He started the engine and planted both hands on the steering wheel, staring out ahead at nothing or everything. I could practically see the thoughts spinning around in his mind like a tornado had touched down in his head. White knuckles. Protruding veins on his hands and arms. He was barely keeping a grip on the present.
I reached across and touched the back of his hand.
He flinched and jerked his hand away from me. “How the fuck are you more willing to be with him than with me? I told you he’s not good enough for you—”
“It’s not about you versus him—”
“—and I was fucking right. He’s not even close to good enough for you, yet you still want him. You’re willing to throw what we could have away. To throw me away—”
“I’m not throwing anything away, Wade.”
“Aren’t you? Because I can’t just stand by and watch you devalue yourself—”
“Whoa,” I said, watching as Terri crossed the parking lot to her car and got in.
I gave her a reassuring wave. She nodded in my direction as she drove off, leaving the two of us alone.
Then I returned my focus to Wade. “Back up,” I said. “It’s bad enough that you’re going to sit here and try to tell me that Dima isn’t good enough for me, but now you’re going after me? That’s not going to fly.”
“What the hell else would you call what you’re doing?” Wade shouted.
“I’d call it knowing my own mind. I’d call it having enough respect for myself to make my own decisions. Dima and I aren’t even a thing—”
“He wants to be.”
“—and we won’t be a thing until and unless he can deal with his past. You’ve already proven to me that you’re not ready to do that, which is why we won’t ever be a thing. You know that. You’ve known that for a long time, so don’t try to act like your jealousy of Dima is about me at all. It’s about you. Plain and simple.” I was still rational enough to recognize that my reaction was overly defensive, but there wasn’t much I could do about that at the moment.
“You think this is about fucking jealousy?” Wade roared, eyes blazing.
“You think it isn’t? Tell me what it is, then.” I held up my hands in frustration. “Go on. Tell me. I’m waiting for a reasonable explanation that trumps envy. I’m all ears.”
He didn’t say a word, though. Instead, he put the pickup in gear.
“No. Stop,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean stop the damn truck and let me out.”
“Let you out to do what?” He put his foot on the brake and stopped, though, gesturing toward the empty parking lot. “Terri’s gone. You still don’t have a fucking car. No one else is here to drive you home. What are you going to do, London? Just let me take you home.”
“Let me out,” I repeated. “I’ll get Gray to pick me up, or I’ll call a cab if he can’t.”
“Why won’t you let me take you home? You think Nazarenko and I have issues, maybe you should get your own worked out first.”
His words weren’t too far off base—I was coming to see that I didn’t have my life as together as I’d thought I did—but that wasn’t what had me worried. It was the scary way his eyes were bulging out of his head, and the way it seemed like the veins in his neck might burst if he got any more worked up. I’d seen this before. Too many times. And I knew what came next. But he couldn’t stop now that he had a head of steam going.
“Can’t make up your fucking mind. You want to be with me, but you want to be with him, but then you don’t want to be anything but friends with anyone. You refuse to act like an adult—”
“Get my chair out of the back and let me out of the truck,” I demanded, fighting back tears. Not because of the things he was saying to me. I had to get out of bed and put on my big girl panties every single day of my life, and today had been no different. I could take an honest evaluation of my flaws without letting it get to me, but that wasn’t what he was doing.
Whether he realized it or not, Wade was about to lose control over himself again, letting the PTSD rile him up until he wasn’t himself anymore. And if I stayed with him while he was like that, it wouldn’t be good for either of us.
“I’m not listening to any more of this,” I said as calmly as I could. “I’m not going to sit here and watch you go off the deep end. Not again.”
I’d already witnessed it three times.
Three times that had left me scarred and shaken, internally if not visibly.
Wade screamed a curse, but he slammed the gearshift into park and flung his door open. He put my chair together slamming the pieces around so much that I flinched, while I sat in the cab of the truck and tried to remember how to breathe. All the while, I kept hoping I was doing the right thing. Should he be alone right now? Should I let him drive?
Probably not, but it wasn’t safe for me to stay with him, either. I didn’t know what to do, and that scared me more than anything.
Everything that came to mind seemed wrong. After glancing out the window to be sure he was still busy with my chair, I cautiously opened the glove box to see if he had a gun in there. Nothing but a bunch of papers, thank goodness. Then I bent down to feel for the familiar metal of one of his weapons beneath the seat, hoping—perhaps foolishly—that he didn’t have anything with him.
He ripped the door open before I found anything. I recoiled when he picked me up, an instinctive reaction that left him even more visibly upset than he already was. Still, he set me in my chair as gently as he would handle a newborn baby.
The juxtaposition was too much for me to process, the same as it always was when it came to Wade.
My pulse jackknifed through me, cutting a jagged line of fresh, aching scars on my heart bearing Wade’s signature. Out of instinct, I reached up and brushed the backs of my knuckles along his cheek. I had an innate need to soothe him, even though I knew there was no calming the storm inside him once it got started. The only thing to do was batten down the hatches and pray it passed before causing irrevocable damage.
