Witnessing the darkness from outside had been nothing to how walking through the bar devastated her. Dover had already started pulling the burned panels from the walls. Even with that, the blackness of the bleak space made it almost unrecognizable from what it had once been.
The reinforced-concrete structure was the same beneath the devastation, yet the energy was gone.
Finding herself standing at the spot where Ryske had been shot, she crouched and brushed her hand across the warped floor. The spot had once moved her to tears. Again, she felt her eyes begin to warm.
“Surreal, isn’t it?”
She didn’t expect anyone to be there. When she looked up to discover Dover standing at the curve of the bar, she stood and rushed over to wrap both arms around him.
“I’m so sorry, Dover,” she said, overcome by the strength of her anguish. “So sorry.”
“It’s okay, Nightingale. It wasn’t your fault,” he said, holding her, running a hand down her hair. “It just happened. No one was seriously hurt, that’s what matters.”
“You were seriously hurt,” she said, tipping her head back to look up at him.
He brushed her tears from her cheeks. “Don’t cry, babe. We’ll fix it.”
Behind the smile he was trying to show for her benefit was the pain that he was attempting to hide.
Frustrated, she pulled herself against him again. “This didn’t just happen. Someone did this to you, to all of us. Dover, I know I wasn’t here long. What I feel is nothing to what you are going through. I just need you to know, I… I’ve never felt so safe or happy anywhere else on Earth… If I feel this way about it, I can’t imagine how you feel… I love this place. I miss it.”
“Taking in special strays is in Floyd’s DNA,” he said. “And you were lost, Night, whether you know it or not… Why are you here tonight?”
His arms stayed around her; he wasn’t angry with her for coming around. If anything, it seemed that he was grateful to see her. As much as she hadn’t expected him, he’d probably expected her less.
“I needed to feel grounded,” she said. “We just came from that Pothos meeting and I… I don’t know… I feel like my head’s screwed up with it all… Bale’s is great, but I won’t get space to clear my mind there… I need to figure some stuff out.”
“Do you need a drink?”
That made her smile and peek up at him again. “You still have booze?”
“Stock? No,” he said, taking her hand to lead her from the bar toward the spiral stairs. From what she’d heard they’d need new stairs in the stairwell because they weren’t exactly stable anymore. “But, we have alcohol.”
He took her up the spiral stairs into the apartment kitchen. The place, even up there, looked so different. The curtains were gone, the couch too. The mattresses were gone from the frames that still stood at Maze and Ryske’s places, and Noon’s box-spring was gone.
Dover guided her to the counter that separated the kitchen from the long dining table. “I tossed all the soft furniture stuff,” he said. “There isn’t a lot of water damage up here. The fire was limited to the basement and first floor. The apartment was just stinking with the smoke.”
Clothes they could wash. The curtains could probably have been washed too, but if it made him feel better to start over, she wasn’t going to argue.
One new box-spring and mattress stood in the furthest corner: Dover’s spot. “Are you moving back in?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll get more done if I’m here.”
Retrieving a bottle of bourbon from a lower cabinet, he poured some into a glass and then brought the bottle over to join her.
She took the bottle, leaving him with the glass. “Can I stay?”
Instead of drinking, he frowned. “Problems with our boy?”
He tossed the measure into his throat. Harlow shook her head as she drank. “He’s not the problem,” she said, pouring more liquor into Dover’s glass. “I just want to be home… That might be presumptuous to say, but… I don’t know, I just feel like I’ve been so all over the place this year. This building has been the only thing that’s made sense to me the whole time, you know? Does that sound stupid?”
Even when Ryske had been dead and she’d believed she was alone, Floyd’s had been there, strong and reliable.
“It’s not presumptuous, babe, but you’ll have to bunk with me. I don’t have anything else that’s even an excuse for a bed.”
“That’s okay,” she said and offered the bottle to him for a toast.
After another drink, he took the bottle from her to refill his glass. “So, tell me what happened tonight.”
