by Tate James
Zed set his knife down on the chopping board and scowled at me in disbelief. "Dare—"
"No, Zed," I snapped, cutting him off with a glacial stare. "Just shut up. I've had it up to fucking here with your bad temper lately." I indicated a point somewhere around my eye level, showing him just how close I was to truly losing my shit at him entirely. "I get it, okay? I fucking get it. You want to protect me; it's your job to second-guess anyone getting close to me because it's quite literally in the job description, both as my second and as my best friend. And trust me, Zed, I appreciate the hell out of you for it. You've always had my back. Always. But this is getting out of hand, and it needs to stop."
At the hard edge in my voice, his eyes hardened with anger and his jaw tensed, but I wasn't done.
"Everything we just discovered at Lucas's house implicates his dead uncle of being in the Guild. That's it. Anything more is just... speculation." I gave a frustrated headshake, my pulse racing with the need to fix this uncomfortable tension between my best friend and me. "Nothing says Lucas is or was ever involved. Short of making him take a polygraph, what more can be done, Zed? At some point, you're gonna have to judge him based on his actions, not your suspicions. And nothing Lucas himself has done leads me to think he's anything but honest." I paused, giving a small frown. "Except, you know, about his age. But that was a white lie at best and not intended to harm anyone."
Zed drew a long breath through his nose, glaring daggers at me as he leaned on the countertop. "You done?"
"Not even close," I bit back, narrowing my eyes. "But for now, sure."
That touch of sass only seemed to infuriate him more, but I gave zero shits about his temper. He was way out of line with his attitude toward both Lucas and me, and enough was enough.
"I don't like this, Hades," he growled out, his forearms flexed hard against the counter on either side of the cutting board with his half-chopped veggies. "I hate it. For five years you've been so closed off and cold. Totally unshakable. Untouchable. Nothing seemed to crack your walls even the slightest bit. Fuck, you were even closed off and distant with Seph. Trust me, she noticed. Then..." He shook his head, the frustration and anger clear across every plane of his face. He wasn't making any attempt to hide what he was feeling from me, and that in itself should have scared me more than his words.
But it didn't. It just made me more determined to crack him open and work out what the hell was going on.
"Then, what?" I pushed. "Then I started fucking Lucas and you got territorial?"
Zed didn't flare up at that swipe, he just gave a bitter laugh and pushed away from the counter. "Territorial? That's what you're gonna call it?"
I shrugged, at a loss for any other way to explain his mood shift.
"Let me put you in my shoes for a hot second, Dare. In the space of one night you decided to break your track record of anonymous, emotionless one-night stands and make a pass at Cassiel fucking Saint, a man you've been quietly crushing on for years and never acted on. If that wasn't out of character enough, you then picked up some random hot guy at the bar, made out with him in full view of the staff, then proceeded to fuck him on camera at Scruffy Murphy's to make Cass jealous." He paused to draw a breath and scrub a hand over his stubbled face, like he could still hardly believe what had happened.
I ground my teeth together in outrage. "So it's okay for you to fuck countless random girls inside our clubs but not okay for me to do it in a Reaper bar? Ever looked up the definition of hypocrisy, Zed? It'd have a big old picture of your face right now."
He gave a bitter laugh. "Except they weren't random hookups for you, Dare. In one night, you went from being an iron fucking fortress of solitude to suddenly throwing your heart on the line with two different dudes."
I squinted at him, disbelief practically oozing from my pores as I interpreted slut-shaming in his words. "So what? What business is it of yours what I do with my heart or my pussy? If I wanted to fuck both of them at the same time tonight, then confess my undying love, I damn well could. It'd be nobody's business but mine. Sit the fuck down, Zayden. You're overstepping."
My idea of hashing things out was backfiring pretty hard. We weren't sorting through jack shit. If anything, I was making it worse because Zed looked like he wanted to punch a hole straight through his pantry door.
"You know what?" I said, my voice dripping bitterness. "This is fucked. I'm going to find somewhere else to stay for a while."