He grabbed my hand and pried it away from his face, his eyes burning through me like lava. “You don’t get to do that,” he bit off. “You don’t get to rip my heart out, stomp on it, and then try to put the pieces back together again.” Then, without another word, he crossed in front of his truck and climbed back in, driving off before I could warn him to drive carefully.
I watched until he got onto the road. Once I was sure he’d gotten at least that far without causing a wreck, I dug in my purse and pulled out my phone to call Gray for a ride.
My hands were shaking so hard from the confrontation that I dropped the phone on the ground and had to pick it up again. The screen was cracked. I pressed my eyes closed, took a few deep breaths, and punched a few buttons, cutting my finger on the broken glass of the screen.
I sucked the blood from my finger as the phone rang three times.
“Not your fucking pet project,” Dima barked into the phone, jarring me into dropping the phone again. “What’s that fucking noise?” he demanded loudly enough that I could hear him even with the phone on the ground.
I fished around until I could pick it up and press it to my ear, hoping I wouldn’t cut myself on the sharp edges. “Sorry. Dropped the phone.”
“What you want?” he asked, as surly as ever.
“Nothing. I just— I meant to call Gray. My screen is broken, and I guess I didn’t push… Dima, I didn’t mean t—”
“You’re crying. Why you’re fucking crying?”
“I don’t cry,” I countered, even as I sniffled and realized he was right. I was crying. Damn it. The whole thing with Wade had gotten to me even worse than I’d imagined. It was like I’d gone back in time to the first time I’d been with him when he lost control, and I’d suddenly felt like I had none. The realization only made me cry harder. “It’s nothing. Listen, I didn’t mean to call you. I need to call my brother for a ride.”
“Where are you?”
>
“At work. I need—”
“Be there in ten minutes,” he said. Then the line went dead.
I’D HOPED THAT by the time I got to the community center, London would have stopped crying, but she hadn’t. I didn’t know what to do with a crying woman. It wasn’t like she was Harper and I could just hold her and rock her and tell her stories in Russian, and then everything would be okay. But there were tears streaming down London’s cheeks as she eased herself into the passenger seat of my car. And she was shaking. Hard enough I could see it.
Made me want to punch something.
I took apart her wheelchair and stowed it in the backseat. For once, she didn’t even attempt to help me with it. That only further emphasized what a mess she was, because under normal circumstances, she would be bristling at the thought of me doing something for her that she could do for herself.
I didn’t like it. Not a bit. But there wasn’t anything around for me to hit, and hitting something wouldn’t make me feel any better, anyway.
She didn’t budge when I closed the door and went around to climb in on the driver’s side. Didn’t balk when I reached for her hand. This wasn’t like her. Not at all.
“What happened?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing important.”
“Important enough you’re crying.”
“It was just Wade. It’s fine. I’ll be fine.”
I wasn’t sure I believed that, but now wasn’t the right time to start up another argument. I squeezed her hand and then moved mine back to the steering wheel so I could drive her home.
“What’d you mean, you aren’t my pet project?” London asked after a few minutes of silence other than the sounds of the road and her occasional sniffles.
“Don’t want to fight right now.”
“I’m not trying to start a fight. I’m trying to understand why you left today without sitting in on even a minute of the group session. Wade said you bolted before it got started, and when you answered the phone a bit ago, you shouted at me that you’re not my pet project. So what’s that about? Did he call you that?”
I realized my grip on the wheel was hard enough to stop blood flow, so I intentionally loosened my fingers and tried to calm down. It was bad enough that London was crying. I didn’t need to add my own bullshit to the mix. “Wasn’t Wade. One of the counselors.”
She fell silent again for a moment, staring out the window. “I’m sorry. He shouldn’t have said something like that.”
“You’re not denying it,” I pointed out.
“I’m not denying that there are people I take it upon myself to help in every way I can, and that sometimes other people see that as me taking on a pet project. That doesn’t mean I see things that way, and it doesn’t make it the truth.”
“Am I one of those people?”
“You’re one of the ones I care enough about to do more than maybe I should. More than you’re ready for, at least. So in that way, I suppose you could say you are.”
“And Miller is another,” I said.
“Yes. Even though I know there’s nothing I can do for him. He’s got to help himself. So do you.”
I came to a red light and stopped, turning to face her. She angled her head toward me enough for me to see that she’d stopped crying.
Thank God.
“I won’t apologize for caring about you, Dima. Or for caring about Wade. Maybe I care too much. Maybe that’s my problem. But if it is, it’s my problem and something I’ll have to learn to deal with on my own.”
“That’s why you were crying?” I asked. “You care too much?”
She sighed. “Too much. Not enough. Depends on who you ask.”
“I wish you wouldn’t let him hurt you,” I said, turning into her driveway and putting the car in park.
“So do I.” London laughed, long and loud. “Trust me, I’m working on it. But even those of us who can be stone-cold bitches most of the time have hearts underneath. No matter how hard you try to protect yourself from all the crap life throws at you, you’re going to get hurt. It’s part of being human.”