Harlow took a breath and told him everything, from the car with Noon through to Parratt’s parting words.
“You really choked her?” Dover asked. The smile on his face was far more genuine than the one he’d worn downstairs. “Wow, you’re good, Nightingale.”
She sighed. “Yeah, it felt good… I don’t know what to make of it all, Dover. She wants Anwen in. Do you think she’s been playing us this whole time? She couldn’t have taken that beating for show, could she? It was bad, really bad.”
“Yeah,” Dover said, considering it. “Has she had time to be in touch with Ophelia since?”
“Maybe,” Harlow said, trying to figure it out.
The truth was, as much as they tried to watch Anwen, the crew didn’t often compare notes. No individual one of them knew where she was at all times. Bale’s apartment had a phone. Floyd’s used to have one in the bar. Anwen could’ve made a phone call at any time. Harlow didn’t think anyone was checking the bills.
“You could ask Maze to find out, trace any electronic trail she’s left,” Dover said. “Maybe they made up.”
In years gone by, she’d call him crazy for thinking that anyone could reconcile with someone who’d hurt them the way Anwen had been hurt. But, in the past year, Harlow had seen stranger things. In her work with family services, she’d seen plenty of domestic abuse situations where people were taken to the brink of death and still argued against pressing charges. Anything was possible.
After another sip, she sighed. “The problem is, if Ryske thinks I’m uncomfortable around her or I suspect her of something, he won’t waste any time.”
Dover didn’t disagree. “He’ll toss her out on her ass.”
“Exactly,” Harlow said. “Despite her new ID, she’s still alone without us. It could drive her straight into Ophelia’s waiting arms.”
“Then we’d have two of them coming at us.”
“What do they know?” she asked and shrugged. “Maybe I’m overthinking this. They can’t hurt us, right? I mean, why would Anwen want to hurt us?”
The bottle he’d been about to drink from left his lips. For the longest time, he just looked at her. Seemed she was missing something.
“You’re kidding,” he said.
“Kidding about what? We haven’t hurt them. You guys helped Anwen when you saved her from Hagan. Ophelia is the one who killed her brother, I didn’t. And, as for Ryske—”
“As for Ryske?” Dover said and snatched the glass from her. Somewhere along the way their drinks had become interchangeable. “I don’t think you need that. You’ve gotta be drunk already.”
“I’m not drunk,” she said, stealing the bottle from him. “What are you talking about?”
“You think this is about Ryske, it’s not. The catalyst was Ryske, but this whole damn mess is your fault.”
“My…”
With a slow shake of his head, he trailed his thumb along her jawline. “You are so beautiful, Nightingale, so beautiful… Shame you’re as dumb as a box of rocks.”
An offended ‘ah’ sound came from the back of her throat when she opened her mouth. “Dover!”
Smacking his arm, she was met only with his laughter.
“Babe, this whole damn mess is your fault. You made him fall in love with you. Not the fake kind he uses with every other woman. Real fucking love. He did more
than face plant on the sidewalk the day you met. He fell head over heels… and he’s never recovered.”
Harlow tried to think of something to say. “I—”
“You don’t get it, I know,” he said, drinking from the glass. “That’s because you didn’t know him before you… Before you, Ryske belonged to everyone. Sure, he was on our crew and more loyal to us than anyone. We were his family. But, when it came to women, Ryske knew how to give them just enough of himself. Just a little tiny piece to each one, sharing himself out among them all. Ophelia had a piece of him, Anwen too. Lydia. Hannah. All of them had that little shred of him they could carry around, knowing it belonged to them.
“Ophelia always had hope, Anwen too. Almost every woman he was ever with wanted to keep him, probably because he made it clear they never would. Everyone loves what they can’t have, right? He’d give them some speech about not being good enough for them.”
“Why would you want to tie yourself to a guy like me?” she recited, recalling something Ryske had said to her once.
“Guess you got it too.”
Shrugging a shoulder as she lifted the bottle, she watched it rise. “Some version of it. He told me he wasn’t my white picket guy.”
