Chapter 4
Chapter Four
AYDA
Ifelt good. Really good. I couldn’t stop smiling as Sutton pulled up outside the diner. I pushed my things into the duffle I kept in my locker and smiled up at him broadly.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t. If Drew finds out about this, we’re both dead.”
I pulled the tie out of my hair and rearranged my ponytail before retying it. I chanced a glance at the man next to me and made a face, scrunching up my nose. “I know. It’s not a conversation I’m looking forward to having.”
“Well, when you have it, make sure he knows you’re the one that instigated it, and that I only agreed under duress. After weeks of nagging. And blackmail.”
“You are a drama queen. Just because you get along better with Drew now, it doesn’t mean you have to back down from confrontation. I actually think he enjoys your combative conversations.”
Sutton scowled at me and shook his head. “With anything else, I’d agree, but with you... the man is very black and white where you’re concerned. You need to tell him soon, Ayda. It’s only a matter of time before he figures it out.”
“I know.” I pulled on my work shoes and reached for the door. “Same time tomorrow?”
Sutton hesitated for a moment, rolled his eyes, which made him look too much like Sloane, and finally nodded in agreement before demanding I get out of his car.
I did as he asked, pushing the door closed behind me before straightening my nametag on my uniform with a sigh.
I hated lying to Drew about anything. Most days it would have been preferable to cut my own hand off than even utter a little white lie in his direction, but I knew if I told him what I was doing, he would stop me, and I didn’t want to be stopped.
I pushed into the bustle of the diner with a smile.
The acrid smell of grease and burned coffee permeated the air in the building, but the smell was still one of those things that made memories rush into my brain and flash behind my eyelids.
There was a time that the smell would have filled me with despair because arriving here meant it was the first of my three jobs for the day.
Now… now I saw memories of Deeks in the booth teasing me mercilessly.
I saw Tate and Kenny in the corner coming up with the evening’s festivities.
Tate and Libby making out when they thought I wasn’t looking.
Then there were those very new and treasured memories of Drew in his booth, legs stretched out, his long fingers wrapped around the coffee mug as he watched me.
Glancing over at the booth, I froze and blinked twice, unsure whether my memory was conjuring up an image that strong or if he was really there.
Two more blinks and I realized that he was actually there and let my smile burst free.
I practically skipped to his booth and kneeled on the bench next to him, only sampling the waves of something being off when I leaned in for a kiss.
I was so busted.
Shit.
“Hey, you,” I said, kissing the corner of his mouth and glancing over at Janette. She waved me off, obviously telling me to do what I needed before I started. This could possibly take longer than the fifteen minutes I had before my shift officially started.
Drew had many complex sides, but when he became as silent and still as he currently was, not many people, including me, knew exactly how to handle him.
He stared forward at the other side of the diner, ignoring me as he curled both hands around his cup, lowered his head down and took a slow, controlled sip of his coffee. His body was rigid, and the skin over his knuckles was strained, holding all of the tension he was trying to keep under control.
The rush of blood in my ears drowned out every other sound in the place and left me with white noise as I slid my feet under the table, sat back against the bench and blew out a sigh.
I was in the wrong. I understood that implicitly, but being shut out like this with no inkling of the man I’d woken up next to this morning present told me how much worse this was than I’d imagined.
“Drew…”
He cleared his throat, rolling his tongue around the inside of his mouth until he took another drink of his coffee. When he placed the cup back on the table, it was careful and measured, as though he was scared of breaking the simplest of things without intending to.
Was he giving me an opportunity to come clean so he didn’t have to ask? Or would I hang myself by talking?
I didn’t care. I’d hidden this from him for a while, and now that the opportunity to come clean had presented itself, I was going to take it.
It was the only thing I had kept from him in the longest time, and he could be as mad as he wanted to be.
I was sorry for lying to him, but I wouldn’t be sorry for what I had lied about.
“I owe you an explanation,” I said, and sighed, wishing more than anything that I wasn’t nervous to touch him and risk pissing him off further.
