We’d found a booth in the far corner of the restaurant, and the constant tapping of his fork against the wooden table beside his uneaten burger wasn’t helping my headache. “It is what it is.”
“I can’t let you keep fixing my past.”
“Trust me, mate. I need this more than you. I need to find Mia, and Dex is my only option.” The barkeep turned up the volume on the telly hanging on the wall above the bar, and it displayed news of a cabin fire in Cheshire last night. I returned my attention to Travis. “Eat your burger before she gets here.”
“Two fatalities in a cabin fire,” the news reporter stated on the television, pulling my gaze from Travis to the images from the night before flashing over the screen. “Investigation continues to the cause of the fire, and the identities of the bodies are still underway.”
The news lit an ache in my chest. I stood, emotions kicking into high gear—a sixth sense. Something wasn’t sitting right with me. My gaze locked on the screen as a drone flew over the destruction, capturing images of smoke and the cabin burnt to a crisp. My mind was in chaos as it tried to put together what I was seeing and feeling inside my chest.
“What is it?” Travis asked with a mouthful.
“I don’t know.” I shoved my hand into my pocket to retrieve my phone and dialed Dex. He didn’t answer. “It’s Oliver. The cabin fire in Cheshire. Find out who owns it and give me a ring.”
Travis spoke up behind me, “You think Scott had something to do with it?”
“I’m just following my gut.” Usually, I was right. And for once, I didn’t want to be. I’d put all my cards into one basket with Dex. No, I didn’t trust him, but sometimes you had to play nice with your enemies as long as you didn’t lose yourself in the process. And the only way I could lose myself was if I’d lost Mia.
“You’re Oliver Masters,” the voice was mixed with a question and statement. I pried my eyes from the television screen above the bar to a lady in her mid-thirties looking up at me, a satchel over her shoulder. Her blonde hair twisted behind her head as strands fell from the tight hold, wearing a navy suit with black heels, which only increased the agitation I’d already been facing. Big hazel eyes peered up at me behind large black-rimmed glasses, and her mouth parted. “Oh, this is great,” she continued, taking in my appearance. “You’re—”
I lifted my chin. “I’m what?”
“Unexpected.” She slid into the booth beside Travis after a quick “how-do-you-do” and pulled out a laptop from her satchel. The MAC powered up, and I took a seat across from her. Travis had talked me into this meeting, but he was right. If I gave up on the future I’d worked so hard on building for Mia and me, there would be nothing left once she was back in my arms. I had to maintain my job, Dex, Laurie, and my heartache and pain. I had to do it all.
“Congratulations are in order. Your first book was a success. But it’s the second book that could make or break you, and I’m sure you’re already working on it.”
I didn’t answer, and she peered up at me from behind her round glasses.
“Of course.” Not.
“Good.” Laurie went back to typing over her laptop. Travis and I exchanged glances. “So, are you ready for your first signing this weekend? I know it can be a bit much at first, but I’ll be there with you every step of the way. We’ll have to get you out of those clothes and into something more—” her head tilted to the side, and she pushed the glasses up the bridge of her nose “—proper.”
My mobile rang.
“Go on, answer it,” Laurie stated without looking up from her computer.
I didn’t recognize the number, but it could be Dex.
“Yeah?” I answered.
“I checked out the cabin. The title was transferred over to an Ethan Scott a few years back …” Dex continued, but I couldn’t hear anything else.
Two fatalities.
Everything stopped—the blood in my veins, the pleads at the tip of my tongue, even my lungs stopped working. I couldn’t breathe. Travis snatched the phone from my fist and jumped from behind the booth to take over the conversation. But for me? I was frozen as the world continued to spin on its axis.
Thoughts even froze inside my head.
I closed my eyes.
Mia Rose is walking closer as Alicia, Jake, and I loiter in the hall between classes. I straighten my back against the wall and hold my breath as my fingers comb my hair back. Is she coming to talk to me? The heart in my chest is beating at an impossible rate. I’m trying to keep my cool, and hope it shows, but then her eyes lock on mine, and suddenly, I’ve lost it. Words are lost, my grip is lost, and she walks past me.
