13. Harley #2
The words sting because they’re partly true, or were true, or maybe are still true in messy, complicated ways I don’t know how to untangle yet.
I hate Joshua Dobson. I hate what he was.
I hate every shifter who helped him. I hate the glowing eyes in the alley and the fact my world will never be normal again.
But I don’t hate Nathan. I don’t hate Marcus, not really, even if he still scares the hell out of me. And I don’t hate Val.
God help me, I don’t.
“We’ll talk when we get home,” I tell him.
Home. The word slips out before I can stop it, and I don’t know whether I mean my apartment building or his apartment or the strange terrifying space that seems to exist wherever he is.
I don’t have time to think about it. We move toward the waiting cab as fast as Val’s leg will allow, my head twisting constantly as I try to look behind us and ahead of us at the same time. I don’t see yellow eyes.
We make it to the cab, and I yank the door open. “You first. I’m not having you do something so stupid again as staying behind.”
The moment the words land, I know he’s taken them wrong when he flinches.
As if I think he’s weak, useless, less of a man because he’s limping and scarred and bleeding somewhere I can’t see yet.
I’ll explain what I meant later, but right now I just need him in the cab before whatever’s in that alley comes after us both.
He gets in, stiff and awkward, and I slide in beside him instead of going around to the other door.
I need to be next to him. I don’t know what that says about me and I don’t care.
I put one hand on his right leg, partly to steady myself, partly to reassure him, partly because touching him makes the tight awful thing inside me loosen by a fraction.
“Now take us to the address he gave you,” I tell the driver, “and you only get the other half if you don’t hit every God damned bump you can find.”
“What do ya expect when you call me an asshole?” the driver snaps.
“I expect you to prove me wrong, strive for better customer service or something. Now will you just drive?”
He mutters something under his breath, but the cab lurches into motion.
I twist to look through the rear window, searching for movement near the club, near the diner, near the alley where Val came from.
For a second, I think I see someone step out of the dark, a large shape half-hidden by a group of people spilling from the club.
Then headlights sweep across the pavement and the shape is gone.
I settle back slowly and turn toward Val.
“Are you okay?”
He doesn’t answer right away. He looks like he doesn’t know where to put his gaze, or maybe he simply doesn’t want to look at me. I earned that, probably. One second I was recoiling from him like he’d bitten me, and the next I came charging back into his life and tackled him onto the sidewalk.
“Hey,” I say more quietly. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m…I’m trying, here.”
He finally glances at me. His eye is tired. Guarded. Hurt in a way that makes something in my chest twist.
“Okay,” he says after a moment. “I don’t understand why you came back.”
I start to answer, but suspicion prickles and I glance toward the front seat. Sure enough, the cabbie’s eyes keep flicking to the rearview mirror with way too much interest. “Do you mind?” I snap.
He shrugs so I glare at the back of his head for another second before turning to Val again and lowering my voice.
“I couldn’t leave you, that’s why. Something here”—I press a hand against my stomach, right where the ache had been tearing through me—”actually hurt the farther away we got.
When I realized what you were doing, what might happen, I knew I had to rearrange some of my thinking, okay? ”
Val doesn’t speak, but he’s listening. I can tell by the stillness in him, by the way his hand shifts subtly closer to mine without quite touching it.
“I’ve always despised the narrow-mindedness of bigots,” I continue, each word rougher than the last, “and yet I, unwittingly, became one. That really disturbs me.”
The confession hangs between us, too naked for a cab with a nosy driver and cheap air freshener dangling from the mirror.
Val turns his face toward the window, giving me his profile, and for one stupid second I get distracted by how beautiful he is.
His nose, his mouth, the hard clean line of his jaw, the scar cutting through all that masculine perfection like it belongs there.
Like some sculptor got angry halfway through carving him and made him devastating instead of merely handsome.
The rest of the drive is quiet. I want to squirm, but I also want to talk.
I want to demand he tell me what he’s thinking, but I respect that maybe he needs a few minutes, or maybe he’s just not someone who fills silence because he’s afraid of what might grow in it.
Every so often, I catch him looking at me in the reflection of the window, only for a split second before he looks away again.
It gives me hope, which is dangerous and probably stupid, but I hold on to it anyway.
When the cab finally stops outside our building, I hand the driver the other half of the torn hundred and get out. Val gets out on his side instead of sliding over, and I tell myself it’s because it’s easier on his leg.
The lobby is quiet when we go inside, and I head automatically toward the stairs before remembering Val’s limp. I stop by the elevators and hit the up button instead. Val still isn’t looking at me.
“Are you going to ever talk to me?” I ask.
He turns that one eye on me for half a second and says nothing.
I huff, narrowing my eyes. “Great. I get the silent treatment. What are you, my wife?”
The snort of laughter that escapes him is so unexpected I gape.
Then he starts to snicker, low and reluctant, and laughing like that, he is beyond gorgeous. The sound loosens something in my chest I hadn’t realized was still clenched. For a few seconds, there’s no cab, no alley, no wolf, no betrayal. Just Val laughing because I’m an idiot.
The elevator dings and opens.
He gently nudges me inside, and as the doors close, his laughter fades back into quiet. I hate losing it immediately.
“Are you mad or not?” I ask, confused by the reserved expression settling over him again.
Val shakes his head slightly. “No. I wasn’t mad in the first place. I just needed to think. I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed sometimes, Harley. I try to make sure what I want to say is the right thing before I say it, if it’s important to me.”
“Well, now I’m really nervous.”
One edge of his mouth curves just a little, and my pulse jumps like I’m sixteen and hopeless. He looks at me, really looks at me this time, and says, “I owe you an apology, first off, and I would prefer to do it properly. Tossing it out there in a filthy cab seemed cheesy.”
The elevator stops on our floor. I start to step out, but Val catches my arm gently.
“Please. Let me do what I’m supposed to. I need to check and make sure the hall is safe, and that no one has tampered with your door or entered your apartment.”
I point at my door. “But there’s three deadbolts on that thing. Surely no one got in.”
“You can’t go by how many locks you have on a door,” he says. “A skilled lockpicker could get past those in minutes.”
I want to argue, but the intense expression on his face stops me. This matters to him. Not in a controlling way, but in a please let me keep you safe way. So I stay by the elevator and watch him check the hall, the stairwell, my door, and his own. Only then does he come back.
“It’s all clear.”