"No." Zed barked that one word with a hard-edged authority that rivaled me in Hades mode.
I paused on my way out of the kitchen, spinning around to give him an incredulous stare. "Excuse me?"
Fists clenched at his sides, he took two steps closer. "I said, no. No, I will not sit down. Not about this. I'm not goddamn overstepping, Dare, because I fucking love you. Okay? I love you."
His words drained the fight out of me like he'd pulled a plug, and my shoulders sagged in exhausted defeat. He wasn't being combative for fun, he was just trying to protect me. Like he always had.
"I know," I replied softly. "I love you too. You're my best—"
He cut me off with a sharp laugh of disbelief. "No, you dense bitch. I love you." And then, because clearly I'd missed the emphasis he was placing on that statement, he grabbed me by the front of my shirt and crashed his lips down on mine.
The shock of it froze my brain, and for a moment I acted on pure instinct and kissed him back. His mouth devoured mine with an intensity that made my entire being ache and beg for more. Then better judgement took hold, and I shoved him away hard enough that he staggered a bit.
"No," I gasped out, wiping a shaking hand over my mouth. "No, you do not get to play that game, Zayden De Rosa. You made your choice years ago. You don't get to suddenly change your mind the second I start falling for someone else."
I started to leave the kitchen, and he spat a curse, then followed and grabbed my arm to stop me. "Dare, that's not—"
"Not what?" I screamed, jerking my arm free and whirling around to give him the full force of my years-old hurt. "You broke my heart, Zed. Is that what you want to hear from me? You're the only person to ever break my heart. But I sucked it up and dealt with it. You offered me friendship and I took it. You're my best friend and nothing more."
"Jesus, Dare, that was six years ago, and you were engaged to my best friend! What the fuck was I supposed to do? I didn't know. I had no idea what he was—" He broke off scrubbing a hand over his face. "I thought I was doing the right thing."
The backs of my eyes burned, but no tears welled up. I seriously wondered if I'd lost the ability to cry like a normal human. "Well, look how that turned out," I whispered, my voice choked with bitterness and accusation that was totally misplaced. It wasn't Zed's fault, and I knew it. But seventeen-year-old me had so badly wanted him to see through the lies and come to my rescue.
"Dare..." Zed stepped forward, reaching out for me again. His eyes were pleading and his brow creased with pain, but I was too far gone to my anger and hurt to acknowledge it.
"Forget it," I spat, my mouth twisting with regret. "It's in the past, and it needs to fucking stay there. Don't try this shit again, Zed. Don't push this. You're too important to me to lose over misplaced jealousy."
I started to walk away, but he called after me. "I can't do that, Dare. You feel the same way for me, and you damn well know it."
I had nothing to say back to that because he was right, so I just continued out of the kitchen and raced upstairs to my temporary bedroom. By the time I locked the door, my knees were weak, and I dissolved into a huddle on the floor, my arms around my knees.
Zed had the best of intentions. He wanted to push that delicate relationship balance between us in a way I'd been quietly hoping he would do for ages. Yet all it'd done was resurface my badly patched trauma and thrown me straight back into the past when I was seventeen, naïve as fuck, gaslighted at every waking moment, and abused behind closed doors by my sociopathic fiancé.
The
night I'd gone to Zed had been one of my worst mistakes. Not only had he rejected my feelings, making me think I'd imagined our connection... but Chase had found out. And he'd made me pay.
Deep shudders ran through me as I struggled to box all the memories and emotions back up inside my mind once more. Time lost all meaning as I huddled there in a ball on the carpet, fighting with my inner demons and exerting the mental strength I'd worked so damn hard to build.
Eventually, though, the quaking in my limbs subsided and my harsh breathing slowed. I carefully relaxed my grip on my knees, pulling deep breaths and releasing them slowly as I let the calm fill my body. It left me exhausted, though, and I tipped my head back to rest against the door.
"I'm here," Zed's quiet voice travelled through the wood to me like he was sitting in a mirror position on the other side. "I'm here if you need me. I always will be."
