Friction

by Jamie Magee

  “You fucked your life, Hunter. You made every choice.”

  His biggest problem was he never understood that, he never took the blame for his bad choices. Ever.

  After his sardonic smirk faded he said. “I’m making this one, the right one.”

  “Good.”

  He stepped forward. “It can’t happen without you. James said so.”

  “You get cleaned up and it will happen.”

  He rushed his hands through his hair as he turned in frustration. “I—can’t—without you.”

  “You have to.”

  He faced her. “I don’t have the money to get in, and I sure as fuck cannot detox without you.”

  “You’re looking for a hand out?”

  “No.” He pointed to the house. “I want you to walk in there and grab your bags that I know are not unpacked and come out here and leave with me.” Before she could say a word he stepped forward. “Two weeks. You come stay with me as a friend for two weeks—I’ll sell whatever to pay you back when I’m out.”

  “It’s not going to work,” she said more to herself than him. The nurturer in her was aching for one more shot to clean him up.

  “Two weeks, Georgia. I haven’t been sober since you left. I don’t want to be. If you do this with me then it will make sense. I’ll know at least I tried.”

  “What rehab place?”

  “Virginia or St Louis, you pick…”

  “Virginia.”

  “You’re serious.”

  She nodded before pulling her phone out of her pocket. With addicts, the second they asked for help, when you agreed, you had to act. If you didn’t they would backslide and change their mind.

  A moment later she looked up. “Meet me at the airport in two hours.”

  A sigh of relief left him as he rushed to her and scooped her up in his arms. Just because he felt like the boy that had found her breathlessly crying in the hallway weeks after her father died, the boy who gave her the courage to tell her mother to go to hell, and stole her away in the middle of the night—made her feel alive and free, she hugged him back.

  For the next two hours Georgia had avoided every single text and phone call from anyone inside of Willowhaven. She had to stay focused and go with her gut instinct. She didn’t need anyone talking her out of this, telling her she was a fool—she knew she was, deep down she really did.

  Even as she sat next to Hunter in the terminal, waiting for their flight to be called, listening to him tell her how he bailed on the band Eclipse, how they owed him money he could use to pay her back, she knew this was all a tragic waste of her time.

  “Where are you going?” she asked, gripping his arm as he went to stand.

  “To tell that bitch to move your seat. It’s bullshit we’re on opposite ends of the same fucking plane.”

  “It tends to happen when you book a flight at the last minute. Leave it alone.”

  He leaned back, laced his fingers through hers. “I want to spend the flight with you before the quacks get ahold of me.”

  “You need to use it to sober up, use it to write your intentions. Set your head right.”

  “It’s right now,” he said, squeezing her hand.

  She nodded for him to go when they called for him to board. She even lingered next to him in line and told the attendant not to listen to him when he asked once more to move her seat.

  She stood at the gate and watched him board, smiled back when he looked over his shoulder. Georgia didn’t budge until the doors were closed, until she watched the plane back out, then move to take off. When it did, she breathed out.

  Instead of calling his sister, who would be waiting on him when he landed to take him to a rehab center Georgia had already paid for in full, she sent her a text because she didn’t want anyone to hear the emotion in her voice.

  The long drive back to Willowhaven was sobering. She cried a bit, why she couldn’t tell you, she didn’t regret not boarding with him or seeing this through—she didn’t regret leaving him.

  But she knew what he was about to go through, had seen him do it before, and she knew it was going to hurt him. The good in her wanted nothing more than for him to make it this time, to be in New York, living the life they’d talked about over and over.

  It sucked feeling like you failed someone.

  When her phone rang just after she reached Willowhaven she answered. It was Cynthia so she didn’t have to worry about the dilemma of whether she should or should not tell Memphis or Easton about this day or not just then.

  “Are you all right?” Cynthia asked which made Georgia question if her simple hello had more emotion than she wanted it to.

  “Yeah, great, what’s going on? Someone get stuck on shift—need me to watch Grace?”

  “Okay, good. You didn’t hear it. I was worried you did. Memphis said you demanded to have a radio at your house a while back.”

  “Hear what?” she asked as her gut plummeted. She told Memphis she wanted a radio so she wouldn’t worry as much when they were on calls, all it did was make her worry more.

  “Those damn radios. They make it sound worse than it is sometimes, or at least don’t give you the full story.”

  “What are you talking about?” Georgia asked as panic flooded her.

  “There was a four alarm at the hotel on the edge of town…they had to bring Easton in.”

  “In where?”

  “The ER—”

  Georgia dropped her phone and didn’t have the skill or time to reach for it. Instead, she pulled a U turn in the middle of the road and floored it. Hoping she remembered the way to get to the hospital and there wasn’t more than one.

  The entire way she cussed herself and Hunter. For all she knew anything could have happened in the window of time she was with him, and she wasn’t there for the people who were here in her life now—people who were putting the pieces of her together again.

  When she got to the hospital she grabbed her phone, looking for updates. There were a few texts from Easton, all before this apparently, but no one had called her to tell her anything but Cynthia.