I climbed out of the car and started taking out the pieces to her wheelchair while she put it together. How badly had he hurt her? I couldn’t help but wonder if she was so hard on the exterior because she was afraid of being hurt again. Sounded like that was at least partially true. So maybe she wasn’t as put together as she wanted people to believe. Sad to say it, but that made her more relatable to me. I could definitely understand trying to prevent repeating the past, in whatever way it might manifest itself.
“You have plans tonight?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Debating going out with the guys.” Actually, I’d been hoping Hunter or Tallie would call me and beg for my help with Harper, but they hadn’t done that in a few days. Hunter had told me this morning at practice that he thought the baby was finally getting over her colic. Was it bad that I wished she’d have it a little longer just so I could go over to soothe her? Probably. “Drew’s getting the boys together,” I added.
“Oh.” London shifted from the car to the wheelchair. “Well, if you’d rather stick around and order pizza…”
“Any chance I can get you naked? I like you better naked.”
She pursed her lips and raised a brow. “Not likely.”
Pizza with London might still be better than anything else I could come up with as a way to spend my night, even if I couldn’t get her clothes off. I shrugged. “Could stay a while.”
She chuckled and headed for her front door. “Well, I’m not going to twist your arm.”
I was still debating whether I should stay or go, but my feet had apparently made up their own mind. She held open the door for me, and I followed her inside.
She headed for her desk and pulled up her laptop. “Any preference on pizza?”
“They have stroganoff?” I asked.
She pulled a face. “Stroganoff pizza?”
“Just stroganoff.”
“Not likely.” London smirked in my direction. “Guess I’ll order what I like, and you can be happy with that.”
“Guess so.”
“Grab me a glass of wine, will you?” she asked. “I’m still shaking after…” She stopped herself and shook her head. “I just want some wine tonight. Need something to help me relax. There’s an open bottle of red in the fridge and glasses in the cabinet to the right. And you can help yourself to whatever you want. Wine, beer, water…anything.”
I went into the kitchen and fixed her a glass of wine, taking a bottle of water for myself.
I still didn’t know how things had turned out like this. Why was I here with her at all? And did I believe her when she said she wasn’t looking at me as a pet project? I wasn’t sure.
The only thing I was certain of was that I couldn’t stand the thought of walking away from her now that I was with her again, and that scared the shit out of me.
“I STILL CAN’T get over this smooth baby face,” London said, leaning over to trail the backs of her fingers along the line of my jaw. I’d been at her place for hours, since long past the time we’d finished our pizza and I should have gone home, but I wasn’t in any hurry to leave.
She didn’t seem to be in a rush to kick me out, either. Might have had something to do with all the wine she’d been drinking. At this point, she was more than just a bit tipsy, but at least she wasn’t shaking and crying like she had been when I’d first picked her up. I kind of liked her like this if it meant she wasn’t going to dig for long-buried treasure in my mind. I just hated that it took Miller upsetting her so much that she drank half a bottle of wine to cope with the shit he made her feel.
We’d had dinner and talked about all sorts of things we’d never discussed before, since usually I distracted her by trying to fuck her. But now wasn’t the time for that. She still wouldn’t tell me anything about what had happened this afternoon with Miller to leave her in tears, and I still wasn’t sure I could accept her answer about m
e being her pet project, so we were avoiding all of the above by having conversations we’d never come close to having before.
I told her about the upcoming trip and how I was bringing Sergei’s mom along with me, and she filled me in on her plans to expand the community center’s programming to include arts and crafts activities for seniors. After I spent a while telling her about how Viktoriya was becoming something of a little sister to me, London demonstrated the way her niece liked to braid her hair, complete with off-key singing. By that point, she’d had at least four glasses of wine, and she’d lost all her inhibitions.
Our interactions tonight were light and playful, nothing like our usual intensity, even if there was still a lot of anger simmering beneath the surface for me, and a lot of hurt lurking behind her eyes. Hurt that Miller had put there. And maybe I’d put some of it there, too, by not following through with going to her group session.
But the whole time we’d talked, we’d kept our hands to ourselves.
Until now.
My pulse went through the roof the second her fingertips touched my skin, especially because my face was still sensitive where the beard had been. Every time I shaved, it left me feeling raw and vulnerable. If she kept touching me, I’d lose my resolve and put my hands on her, too.
I couldn’t allow that to happen. She’d said no fucking, so there would be no fucking, damn it.
“Not a baby face,” I said, backing away as far as I could without tipping her off to the fact that she was making me insanely uncomfortable. I needed distance. I needed time to rein in my control. “Baby skin is like silk. I know.”
“Yeah, from all your time with Harper.” London didn’t take the hint, inching closer to me on the couch and tracing the line of my jaw with the tips of her fingers. Her thigh brushed up against mine, and my cock jerked to attention. “How’s she reacted to the lack of facial hair?”
Ghost Dance (Tulsa Thunderbirds Book 3) Page 17