My throat tightened with emotion, and I swallowed heavily. Then I pushed up from the floor and unlocked the door. Opening it, I looked down at my friend sitting on the floor, his button-down shirt rumpled and his brow creased in concern.
No words passed my lips, but I pushed the door open wider, then retreated over to the big bed and burrowed under the covers. The door closed softly a moment later, and Zed crawled in beside me, wrapping me up in his familiar embrace.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, and I knew he wasn't talking about kissing me, because he'd seen the tapes from Chase's room and he knew.
27
Zed's gentle hand on my shoulder and his whispered voice in my ear shook me awake, and I groaned when I saw it was still dark out. Then I sat up with a jerk and stared at him with wide eyes.
"What is it?" I asked. "What's happened?"
The relaxed smile on his face reassured me before he responded. "Nothing, I didn't mean to startle you like that. Just... get up. We've got somewhere to be."
I frowned my confusion, and he tugged me out of bed by the arm. "Come on, get in the shower. I'll grab you fresh clothes. Just be super quiet so we don't wake the Gumdrop. This is a job just for us."
"Well, color me curious," I muttered, then covered my mouth as I yawned heavily. "Fine, I'm going."
We'd both fallen asleep fully clothed after our fight the night before, and I had sore points where my seams and zippers had pressed into my flesh all night. So I wasn't arguing all that hard about showering and changing.
After I'd washed, I found a stack of my new clothes waiting on the edge of the vanity and gave Zed's choices a curious look. Wherever we were going, I doubted it was on Timberwolf business, not if I was wearing dark denim jeans and a plain, long sleeved black top.
"Here," Zed whispered, handing me a pair of flat-soled boots when I emerged. He placed a finger over his lips, reminding me to be quiet, and we silently made our way downstairs. The clock on the foyer wall showed it was about an hour before dawn, and I gave Zed a suspicious look as he led the way through to the garage.
"Shouldn't we tell Lucas we're going out?" I asked, hesitating beside the Ferrari.
Zed gave me an exasperated look. "I left him a note; he'll be fine. Kid always sleeps in unless you wake him up, anyway. He probably won't even notice we're gone."
He had a point there. With a shrug, I slid into the passenger seat and buckled my seat belt. "Alright, fess up; what are we doing?" I ruffled my fingers through my hair, yawning again. I hated mornings.
Zed just grinned and revved the engine. "Patience is a virtue, sir. You'll see."
I rolled my eyes at his teasing tone, turned my attention out the window, and propped my head on my hand. So far it seemed like we were just pretending that whole argument from last night had never happened. That Zed hadn't kissed me... or that I hadn't kissed him back before spiraling into a meltdown.
Cool. I could handle denial.
Zed cranked the stereo up loud, eliminating the need for conversation, and I settled in for a drive. I wasn't worried about where he was taking me or why he was being secretive because I trusted him implicitly. He might have been feeling threatened, but surely he knew how much of my heart he already owned.
We pulled to a stop at a lookout high up in the hills behind Shadow Grove right as the first glow of sunrise started cresting the horizon, and I turned to Zed with a knowing smile.
"Really?"
His smile was sly as he reached behind the seats to retrieve a picnic basket. "It's not quite the same," he said with a shrug, popping his door open. "But it's close."
We got out, and I grinned when Zed sat on the hood of his Ferrari and patted the spot beside him. When we'd done this as teenagers, our cars had been considerably less expensive and we didn't much care if we dented them.
Still, I wasn't going to argue, so I hopped up beside him and accepted the thermos of coffee he took from the picnic basket.
We were silent for a long time, sharing the coffee and watching the sun rise over Shadow Grove. I couldn't speak for Zed, but for the first time in a long time, I just let my mind empty out and allowed a heady sense of calmness and serenity fill me up.
When the coffee ran out, I sighed and rested my head on Zed's shoulder. He wrapped his arm around me, and the strength of his grip reinforced exactly what he'd told me last night. He would always be there for me, no matter what.
"Thank you, Zed," I murmured after a while. "I needed this more than I even knew."
