, and why I was feeling it, though?
I pushed away from the wall as I mentally skipped through my entire saved playlist and went for the door handle. No need to knock. If it was unlocked, that was my invitation to enter. And yes, I was absolutely about to justify my way into her bedroom with that mentality.
The door opened, and the moment I saw her stretched out on the bed, with her back to me and Ranger curled tight against her, I decided to cut straight to a third option. Plan C: wing it, go with my gut, and see where it took me.
“Go away.” The words cracked like a whip and yet held no weight.
Even Ranger didn’t budge when he heard my steps. He knew she needed more than him.
“Can’t do that.” Because I was a walking contradiction in the flesh.
“You don’t need to be here. I’ll be fine.” Stubborn woman.
I shut the door and rounded the bed. “You should’ve locked the door if you didn’t want me to come in.”
She refused to meet my eyes, and her face was partially buried in a pillow, so her words were muffled when she spoke again. “And you wouldn’t have picked it or broken it down if you wanted to?”
“Maybe,” I admitted. “But I guess we’ll never find out.”
Ranger lifted his head, ears perked up as if curious what I was about to do.
Your guess is as good as mine, buddy. I rested my hands on my hips, assessing the situation. From where I stood, my past, common sense, and Ranger were the main obstacles in my way of getting to her and fixing what I may have broken.
Someone may have manufactured her feelings for me with that dream by the power of suggestion and drugs, but that didn’t change the here and now. That she was under my roof, which made her mine to protect. Physically and mentally.
A half-hearted grunt of frustration sailed from my lips as I removed my shoes and set aside my own issues to get in the bed with her.
“My turn,” I told Ranger, and he got the message and jumped off.
The mattress dipped from my weight as I lay down.
“What happened to that three-foot rule?”
“On hold for now. You’ve had a tough day.
I’m just trying to be people-y here for you.
” I switched to my back and set my hands on my chest, head on the pillow, trying to get comfortable.
“But my being here doesn’t change what I said to you earlier.
” I could only let my walls down so much.
I needed to remain as strong as possible with six inches separating me from the woman I desperately wanted but could never have.
Still nothing from her, just sniffling.
I could be quiet all day, all night. No problem. But hit me back with the kind of silence my old man used to give me as a kid? I’d wind up trying to fill in the blanks, becoming a talker. Didn’t make sense, but it was what it was.
“I’m sorry someone did that to you, that they created a false reality with me in it—the last person the real you would ever want to be with.”
While I’d expected her to challenge me, I didn’t expect for it to come in the form of a sudden pillow whacking my chest.
“What the—” The pillow connected with my face this time, cutting me off as Ranger howled. “Hollis,” I snapped while sitting and twisting around to catch her next attempt to thrust her pillow at me. I snatched it midair and wrenched it free from her, tossing it to the floor.
Ranger set his paws on the bed, barking. He was coming to her defense when I was the one under open fire. “Down,” I ordered before lifting my hands in surrender as she side-eyed another pillow.
She was on her knees, panting, ready to go to war with me in a way I hadn’t prepared for. Then she did it. Made her move. She picked up her next pillow weapon and held it like a threat between us. I grabbed the other side.
“I can’t have a pillow fight with you.” She knew damn well why I wasn’t about to wrestle with her in bed. I would most definitely lose on purpose, let her wind up straddling me so I could kiss her.
She kept a firm grip of the pillow, her eyes becoming glossy. “Then stop with that self-deprecating bullshit.”
She tugged. I pulled right back.
“I don’t want to hear how you’re a nobody.
Not worthy or whatever nonsense you spewed earlier.
” A single tear slid down her cheek, distracting me, allowing her to nearly break the pillow free from my grip.
“And screw what my mother said. You may have dropped out of school, but look at you now. You became part of one of the world’s most elite units.
Delta Force,” she continued, more tears trailing down her face, hitting her lips.
All I could do was hold on to the pillow with everything I had in me and not jerk it and her over to my lap.
“I don’t know what happened to you, but you’re the definition of resilient. It makes perfect sense to me why someone would choose you to be the one they plant in my head as my husband and the father of my children.”
My husband and the father of my children had to be the best words I’d ever had thrown at me in my entire life.
“So yes, you deserve a pillow to the face, over and over again, until I can get it through your thick skull that you’re good enough. More than good enough,” she rasped, voice breaking. Also breaking me in damn half.
“You don’t know me,” I said under my breath, unable to shake my past.
I’d overcome more obstacles than I could count in my life and struggled every day not to fall back to my old ways. It was a daily battle trying to be a better man. But could I be her man? No, no way.
“You’re right. My body and mind don’t know you.” She licked her lips, catching her tears. “But my soul does. Or did you forget what you told—”
“Stop.” I shifted off the bed, needing to get away from her. Ranger remained by my feet, his gaze volleying between us. “That ‘soul’ feeling . . .”—I was a jackass and used air quotes—“it’s based on lies someone shoved in your head. The desire? Fake. Your perception of me? Tainted.”