“Breathe, Ollie,” Jake whispers at my side, and that’s when I realize how obvious my affections are for her. “Way to stay subtle.”
“Shut up.”
She disappears around a corner, and I can already feel my heart breaking with the distance. Last night she came to my room for the first time. To say I was surprised to see her was an understatement. The few hours with her were spent in crisis mode. I’ve never felt so calm and nervous at once. I only wanted to be myself, but it was hard when she was turning me into this new man whenever she was around. Because around her, I wasn’t afraid of reality anymore. Around her, I wanted to keep my eyes open.
Jake chuckles. “She’s going to break your heart.”
“I can see it already,” Alicia waves her arm out in front of her, mimicking an invisible headline across the air, “Sociopath stomps on dreamer’s heart, death by ignorance.”
Instead of fueling their amusement, I stay quiet and smile to myself. Loving her until it kills me seems like a wondrous way to go.
A sting to my cheek snapped me out of it, and I opened my eyes to see Travis staring back at me. “I’m sorry, brother,” he whispered, and I looked to my left to see my agent had left. Travis grabbed my chin and redirected my gaze. “I’m so sorry.”
My head shook. “No,” I gritted out, and Travis dropped his head. “She can’t be … I’d know if she was … I’d feel it,” I slapped my chest, “right here. I’d know. She can’t be.”
“There were two fatalities, Oliver. Two—”
“Don’t.” I pushed him off me, looking for a way out.
Travis rushed to my side and yanked my shoulder back. “Scott owned that bloody cabin. You said so yourself. He had to have had something to do with her gone.”
My palms flew over my ears. “Stop it!” I screamed.
“Listen to me! She left you! She ran off with the wanker to a fucking cabin for crying out loud! Don’t you see?” Travis’s voice broke, “She’s dead, Oliver. I’m so sorry, but she’s gone.”
I gripped Travis’s shirt collar and slammed him over the bar. People jumped out of the way. “You don’t fucking know her!” Spit and agony flew between us. “I would know if she was gone! She’s not gone! She’s not!” My fingers released from his shirt, and I darted my gaze to the crowd surrounding us. All eyes were on me. A mother held her little girl behind her. They were scared of me. I was scared of me. It was quiet. My chest ached, unimaginable pain. A fire burned in my eyes because I’d refused to cry. Because she wasn’t gone.
Travis reluctantly placed his hand on my shoulder. “Okay, mate. Let’s get you home.”
“No,” I pushed him off me, knowing what he was implying. He didn’t know how I’d already made a home within Mia. She was my home, and I’d been trying this entire time to get back to her. I lost my footing, trying to push my way through the waves of gazes over me to find air.
My cellphone had been ringing non-stop since I’d left the bar I’d forgotten the name of. Hours had passed, I knew because it was dark outside. The reflection of the opened window stared back at me through the mirror. I’d been sitting on the bathroom floor, listening to the drainpipe leak from inside the motel walls. The occupant next door had flushed the loo numerous times over the last few hours. Poor chap must’ve not been feeling well, and I’d made a game of his misery.
With every flush, I’d grab a new beer bottle from the grocery bag beside me.
No matter how many bottles stacked to my left, the ringing from the mobile wouldn’t bloody quiet. Over and over, I banged the back of my head against the opened bathroom door I’d sat against until the pain lessened inside my chest.
It never did. The ache only worsened.
“Ollie.”
I looked up.
Travis stared down at me, terror in his features. From this angle, he could’ve passed for James Franco in the movie Spring Breakers. I only knew of this movie because it had played in the tattoo parlor one time when I’d gotten my ink done, though Travis’s hair was blonder. Perhaps Marshal Mathers, if the talented rapper had blond braids, facial hair, and angel wings tattooed on his neck.
“You can’t throw it all away,” Travis stated, taking a seat on the floor across from me against the sink cabinet. “You worked too hard.”