  She ran at full force through the doors and quickly slammed into Wyatt, who was still in half his turn out suit.

  “Whoa, slow down.”

  “What the hell happened?” Georgia asked as her frantic gaze soared down the hall, seeing Memphis and Truman talking to the Chief and a slew of officers, men in suits.

  “He’s good, giving them hell but he’s okay. I wouldn’t lie to you,” Wyatt said, pulling her against him.

  When Memphis saw her, he broke away from his conversation and rushed to her. He was still in half his turn out suit, too; all of them had soot on their faces.

  Memphis pulled her from Wyatt. “Go give them your statement. I’ll get her back.”

  “Memphis, tell me what happened!”

  “We don’t know. An entire hotel went up in flames—we’re pretty sure it was arson.”

  “Easton was hurt—how?”

  “Still trying to get the how straight. Him, Wyatt, and Truman moved through a room, the door slammed behind, flashover happened—he rammed his shoulder into the door and got ‘em all out.”

  “Then what the hell are you trying to figure out?”

  He looked down at her. “Who slammed the door—they could have been the ones who set the fire.” He squeezed her shoulder.

  That wasn’t all they were trying to understand. Wyatt swore he thought he saw Trish’s car outside just as they arrived. It was gone by the time he could say as much.

  The Doran boys were swearing this was a trap and wanted blood. They had to hunt down that whore who had fucked with Easton one too many times.

  “Did you hear me tell you he was fine on the radio?”

  This was no time for confessions. She simply shook her head no as he pulled her back through the ER.

  Memphis pulled the sheet barrier back. “See? All in one piece. He may need his ink repaired but it was ‘bout time for a new pocket to be ad
ded anyway.”

  Georgia didn’t hear or understand anything he said. All she saw was Easton shirtless, sitting on the side of the bed as a nurse bandaged his shoulder and him giving her a murderous glare.

  The moment he saw her, all his anger left him and when he reached for her she rushed into his arms, grasping him for dear life.

  “You’re trembling,” he whispered next to her ear.

  All she could do was hold him tighter.

  The whole time he had been sitting there, he kept thinking of earlier that day, walking into the inferno room, the flames across all the walls, the battle he was in. He’d felt off all day. Sick in his gut, the same way he had in the past when something went wrong, when his life was changed for the worse.

  When he heard the door slam, when he knew he was trapped and when there was no way out but through the flames—Grace and Georgia were in his mind. Rock solid. The very idea of them sliced any justifiable fear he could have had and he pushed through.

  His girls saved him. They saved his best friends, too.

  Since the second he found air though, since he heard Wyatt start cussing and swearing he knew who was behind this. Easton forgot his salvation and had been focused on revenge, on defense.

  Right now, though, Georgia had saved him again. The sight of her made him remember he didn’t survive the day to hate, but to love his girls.

  That being said, one way or another, he was going to have to put a stop to the ex from hell. She was not going to fuck his life up. Not when he’d just got it right.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Easton was discharged within the hour and sent home to rest. Georgia went with him, and as he slept she watched Grace. She allowed dark thoughts that were terrifying to surface in her mind. She let one too many what ifs linger, which robbed any reassuring sleep she could hope to have.

  As Easton and Grace slept the next morning she asked Cynthia to drive her home. Saying she had a few things she had to take care of so Easton could have her full attention later on, which was a truth hidden in a lie.

  What she really needed to do was make sure her trap for Hunter had worked out. Close the chapter of Hunter in her life for good.

  She expected him to be furious, even after he found the letter she stuffed in his bag, but she still needed to set a few things right. She wanted to at least encourage him.

  When she called his sister who’d called her throughout the night, her gut twisted. Hunter did get off the plane, but he got right back on another one, and she wasn’t even sure where to.

  Phone call after phone call, one old haunt after another pulled Georgia deeper and deeper into hell.

  So deep she never heard Memphis come in with the men he brought with him. The half paranoid text she sent him hours before telling him a security system would rock, was lost deep in her mind.

  Her elbows were on her desk and her head was buried in her hands as her dark hair covered her tear soaked face

  “Little bit, you want a panel in here, too?” Memphis asked.

  When she jarred up and he saw her tears, with a drawn brow he closed the door behind him.

  “Who am I killing, please don’t say it’s my boy—a fire can fuck with your head. I’m sure he got a good scare, single dad and all—the way his dad went out, along with other shit.”

  Every word Memphis said just made more tears spill.

  “What the hell?” Memphis asked as defensive anger built in him. He had just talked to Easton and he didn’t say shit about this. He reached for his phone and Georgia shook her head.

  “Hunter.”

  “What?”

  “I fucked up, Memphis, like really bad.”

  “What did he do?”

  Georgia’s shoulders fell even more as she watched rage wash down her brother and wondered if Easton’s anger would be worse. “He was here.”

  “Today?”

  Georgia carefully told him everything that had happened the day before. How she tricked him and it failed. Where she was and why she did it.