She chucked the pillow, ready to go to war on her feet. She rounded the bed to confront me, and Ranger whimpered, as if he hated seeing his mom and dad fighting. “I hate you for saying that, for making me—”
“See?” I bit out, jaw strained as I stared her down. “That feeling right there is the real one. Stick with it. Been trying to tell you since the day you asked me if we were . . .” I shook my head and left off the sleeping with each other part of my unhinged statement.
She swiped her tears free with the backs of her hands as if those liquid drops had betrayed her.
“You’re confused. You don’t want me, I promise.” I softened my tone that time, remembering why I came here, and it wasn’t to knock down someone already in pain.
“Fine, okay,” she sputtered, slamming her hands on her hips. “Then look me in the eyes and tell me it’s all fake for you. It’s just desire because you’re a man who finds me attractive.”
I squeezed my hands open and closed at my sides, trying to get a grip. To do what she said and lie right to her face. “No.” I had no idea what I was even saying no to. It was the only word I could get out.
She poked my chest, and I gritted down on my back teeth and lowered my chin to stare at her finger, catching sight of Ranger still wedged between us.
“Look at me.”
I did as she asked. Eyes clashing with hers. Snarling at her. Baring my teeth. My lungs ached as I felt the weight of everyone’s pain and disappointment from all over the world fill up every crack and crevice of my very being. Fuck, it hurt.
I couldn’t lie. I couldn’t tell her I only wanted her body. So I did my best to reroute. Find a new path out of this. “We’ll never fit together. It’d never work.” The words tasted like ash, and it was also a scapegoat. The clichéd excuse: poor boy and rich girl, blah-blah-blah, nonsense.
“Good, great.” She leaned forward so far she had to grab my forearm to maintain her balance and not step on Ranger. “Now try that again while looking into my eyes. And tell me you don’t want me.”
I’d rather have open heart surgery while I was awake than lie to her.
She already had a grip around my heart; I could feel her trying to physically pump life into it, and she had no business doing that.
Because the second she came back to us with her memories, she’d leave me there with my chest cracked open, heart bare to the world.
“Can’t do it, can you?” She tightened her hold of my arm.
“Why won’t you listen to me? What the hell did they do to you to make you want .
. .” I closed my eyes, hanging my head. “Are we really standing here talking about this? You and me? When there are a dozen things that matter more? Like who did this to you, why they did it, and how to get your memories back?” Dodge and deflect—that was the only ammo I had left to try to win this war.
“The fact we are talking about it despite everything going on must mean it’s important. We’ve been circling back to us since the moment you walked into the room at my parents’ house. Doesn’t that tell you something?”
“Just proves my point.” I should have gone with plan A. Even B. Anything but the direction I’d gone. “Someone used me to mess you up.” My free hand slid from my chest to my ribs at the memory of what I had tattooed there.
This Hollis may want me, but Celeste Hollis wouldn’t. I hadn’t missed the signs before. Sexual tension? Maybe. But love, and for me to be the father of her children? No, she never wanted me like that before. Not possible.
“Jason,” she breathed out.
I had no idea how she managed to redeem that name, but somehow I could physically feel the damage done by my father begin to drift away. Each time that name hit the air from her tongue, it hurt a little less.
“I can’t do this.” I opened my eyes, rested a hand on top of hers, and gently removed her touch so I could retreat. “You should rest.”
God, every part of me felt banged up and broken.
I went over to a pair of boots she had in front of the closet, forcing myself to transition back to operator mode. I picked them up and checked the size. “They’re a match. European 39.” I set them back down. “As soon as we hear from Constantine, I’ll let you know.”
I forgot about my own shoes and went to the door, hoping to exfil before she’d try to stop me. Because if she asked me to stay? I didn’t trust myself that I wouldn’t. One of us had to remain strong, and it had to be me, the one who remembered our past.
I unlocked and opened the door, my heart thudding up into my ears as I went into the hallway, grateful she hadn’t called out for me. No pillows thrown, either. I left Ranger with her and shut the door.
My chest burned as I walked away from her, and the house hummed with too many voices. I needed everyone gone, which was what I announced the second I made it back to the kitchen.
“She okay?” Audrey asked after I’d given my order to leave.
I held up my hand, a request not to ask anything. “Please, just . . . go.”
Alex closed his laptop, shooting me a worried look, and I prayed with everything I had in me that he wouldn’t poke or press.
“Let me know if Constantine learns anything,” I managed.
Ryder scrutinized me before relenting. “We do need to talk to her family. At this point, we don’t have a choice.”
I folded my arms, glancing at my watch. “First thing tomorrow, we’ll make the call.”
“Or just send them a text about Tristan?” Seraphina suggested. “And then don’t answer when Gideon calls fuming. We won’t have to talk to them. They’ll even come to us.”
Ryder peered at his wife, a quick smirk cutting across his lips at her smart idea.
“Destroy the phone after the text, of course, to protect this mystery brother of theirs,” Seraphina added as Ryder laced his fingers with hers.
He had Seraphina.
Alex had Audrey.
And what’d I have?
Right . . . Hollis’s dream that will never come true.