“I’m not throwing anything away. Momentary relapse,” I grabbed a bottle from the bag and tossed it over Travis’s lap, “Mia’s alive. I’m going to find her.”
“You’re in denial.”
I ignored his nonsense and took another sip.
He wasn’t listening. No one was listening.
Even the alcohol wasn’t fucking listening.
“You know, you never did tell me about her.” My blurry vision settled on him, and he continued, “Who was the girl who stole Oliver Masters heart?”
“Is,” I corrected, pointing at him with the bottle.
“What?”
“You’re talking as if she isn’t here. As if she’s …” I couldn’t say the word, so I just let the sentence stall like my life had. Travis turned his eyes away from me into the space between us. The person in the next room flushed the toilet, so I finished off the bottle and grabbed for another. “It’s pointless because no matter what significant words I could come up with to describe what we have, it would never sound as amazing as the way we’re connected. And right now, we’re connected. That, my friend, is how I know her heart is still beating. I’ve memorized that sound. I could pick her heartbeat out in a line-up. But just as much as I know the sound, I feel the hard and steady beat inside my chest. It mirrors my own.” I dropped my head back against the door and allowed the beer to slide down my throat. “No matter how far apart we are, I can still feel her.”
“You and your words,” Travis sighed, “And what happens if Mia’s gone? What then?”
“I’d die.” It was as simple as that.
“From?”
“The disconnection.”
Travis smacked my leg with the back of his hand. “I think you’ve had too much to drink, wouldn’t you say?”
I pointed the mouth of the bottle at him. “Ah, you think I’m joshing, yeah? Read a book. You may learn a thing or two.” I’d read about it before. Dying from a broken heart was a scientific fact—death of the desperate and lonely.
“Alright, brother. Let’s get you into bed.” Travis jumped to his feet and pulled me up from the bathroom floor.
And that was the last thing I recalled.
There was a split second upon waking when everything seemed all right in the world. Mia wasn’t missing. I wasn’t experiencing a gruesome hangover. I hadn’t made a deal with Satan. I was an honest man, living an honest life. A poet in love. For a fleeting second, my heart didn’t ache, my head didn’t spin, and my soul was free.
But only for a mere second until everything had come crashing down.
Groaning, I rolled over and opened my eyes to see Travis’s cheery face with a trash bag in hand, cleaning bottles from around the motel room. “What are you still doing here?” I sat up and dropped my feet over the edge of the bed upon the stiff carpet.
The bloody headache returned.
“Here, drink this,” Travis threw a water bottle at me, and I caught it mid-air, “You’re going to need it.” I fed my thirsty soul from the poison of last night. After downing the entire bottle, Travis held up the bag, and I tossed the empty bottle into the rubbish. “It’s half-past three. Dex rang.”
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
Travis shrugged, focusing on tying the bag and avoiding my hard glare. “You needed your beauty sleep.”
I tilted my head, my eyes following his every move. Travis was nervous about something. “Well, did you answer?”
He tossed the bag outside the door, still not looking at me. “Yeah.”
I stood and threw my arms up at my sides. “And?”
Travis turned and peered around the room, still not fucking looking at me. “The plan is to meet at nine back in Ockendon.”
“What are you worried about?”
“Are you sure you still want to do this? Mia’s—”
“Mia’s what?”
“I’m not going to be that mate who’s going to tell you everything will be fine. Mia’s dead, and there’s no reason to continue with the Links. You should follow up with the remains for confirmation. I’ll do this job, but it’s not healthy to live in denial like this. I’m not going to watch you fall down that hole. I’ve seen it before, it’s not pretty, and it’s impossible to climb your way out. Trust me on this one. I’m doing you a favor. You should be grieving her, mate. Not fucking doing a job to find a ghost. Concentrate on you. Better your life. You did it for me once, and it’s time I do the same for you.”
My teeth clench, and muscles twitched. “Get out.”