It took him a while, but Drew eventually turned his face my way, doing nothing more than raising a single brow at me as his eyes burned into mine.
“Right then. So, do you remember after the… after the uh, warehouse incident? And after we went to see Pete? Do you remember I said I wanted to learn how to protect myself?” I stopped, hating myself for sounding so pathetic.
Releasing a growl of frustration, I turned in my seat to face him.
“Drew, I fucked up by lying to you. I know that. I knew that when I made the decision to, but I figured it was better to beg for forgiveness than ask permission.”
I wasn’t sure whether it was the fact that he heard me admit to lying about something, but the anger flashed in his eyes, followed by a fleeting look of sadness before he inhaled through flared nostrils and exhaled slowly, working the muscles in his jaw.
“I really am sorry for lying to you. I hate doing it, and it never sits right with me because we have a good relationship that doesn’t warrant lies.
That being said, I am not sorry for asking Sutton to help me.
It makes sense really. Who knows better about all that stuff than him, right?
He only lied to you because I asked him not to mention it, but, Drew, I had to do this.
You do understand, don’t you? Not the lying part, of course. There’s no justification for that.”
I was babbling. The words just kept coming, and no matter how much I told myself to shut up, I just kept flinging words at him to try cushion the blow.
“What have you done?” He growled. Really growled. The sound was feral and scary as hell, but it was all Drew Tucker. His control was slipping.
“I asked for shooting lessons, and Sutton’s been teaching me with a gun I bought almost a month ago.” It came out like one long word, no breaths, no spaces, and the last word came out so high it sounded like a question.
I may as well have smacked him in the stomach with a shovel.
His chest rose as though I’d winded him, but his face never changed.
Not except for a slight rise of his brows before he quickly corrected himself.
I couldn’t get a read on his emotions at all.
I wasn’t even sure he’d truly heard what I’d said.
When his head began to nod slowly, his understanding sinking in and making his nostrils flare impossibly wider, all I could do was stare and wait.
All of two seconds…
“Drew!” I huffed out. “I know I lied. I know I fucked up even worse by lying about the gun, but I needed to learn. I need to be able to—” I cut myself off and threw myself against the back of the bench, my eyes on the tiled ceiling as I chose to chew the inside of my cheek instead.
I wasn’t going to apologize for learning a viable skill to defend myself.
I couldn’t. I’d bought the gun to protect me, to protect Drew, Tate, and all of the men I cared deeply about.
Even if I didn’t need it, the peace of mind of having the gun and the education to use it helped me sleep a little better at night.
That didn’t mean I didn’t understand why Drew was against it—I did.
I knew every argument that would come from his mouth when he finally decided it was time to tear me a new one, but that nagging need in the back of my head and that protective portion of my heart knew that all the arguments in the world wouldn’t give me the security having that gun in my purse did.
“Move,” he pushed out, low and hoarse.
Resigned, I slipped from the booth and bit back the emotions that were always so damn close to the surface these days.
He didn’t look at me as he climbed out. Drew simply stood over the table, pulling a couple of dollar bills out of his cut and throwing them on the table for Janette.
His head was bowed, his hand pausing as he rested and flexed his fingers on top of the table as if he was unsure what to do next.
I couldn’t look away from the heavy rise and fall of his shoulders.
Not until he turned his back on me completely, raised his chin, pushed his hands into his pocket and started to walk out of the diner.
Rusty came out of the swinging doors just in time to see him, and his face lit up with a smile until he saw Drew’s obvious anger shining back at him.
“Don’t send her home in a rush tonight, Rusty. She’s just told me she’s more than happy to work until close,” Drew told him from across the counter. His head went down as he walked toward the doors to leave me, his Hounds patch drifting farther and farther away with every step he took.
I breathed out in frustration, my hands finding my hips as my chin dropped to my chest. I was fighting the urge to chase him.
Going after him when he was this angry was a really bad idea.
The conversation would end in a larger argument that would have him sleeping anywhere else for the night.
I’d known he was going to take this badly.
I just hadn’t known it was going to be this bad.