It was something we used to do a lot, back when we were still new to all the violence and tension of gang life. When it all started to get overwhelming, we would sneak out in the early hours of the morning and drive to a lookout to watch the sun rise. It was our thing, Zed's and mine, and Chase had hated that he was never invited. Ultimately, though, he’d never needed it like we did. Chase Lockhart was born for that life, he thrived in it. The killing, the violence, the threats and tactics—none of it weighed on his mind like it did on ours. It never stained his soul, because you couldn't stain something already so black.
"We're not done yet," he told me with a lopsided smile, checking his watch for the time. "Get in."
Smiling and feeling like a lead weight had been lifted from my shoulders, I climbed off the hood of the Ferrari and returned to my seat. The look Zed gave me as he accelerated back out onto the road was pure excitement, and I couldn't stop the rush of emotion it stirred up in me.
He'd been accurate last night when he accused me of feeling exactly the same way as he claimed to. But because of that, I was more determined than ever to keep the status quo between us. Messing with a good thing was only going to end in heartbreak.
It didn't make it any easier, though. Now that I knew how he felt... it was worse than ever. I was reading more into every glance, every touch, every smile...
Shit. What had he done?
I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to give myself a mental pep talk as we drove to our next location, then I started laughing as we pulled into a driveway marked by a sign that read Stealth Hunter Paintballing.
"Zed..." I turned to him with a wide grin. "You're taking me paintballing?"
He gave me a wry smile. "You're not fucking shooting me, if that's what you're thinking. I've taken enough bruises for one week, thank you." He grimaced and rubbed his face where both Cass and I had left our marks.
We parked in the mostly empty lot, but straight away I spotted the busload of SGU frat boys unloading near the entrance, laughing and whooping, talking trash about kicking each other's asses.
"Wanna shoot some loud-mouthed idiots without all the messy body disposal?" Zed offered, tilting his head to the side. "This is an open course, us versus whoever else is playing."
I let out a low whistle, quickly counting frat boys. "Two against twenty-six? Seems like unfair odds." I quirked a brow. "Maybe we should do it blindfolded."
Zed scoffed a laugh and led the way into the paintball park.
A few of the frat boys spotted us patiently waiting our turn to register and started making stupid jokes about how there wouldn't be much competition on
the field today. By the sound of things, they were regulars at the paintball park. Poor darlings.
A familiar face in the group caught my eye, and I tilted my head slightly in question. He casually made his way over, separating himself from his friends, and stood slightly to the side of Zed and I as he pretended to look at the noticeboard.
"Morning, boss," he greeted me quietly, then inclined his head to Zed, "and boss."
"I never picked you for a frat boy, Rixby," I replied just as quietly, biting back my amused grin. "It's an interesting look for you."
His usually spiky, gelled hair was combed flat, and a buttoned-up polo shirt covered a lot of his tattoos. The edges of the Timberwolf mark on his bicep were visible, but unless someone knew what the mark was, they'd never guess it was a gang symbol.
Rixby shot Zed a look, which told me that my second was fully aware and had possibly even inserted him into the frat in the first place.
"He's looking into some new campus drug dealers," Zed murmured softly. "But today, he's setting his frat brothers up for a bloodbath, aren't ya, Rixby?"
The preppy undercover Timberwolf scoffed a laugh. "They need the ego check. Go easy on me, boss? I have a reputation to keep intact."
Zed shook his head. "Good fucking luck on that one."
Rixby gave a groan but was grinning when he made his way back into the group of his "friends" to get kitted out.
Folding my arms, I gave Zed a long look, and he just smiled back at me, smug as fuck in the knowledge that we would wipe the floor with these poor fools.
Yeah. This was exactly what I needed.
Zed had been right when he said we would probably get home before Lucas even knew we were gone. When we returned to the house covered in paint splatter—but no direct hits—Lucas was on his way downstairs, still looking half-asleep.
"Hey, what's with the note?" he asked Zed, frowning at a scrap of paper in his hand, then reading aloud, "Gone out with H. Do your homework like a good Gumdrop. Boss man."