“Oliver—”
“No, get the fuck out.” I pulled a shirt over my head and walked to the door and opened it. “Go on. I’ll do the fucking job. You go back to Summer. Give her a fucking kiss, mate. Hold her close. Make love to her. Trust me on this, don’t waste a God-given second.”
Travis hung his head and walked toward me. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s taking a lot not to hit you right now. Take one for the team and fuck off.”
He left. I slammed the door.
There were four of us standing in the car park at Jack’s, going over the plan one last time. These boys were fresh recruits, new to the gang scene. I could tell by the way Adrian was unable to stand still. He was nervous, and I didn’t blame him. But nerves could only get him arrested or worse, killed. I pulled him off to the side.
“You okay?” I needed him to pull it together if this was going to work. I couldn’t have his tension spread over the other two. Adrian wouldn’t look at me directly. He scratched behind his head, neck, and ran a palm down his face as his eyes wandered over the streets of Ockendon. “Hey, it’s going to be alright. You have to have faith in me.”
“Faith in you?” He threw his arm in the air. “I don’t fucking know you, man.”
Adrian was right. He didn’t know me. None of them knew me, but we didn’t have time to exchange stories of our past. “Look. The only thing you need to know about me is that I’m not leaving anyone behind. No one is going to jail tonight. No one is dying. All I ask in return is to trust me blindly.” I gripped the back of his neck. “Can you do that?”
Standing at the same height as me, Adrian had young features, untainted by power, money, and murder, and his vibrant eyes arrested an old, determined soul. With black buzzed hair and fresh, unmarked skin, he should be fancying a nice girl at this hour, not preparing for a robbery. I would ask him how he got himself involved with the Links, but he was here now, and there wasn’t time for any of us to back out. If the job didn’t get done, then Dex wouldn’t help me find Scott.
Mia was still alive. I had to believe in that.
“Yeah, mate. I can do that,” Adrian said through a sigh.
I gripped his shoulder and pulled him back with Reggi and James, the other two boys Dex assigned to me. “Unload all your guns,” I ordered, and three scared eyes shot up at me as if I’d gone mad. “I’m serious. No bullets. Make sure there isn’t one in the chamber either.”
“What’s the point in carrying a gun with no bullets?” James, the biggest of the three, as
ked. He reminded me of a younger version of Travis, with blond hair and navy eyes, but James was built whereas Travis now sported a proper gut from Summer’s fabulous cooking, or so I was told.
I arched a brow and lifted my chin. “Are you going to shoot it?”
“Well, no,” James shook his head and raised his palm, “Only to frighten them. But something could take a turn for the worst, and we have to be ready for the worst.”
“You three carry these guns around as if it gives you power. It doesn’t. Your guns aren’t going to save you, especially since none of you have shot a gun before,” I paused and glanced around at the blokes, and neither of them corrected me, “One, you don’t pull one out unless you’re going to shoot it. Two, we can’t draw attention to the police. And three, what if the owner of the shop has a gun? If you pull yours out, he won’t hesitate to fire back. And like I told my mate, Adrian. No one is going to jail or dying tonight. If you need to take your ego with you, I suggest you keep it in your waistband, unloaded. There are other ways to get what you want.”
They exchanged looks. Adrian tossed his unloaded gun into the trunk, while the other two pushed the muzzle of their weapons into their waistband behind their backs—unloaded. I closed the trunk, and the four of us piled into a prepared car with a false license plate.
The robbery hits from the bottom were in run-down places, small, and the cash was even smaller, which had been Travis’s first mistake. Just because the job was small, didn’t mean to treat it any differently, or be careless.
We pulled into the car park where only a single working street lamp shone over a few scattered cars. There was a clear view inside, customers sprinkled throughout, and I turned back from the driver’s seat to face the recruits. Their nervous faces glowered back at me as the rain beat against the top of the car, matching our heartbeats. “Here’s the deal, this is your first run and initiation into the Links. If you can’t follow my instructions or want to back out, now is the time.” No one moved. “Adrian, you pull the car around to the back door. The rest of us are going in.”
Now Open Your Eyes (Stay With Me series Book 3) Page 7