Chapter 20
I’ll give credit where credit is due, but I’m not going to applaud a fish for swimming.
— Quinn to Shayne
QUINN
“ What are you doing?”
I looked up from my magnifying glass before saying, “ Trying to put her Nonna’s plate back together.”
Garrett stopped and Boss , his K9 officer, sniffled at my table before I pushed him back, unwilling to have him mess my pieces up. No matter how cute the big bastard was.
“ Why ?” Garrett asked.
“ Because she loved it,” I said simply. “ You heading home?”
Garrett had come over to sleep off the night shift in my guest room.
As of two days ago, it officially had a bed, sheets, and even pillows.
Pillows and sheets that I’d tried, and failed, to get Shayne to help pick out with me.
In the end, she’d pointed innocuously at the screen, and I’d gotten the sheets she’d indicated, even though she put absolutely no thought into it.
“ You gonna get her out of the house tonight like you said?” Garrett asked, pulling his utility belt from the table and wrapping it around his waist.
Boss’s ears perked up and he started to wag his tail lazily, excited for a night of work.
I was.
“ I am,” I confirmed.
I was just waiting for Garrett to get out of my house.
I didn’t want him to witness what was about to happen.
“ I’ll get out of your hair, then,” Garrett said as he whistled at the dog. “ Let’s go, Boss .”
Boss charged out of the house, Garrett following much more sedately at his heel.
I waited until I heard the cruiser start before I got up and steeled my belly.
Enough was enough.
It’d been three solid weeks since she’d spoken with the DEA agent and given her sworn statement about what had gone on at the Rodriguez household over a twelve-month period.
With that information, as well as Gable giving a sworn statement that Shayne had no ties to what her brother was doing, he’d declined to press any charges.
Which had, in turn, caused the DA to get fuckin’ pissed. But in order not to look like he was an asshole and handing out punishments that weren’t fair, he’d had to pull back on his investigation, too.
I pulled up my phone to check the time, nervous all of a sudden.
My sister’s face popped up on the screen of my phone moments before the thing started to vibrate in my hand.
I answered it, glad that she was returning my call now, instead of a couple of minutes from now when I finally stopped being a little bitch. I was slightly irritated that it had to be a Facetime call, however.
I hated Facetime .
I wasn’t sure why Ande loved it so much, but she was literally the only one besides my niece and nephew who used it.
“ Hey ,” I said carefully. “ You called back.”
“ In the middle of a call, though.” She paused. “ I love working with Cleo , but we don’t mesh like Shayne and I do. Any luck?”
That luck being getting her to go back to work.
“ That’s what I’m about to do,” I offered.
Either I was about to piss her way the fuck off, or I’d pull her out of the funk.
I hoped it was the former and not the latter.
“ Good .” She went on, “ Get her to talk.”
I was planning on it. By pissing her way the hell off.
Then , hopefully, doing what we did best, reconnecting with our bodies. The one and only thing that we could always do that put us on the same page.
I didn’t know if this was the best time for it. I mean, it’d been three and a half weeks since she’d miscarried.
Hence why I’d called Ande in the first place.
To make sure that we were allowed.
I’d had her call her doctor and ask for me.
“ Can she have sex?” I asked Ande .
Ande winced. “ I mean, yes. She can. I’m not going to say that she’s going to want to, though.”
I shrugged. “ I’m not going to say she does or doesn’t, but I’m about to make her really, really pissed off. And we do our best talking after…”
Ande held up her hand so I wouldn’t finish. “ I do not want to know.”
“ Love you, Ande ,” I said. “ Gotta go.”
I was a nervous wreck.
I just wanted to get Shayne to leave the bed…
Drawing in a fortifying breath, I headed into the bedroom and flipped on the light.
She shifted, pulling the blanket up high over her head.
I ignored her and the way she looked and headed for the closet where I pulled out a pair of her jeans, a t-shirt that was mine, and a sweatshirt that was also mine.
Catching socks on the way back to the bed, I ripped the covers off of her body and threw them to the ground.
She glared hard at me.
Even with her hair a greasy mess, she was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“ Time to get up,” I urged.
She rolled over, giving me her back, and… I lost it.
I ripped the sheet off next, then her pants.
“ What are you doing?” she squeaked as she tried to pull her sweatpants—my sweatpants—back on.
I could say that, at least.
Over the last month that she’d been here, she’d been wearing all of my clothes.
I didn’t think I even saw any of her clothes in the laundry over the last month besides her panties.
The next thing to go were her underwear and the t-shirt—again, mine. I hadn’t seen that particular one since high school, which made me smile inside.
Hell , over the last month, I’d seen a lot of my clothes that’d mysteriously gone missing over the years.
“ Quinn !” She reached for the pillow that’d fallen off the bed in our scuffle, her ass going high in the air to do it.
And I might or might not have had impure thoughts about her in that moment.
I persevered, though, forcing myself—and my dick—to calm down.
“ Nope ,” I said as I reached for the pillow and tossed it across the room.
She was furious now, I could see the anger in her eyes flaring to life.
The hot fire that always sent me into a tailspin when it came to her… Goddamn , it was amazingly beautiful.
That fire was the best fuckin’ thing in the world.
“ You’re a psychopath, Quinn !” she screamed, throwing her hands up.
Again , I might or might not have reacted to those beautiful tits of hers bouncing with her movement.
Pissed .
She was so freakin’ pissed.
Even worse, it’d been my fault.
But I couldn’t watch her waste her life away anymore.
She needed to get up.
She needed to go to work.
She needed to fly.
She needed to talk to me.