“Did you want him to be?”
She swirled the liquor left in the bottle. “I don’t know what I wanted him to be back then… I was a different person.”
“So was he. You changed him… and he fought against it. You might not know it, but he tried not to love you… For your sake, not his.”
“Believe me, I know it, Dover. Not many women can say a guy’s faked his own death to avoid a break up.”
“That wasn’t what he did,” he said, but she dipped her chin and arched a brow at him. “Okay, so yeah, that was sorta what he did.”
His brief laugh made her exhale one too. That was old news. Yeah, still a big deal, but not something she was going to rake Ryske over the coals for again.
They drank in silence for another minute or two. “So, what are you going to do?” Dover asked.
“Me?” she said, swaying forward to push on him. “You mean we. You’re supposed to be the one I can rely on to be level-headed. You’re supposed to help me out.”
Though he laughed at her meager form trying to stand up to his, the sound drifted off. “I don’t know, Night. With this place the way it is, I can’t see me being much use to anyone for a while.”
“You are the team, Dover. I know Ryske is the one with the big head, but you’re the real anchor. This place grounds all of you.”
“Not much use to us now, is it?”
Forcing him to hold her, she moved into his arms, coiling both tight around her as she turned her back to his chest.
“We are going to get this place back up and running in no time, you’ll see. I know you think that doing the big, brooding thing is what you’re supposed to do. That’s just because you’ve spent too much time with men.”
On one forearm were his stars, the same as hers and everyone else’s on the crew. She turned the other and was surprised to find new ink. Tracing it with a fingertip, she learned the shape. All black, it was only a couple of inches high. Two curved horns rose from a rounded base into pointed tips.
“Did it myself,” he said, withdrawing the embrace and stepping back.
“It’s a flame,” she said. From the look on his face, she’d guess he hadn’t expected her to figure that out. Picking up the glass from the kitchen counter, she tossed the remaining liquid into her throat. “Got a clean needle?”
Any lingering doubt or disappointment left his gaze and he smiled at her again. “Step into my studio.”
He’d given her the stars on her arm; she had full faith in his work. The flame was a symbol of what had happened. Of a night that bound them all.
Dover needed to feel he hadn’t lost his bond with this place. Tying them all to it in such a permanent act was a good way of reminding him of their solidarity.
10
Harlow was still asleep, so when she felt a tongue slide against hers, she was sure it was a dream. Recognizing the taste and technique of her man, she didn’t hesitate to respond. Rolling onto her back, she slid her hands up his shoulders and around the sides of his neck to pull him closer.
“Hey! Quit that shit in my bed!” Dover hollered from somewhere.
Yanking herself away from the kiss, Harlow blinked in an attempt to focus. Someone swept the hair from her forehead. She shifted her head back in the direction of the kiss to see Ryske lying on the bed beside her.
“You’ve got some splainin’ to do, Little Missy.”
Still foggy and tired, she rolled her head back and forth on the pillow and tried to pull his mouth back to hers. “I want kisses,” she mumbled in her morning voice.
He resisted her kiss, but did keep running his fingers through her hair, soothing and relaxing her. “You could’ve had all the kisses you wanted last night if you’d come home.”
Smiling, she tucked her head under his chin, trying her best to use her weight to con him into lying on his back as opposed to on his side. “This is home, Crash,” she murmured, running her hand up and down his torso, only to be disappointed by the sensation of fabric under her palm. “Take your shirt off, baby.”
“Not in my bed!” Dover called out.
From the direction of his voice, she guessed he was in the kitchen.
Respecting that she shouldn’t violate the man’s space any more than she had last night, Harlow sighed and made herself sit up. Yawning, she ran her fingers through her hair, trying to make some semblance of order out of it.
“Dover’s bed is more comfortable than yours,” she said to Ryske who had chosen that moment to move onto his back.