  “God, Georgia, you know better,” he said with curse. He went to her office door and hollered down to the security people he brought to install the best system they had, and where he wanted the panels.

  “That’s not the worst part,” Georgia croaked when he came back in. She wiped her face. “He robbed me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m still sorting it, but apparently he’s opened accounts in my name, rented places. Even bought a car. All those lenders are after me.”

  “How did you figure that out?”

  “I called the bail bonds lady back, see if they knew where he was so I could tell his sister. It all came from there.”

  “You need a lawyer.”

  “Yeah, the bond lady told me as much. She said when I filed against him to tell her so she could add it.”

  Memphis walked over and leaned on her desk. “Georgia, I know you have a good heart, but you have to draw the line somewhere.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath and looked down. “He was so convincing. I really thought I was doing right.” She smirked. “I went to stop the payment to the rehab center, where he told me to send it. It was some phantom account.” She looked up at him. “This kid couldn’t remember to pay his cell bill or even program the fucker—in less than a year how did he figure out how to do this shit?”

  Memphis jerked his stare away, not willing to answer, not completely at least. “Georgia, if you’re mad about this it means you care—do you care about him? At any second did you think of getting on the plane?”

  She punched the hell out of him, and for good measure, she took her shoe off and threw at him.

  He grinned. “Awesome. Dry your face. Let’s go talk to our lawyer buddy.”

  Georgia glared and breathed out somehow feeling like someone had thrown her a rope to climb out of hell with.

  All afternoon—with Memphis and her lawyer at her side—was spent protecting Georgia, cleaning up the mess that was made and preparing for what was to come.

  When Memphis dropped her off, at first she didn’t get out of the truck. She sat there arguing with herself. “I don’t want to tell him about it.”

  “Why?”

  Georgia looked down. “Easton has years on me, he thinks I’m still hungry for the road—he mistakes my anxiety for the feeling of entrapment in a life with him. This isn’t going to help.”

  “Keeping things from him isn’t either.” He looked away, knowing Easton was not in the best spot right now and what Georgia did wasn’t going to help it at all. But still, he knew telling them to be straight with each other was the best way to go about it. “Even without this shit, I could see him trying to push you away after this fire—don’t let him.”

  When she only moved to get out he reached for her arm. “I think he’ll understand what you’re going through more than you think.”

  “One moment at a time.”

  Georgia proved be a coward when Easton came over after Grace’s bedtime. She didn’t say word to him, and instead she pulled him to her lips and the pair of them ravaged each other for hours on end.

  Somewhere in the middle of the night she woke, feeling warmth linger in the air. She reached her arm out but he was gone. When she slowly rose from the bed she saw him at the foot of it, on the floor before the hearth, intently watching the fire he’d made, completely nude. The shadows and the glowing flames cascaded over his taut body. It was clear he was deep in thought.

  His arm was reached back to his shoulder, sliding over the burn there.

  She watched him for a long moment, trying to read him. When she decided she was sure he’d never felt this far away from her emotionally, she pulled the thin blanket around her and tiptoed to his side.

  He smiled up, even reached for her to sit in his lap.

  “You’re thinking awfully deeply over here,” she said, settling in next to him as he pulled the blanket around them.

  His arms tightened around her, loving the feel
of flesh against flesh. “Did I ever tell you what my dad told me about fire?”

  She leaned back to look up at him. He whispered a kiss across her lips, smiling as he spoke. “He said it was just like a woman.”

  She would have laughed, but his tone was too humble.

  “He said it was beautiful, an essence of life—it would give you everything you ever needed or wanted as long as you respected it, and the moment you didn’t, it would remind you how powerful it was, even bring you down to ashes.”

  She playfully narrowed her gaze on him.

  A quiet laugh rumbled in his chest. “Mom wasn’t too fond of it, either.” He nodded to the fire. “He taught me to read the flames, and in a way he taught me to be a man and a fireman long before my time came.” He saved my life, Easton thought, thinking of the fire he just survived.

  “More parables?”

  “Pockets.”

  “Okay, explain.” She’d heard more than him mention such a thing over the years, but she was sure her understanding wasn’t as deep as it should be.

  “Look at that flame. What do you see?”

  She had never really stared into a flame before, watched the colors of orange, red, and blue collide, how they danced. “It is beautiful.” And the smell, the rich aroma of fire blazing in the night, the crackling sound it created.

  “Do you see the pockets, the waves?”

  He pointed to a nook in the logs where no fire was present, yet it was surrounded by flames. “In any fire, there is a pocket, like a stone in the middle of a creek.”

  “Not for long,” she said as a flame invaded the pocket.

  “Long enough for you to find the next one, then the way out…you can read the path of the flame, feel the air, know where to go.”

  She squeezed her arms around his. “I want to make you promise you’ll always follow the pockets, Easton—get out. But I know I can’t....”

  “It already scares the shit out of me at times.”

  His blatant admission shocked her enough to turn in his lap.

  “I leave my little girl to go to a job that stole my father from me…” He creased his brow. “And what’s twisted is I know this is what I’m supposed to do—this is what I was put here to do.”