She needed to live life.
Right now she was just existing, and it was hurting my fucking heart.
“ At least I’m on a path, Shayne !” I accused, pointing my finger at her which I knew would piss her off even more. “ Watching you waste away in this dark room is fucking killing me!”
Except , the anger didn’t come.
It died.
Just as quickly as it was there, it was gone.
In its place was bone deep sadness that sent my heart to withering inside of my chest.
She crumpled forward. “ I killed our baby.”
I caught her, pulling her into my arms.
I closed my eyes as a wave of grief nearly knocked the wind out of me.
“ You didn’t do anything wrong,” I promised, smoothing her hair back from her face.
She hung her head. “ I don’t feel fine. I feel like I’m drowning.”
I carried her into the shower, feeling my lungs seize in my chest with each sob that left her beautiful lips.
The ache, it was all encompassing.
I wanted to squeeze her so hard that her body and soul fused with mine.
I wanted to hold her, and never let her go.
I wanted to spend my every remaining day here, with her, doing only this.
But I forced myself to reach into the shower and flip it to its highest setting.
“ When I put this shower in,” I said as I pressed the button to turn it on. “ I programmed you setting number one. It’s the hottest the shower will get.” I pressed that button, knowing damn well I was about to be in a world of pain. “ One hundred and seventeen degrees. That’s the hottest the dial goes up to. I think it might be a little bit hotter, though. I’ve never tested it.”
She sobbed into my neck, and I closed my eyes as the lump in my throat grew.
“ I know that you and me talked about having all kinds of kids, honey,” I said softly. “ But no one ever said that those kids had to be from our own bodies. Baby , you know what kind of a life I see for the kids who come through the gang program we just started? Babies . Eight . Nine . Hell , there was a seven-year-old who went through the last camp. If I could take every one of them home, I would. And baby, I know that if I asked, you’d bring them into our home. You’d bring them into your heart. And you’d love them so fuckin’ much.”
A silent sob left her throat, and I took that as agreement.
We entered the shower, and I felt her stiffen in my arms for a half a beat before she melted even more.
Meanwhile , I was boiling my skin off.
I stayed exactly where I was, though, underneath the shower heads that sprayed from both sides.
I’d designed this shower with two people in mind.
Her on one side, me on the other, with the option to meet in the middle if we were so inclined.
I put in a shower shelf for her to rest her leg on while shaving. A long insert for all of her hair products—of which they were already lining the walls after I asked Ande to get her everything she liked.
I held her, rocked her, and eventually started to run the bar of soap down the length of her back. Her arms. Her fingers. Whatever I could reach without letting her go.
“ Why does the worst keep happening to me? When’s enough enough?” she whispered hoarsely into my ear.
I dropped my forehead to hers, allowing our breaths to mingle, before I said, “ We’re going to make it this time, baby.”
She sniffled. “ I don’t feel like I’m going to make it.”
I pulled her away so that I could stare into her eyes.
“ Worst mistake of my life,” I told her hoarsely. “ I thought I could scare you into leaving. I thought that…” I shook my head. “ You already know what I thought. I can’t say it was the best idea in the world, but I was fuckin’ scared. I didn’t want to lose you to gang violence.” I closed my eyes. “ The day before I did it, Dad came home telling me about a kid who died trying to protect his mom and sister from what he’d done. He’d decided to initiate into a gang. Killed some guy. A big wig in another gang. And when he got home, he hadn’t realized he had a tail from the rival gang. Gang rolled up and entered his house, guns blazing. Sister died instantly. Kid died trying to protect his mom. And the mom had to live the rest of her life knowing that she’d failed as a parent, and her son had been responsible for getting her daughter killed.” I smoothed my hand down the length of her face. “ I didn’t want that for you. I didn’t want your brother to kill you because of what he was doing. I was fuckin’ scared, okay? I was so scared that you’d leave me. You want to know how I got through these years without you?”
Her breath hitched. “ H -how?”
“ I knew that you were safe,” he whispered. “ You may not have been with me. You may have been half a world away. You may only have given me the scraps you were willing to give, but I knew you were safe. I knew you were healthy. I checked up on you all the time. I called my sister. I did illegal background checks. I did whatever the fuck I needed to do, and will continue to do it, as long as at the end of the day, you stay breathing.”
She let her head fall down to my chest, and I reached toward her shelf and got a handful of shampoo before I started working it through her hair.
“ You always get too much,” she mumbled.
I pulled the showerhead off the wall and rinsed her hair.
She closed her eyes and tilted her head back.
God , she was so fuckin’ beautiful.
I caught up the conditioner next and worked that through her hair.
I let it sit, though, and started in again with the soap.
I started to run it down her arms, and she caught it up, as well as the razor.
Using the shelf that I made for her, she shaved her underarms, legs, bikini line, and then gestured at me. “ Turn around.”
I did, and she cleaned up the spot at the back of my neck where my hair grew outside of my haircut.
I laughed when she said, “ You need a haircut.”
“ I’ve been busy trying to keep you fed and alive the last four weeks,” I admitted. “ A haircut is the last thing that’s been on my mind.”
She hummed, then reached for the showerhead herself and started to clean off the back of my neck.
She hung the showerhead back up, then washed my hair, gesturing for me to bend down in order for her to do it.
“ Not that I don’t love your hair,” she murmured quietly. “ I love that it’s longer. It makes you look less like a stick in the mud.”
I snorted, then bent forward to rinse my hair out.
When I next opened my eyes, she was staring at me with a look of hunger on her face.
I responded in kind.
I’m not sure who reached for who but…