Taking the time to look over her shoulder at him in his dark blue jeans and grey tee-shirt, she was too weak to resist the temptation. Flipping over, she climbed onto his body to wriggle against him.
“It’s a new mattress that’s why it’s so comfortable,” Ryske said, scooping his hands under the shirt she was wearing to find she had on a pair of his boxer-briefs. “What happened to no underwear?”
“It’s not my underwear, it’s your underwear. Besides, I was sleeping with another man last night. I figured you’d want me to make the exception.”
“You shouldn’t sleep with my friends,” he said, accepting her kiss and gathering her hair in the crooks of each thumb to hold it in a ponytail at the base of her skull. “It’s kinda slutty.”
“I love Dover,” she said and kissed him again.
His brows went up; amusement written all over his face. “Yeah?”
Nodding with her mouth resting on his, she rubbed them together. “See what he gave me?”
Kissing him quick, she didn’t rise, but picked up her hand to show him the black flame tattooed on the inside of her wrist.
“Shit, baby, what is it with you and ink?” he asked, catching her wrist to examine it. Once he’d looked for a good minute, he kissed it. “It’s a symbol, right? Of the fire?”
She nodded and pressed her hands to his chest to sit up, straddling his hips. “It means something to him,” she said, studying it herself. “Will you get it too?”
“If you want,” he said, linking his fingers at the back of his head. “But, I already have my wristband and my stars, so we’ll have to figure out somewhere else for it.”
“Okay.”
Still sitting on him in Dover’s distant corner, Harlow unbuttoned the top few buttons of her shirt and opened it to show him her breasts.
“I don’t know where this is going, but I like where it’s starting,” he said, taking his hands out from behind his head to scoop a breast into each palm.
Leaving one to its fun, she checked his wristband tattoo which was made up of what looked like arrowheads and zigzags. He was right, there was no space. It would look out of place on his other wrist, crowding his stars.
The scar on his palm was fresh. She drew her finger across it then pressed
her own palm to his.
“I love how much you love me, Ryske,” she said, recalling the day he’d made them bleed into each other. “Don’t ever think I take you for granted.”
His hand slid down from her breast to rest inside her shirt on her hip. “What’s wrong?”
They didn’t usually do sappy, not at this time in the morning, and not unless there was something to provoke it.
“We’ll talk about it later,” she said and tried to cast off her melancholy by poking a finger into his forearm, above the wristband. “Get it here, on the same arm as Dover and I.”
“Whatever you want, baby.”
“Dover could do it while I’m in the shower maybe,” she said. “I want to spend the day here. We have to strip the whole place out downstairs. There’s a lot of work to do. It’s wrong that we should leave it all to Dover.”
“Okay. I’ll call in reinforcements.”
“Good,” she said and started to climb off. “And will you order a new mattress, please? One like this. I want to move back here. Dover said it was okay.”
He nodded. “Your sister called,” he said as she got off the bed, tugging down her shirt. “She wants you to go to dinner at your parents tonight.”
Harlow groaned. “Oh God, you know what that will be, don’t you?”
He grinned and sank his fingers into his hair again. “The shit’s gonna hit the fan.”
“What did you say? You could’ve told them that I was sick or something.”
“You think they’d buy that?” he teased.
Harlow wasn’t in the mood to play and raised her fists to her hips. “I think if you couldn’t sell it, you need a new profession.”
He laughed. “Sorry to disappoint, baby, I wasn’t the one to take the call. Noon did. He said you’d be there.”
Oh, that smug smile of his was just so proud of itself. It gave Harlow great pleasure to be able to wipe it off.
“I don’t know why you look so pleased with yourself,” she said. “If I’m going, you’re going.” The look of satisfaction slid off his face and onto hers. “That’s right. They know about us now. It’s all out in the open. I gave Rupert a whole speech about whether he liked it or not, you two are family, so I’m saying the same thing to you.” Sliding a knee onto the bed, she balanced her weight with a hand on his chest and bowed to kiss him. “You’ve got an appointment with the in-laws.”
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