Chapter 17 #2
"What next?" I ask a few minutes after driving off.
"Take a different way back to your place," he says. "Make sure we aren't being followed."
It's the most sense he has made all night, and since we took the most direct way to the cabin as possible, taking the back roads means avoiding the police who should have already been dispatched to assist the hunters.
It seems like a million years, a billion words spoken by Bobby, without him really saying a damn thing, before I pull up outside of our house.
The sun is kissing the horizon, the sky turning pink and orange with the promise of a new day.
I know the beauty in it, but it doesn't make me feel any better.
The memory of the pain in that kid's eyes will continue to haunt me long after the sun rises in the sky.
A weird silence fills the car, and I'm shocked to see Bobby with his head angled back, mouth wide open.
"Think he's dead?" I ask.
"Think we could get that lucky," Zeus mutters just as Bobby takes a deep breath.
I grin, knowing I have to take the good where I can, and I find it comical that my friend probably isn't joking.
"Don't want to leave him sitting out here like this," I say, my mind spinning with my next step.
"I'll grab the keys to the truck. You can drive him somewhere and let him sleep this shit off."
"Sounds good," I say, waiting as patiently as possible as I watch Zeus unlock the front door to the house and grab the keys.
I pull away from the curb in front of the house, pausing long enough that Zeus can back the truck out and follow me.
Knowing I'll have to answer questions either way this plays out, I drive all the way to The Garage, presuming people wouldn't mess with a cop car, and would be less likely to mess with anything sitting outside the diner owned and frequented by The League.
I don't bother trying to wake Bobby. I climb out of the car, make sure his window is slightly cracked, then lock him inside and put the car keys through the mail slot near the diner's front door.
"This could go either way," I mutter after pulling open the passenger side door of the truck and climbing inside. "They could commend us for bringing him here, or be pissed we left him with all the loot in the trunk."
"I'm not going to babysit a dopehead who couldn't wait for his bump until he got home," Zeus snaps as he pulls away from the diner.
"I get it," I mutter, pressing my fingers to my closed eyes, a half-assed attempt to try and ward off the headache threatening to settle in.
"I've not been around these types of people very much, and we're new to the whole shitshow.
If the guy running things has any sense, then Bobby is the one on the hook if his stolen goods are stolen by someone else.
We don't even know the fucking location of their compound. What the fuck were we supposed to do?"
"I know," I say, trying to keep my tone calm.
I never have to remind myself that we're on the same team.
I know that his increased volume and agitation have everything to do with what we just did, and it's not personal or aimed at me.
"I'm just saying that blame doesn't always fall where blame should. "
The rest of the drive is spent in silence.
Although I know exactly how the man is feeling because I've had that very first experience myself, I don't open my mouth to tell him that it gets easier.
Zeus may have been a dick on more than one occasion when we were younger, but he has always been morally sound.
There's a very real chance that it won't get easier for him as it did for me.
He seems no less tense when we pull into the driveway, and once inside the house, he opts to pace back and forth across the small living room.
A battle whirls inside of me, because I don't know what to do, or if there is even anything I could do that would help ease what he's feeling.
I decide to take the chance of him punching me in the face, and I step in front of him on his way back toward the kitchen. He pauses, not meeting my eyes as he scrapes his hands over the top of his head, a deep, ragged breath drawing into his lungs.
Tonight had the best possible outcome, but rather than saying that, I stay silent, knowing that there will be more nights while involved with this group, when we won't be so lucky.
"What?" he growls, his tone carrying less anger than it did in the truck.
I watch his face, knowing just how good a man he is for hating what he did tonight.
There are a lot of people who ride this sort of high for doing something bad and not getting caught.
I'm a full believer that laws and the threat of punishment are the only reasons some people don't do evil shit.
It's not that they're good people. Rather, they don't want to go to jail.
Instead of words, I simply reach up and cup the man's face, urging him to turn his eyes to meet mine. He resists at first, hesitant to look at me, but he doesn't tense up, like he hates the fact that I'm touching him at all.
My next big risk is holding his gaze when he finally looks into my eyes. Even when we were younger, the man hated attention. He'd lurk in the shadows a hundred percent of the time if he could.
I take a step closer, my chest brushing his as I drop my gaze to his plush lips.
"We shouldn't," he whispers, a hint of desperation in his voice that I can't decipher. I don't know if he's fighting the urge to kiss me or kill me.
I gasp in shock when he makes the next move, his face inching closer until our lips are pressing against each other. I feel like an idiot when I realize my eyes are open and as wide as saucers. Just as they flutter closed, his tongue presses gently against my lips, and I sigh, giving him access.
The sweep of his tongue against mine is no doubt the best thing that has ever happened between us, and that's saying a lot because I've had my dick in his mouth.
I step closer, whimpering with need, when his hand grips my hips, urging me closer. There's no hiding either one of our erections as we press against each other, the kiss growing more intense by the second.
And in the next breath, it's over, Zeus stepping back, that perfect tongue of his sweeping over his bottom lip, his eyes slow to move from my mouth to meet my eyes.
I swallow, not knowing if he's going to tell me to fuck off or beg me to take my clothes off.
He does neither, but instead of being mad, he looks a little stunned, as if he can't believe that kiss actually happened.
He simply takes another step back and walks around me. The closure of his bedroom door a few seconds later is soft but still somehow manages to sound like a shotgun blast in the room.