"Remember the last time you were out?" Bry asked, getting my attention and hers too as she looked back at him. "We were out to a late lunch because that's when the diner was the most empty and we figured it would be okay."
"Bry..." she said, shaking her head, obviously not happy with the memory.
"The way you were shaking and that look of absolute fucking terror in your eyes, Dusty, I never thought I would ever see you outside again without that look. And here we are after you got fucking kidnapped and you don't have that look." He paused there, exhaling a deep breath and giving me a short glance. "I have you to thank for that," he said, accepting a reality I knew was killing him. I was good for her. I helped her where he couldn't. "I'm happy for you," he added as he looked back at her, his eyes relaying some message the way only siblings or old friends could, something I couldn't decipher, but it had Dusty reaching out and taking his hand, giving it a squeeze before dropping it again and resting it on my chest.
It was right about then that I saw Lo.
She was completely turned around in her seat and watching us, strange whimsical little smile in place.
"Oh, don't mind me," she said, shaking her head. "I need some popcorn or something. I love me a good romance. Why is no one kissing?" she added with a teasing laugh.
Apparently Lo- badass lady boss of fucking Hailstorm who had just negotiated a deal that saved two people I cared about after neutralizing an entire gang and watching a man be murdered, without even a blink- was a fucking romantic.
Go fucking figure.
"So, what now?" she asked when everyone sat there somewhat uncomfortably at her previous comment. "I mean, I figure you two will do the happily ever after thing," she said, smiling at me and Dusty. "I want an invite to the wedding, by the way," she added and Dusty laughed, making a smile pull at my lips. "But what about you?" she asked Bry.
To that, he let out a strange snort. "Fuck if I know. I don't have any other skills."
"Um, bull," Dusty said, shaking her head. "You have plenty of other skills you could use. Dealing was the easy way out and you know it."
"Yeah, and not for nothing," Lo piped in, "but there's no way Third Street or Lyon want anything to do with you now. So your so-called career is over in Navesink Bank. Time to find a legit way to make money."
With that, as if sensing Bry needed a minute, Lo turned forward and switched on the radio. Bry looked out his window.
I leaned down, pressing a kiss to the side of Dusty's head. "You okay?" I murmured, giving her a squeeze.
She took a deep breath and turned her head up so it was in my neck, planting a sweet kiss there. "I am now."
"Shouldn't have left you," I added, shaking my head.
I could have had the meeting at the hotel and asked Dusty to stay in the room or had the meeting in the fucking hall.
Stupid move.
But I knew that if she stayed in, she was safe.
I never could have predicted her leaving.
"You gave me company," she said, looking up, giving me an amused smile. It said a world. She had a good time with Fee and Lea.
"You have fun with the girls?"
"Is it possible not to? Fee is a trip," she said, shaking her head.
"Expect a care package soon."
"I already got a couple."
"Oh yeah? What'd you get?"
"Just pajamas and girl stuff and junk food and..."
She trailed off, cheeks going the slightest bit pink and I knew I had to know if it gave her that reaction. "And?"
"And," she pressed her lips together, thinking, then gave me a smile. "We can probably fill our own fishbowl now," she said and I chuckled.
Fee and her condoms.
"The next care package will probably require batteries," I told her, knowing it was the damn truth. When she and Lea became friends, Fee had dragged her to the sex toy store to help her pick out a vibrator. That was just how Fee was.
"Oh, well. I already..." she started to admit before stopping herself, looking around self-consciously, acutely aware that we had an audience. But no one was paying attention.
"Oh, really?" I asked, feeling a somewhat inappropriate rush of arousal at the idea. "Where might I find such items in your apartment? Gotta have the important stuff with us, right?"
To that, she laughed and I didn't think I would get more. But then she leaned up slightly, her lips actually brushing my ear and told me, "Second drawer down in my nightstand."
It was a goddamn inopportune time for my cock to get hard.
But it did anyway.
Judging by the way her eyes went just a little heated, she felt it.
"Dusty," Bry's voice called, making her jump like she was caught and I knew with an absolute certainty that she was wet just thinking about my cock. Which, well, only made it fucking harder.
"Yeah?" she asked, her voice with just the slightest touch of airlessness to it that he didn't, but I sure as fuck, knew for what it was-desire.
"How the fuck did they get you out of the hotel?" Bry asked the thing I had been wondering for hours, but was too relieved with her presence to remember to ask.
Lo turned slightly in her seat again too, interested. During the ride up, the whole story had come out, including the bits about Dusty being agoraphobic.
"I got a phone call that was supposedly from the hospital," she started, shaking her head like she had done something genuinely stupid and, looking back at it, was embarrassed. "They said I was your emergency contact," she said, meaning Bry, "and that you had been shot. I didn't really even stop to think about how stupid that was, how there was no way I was your emergency contact. I just... ran. I didn't even finish listening to the person on the phone. I just tore out of there and... well... they were counting on that."
Well, that made a lot of sense then.
Of course it was something like that, something involving one of the only two people who loved her enough to stay by her side. She couldn't leave to save herself, but she was absolutely the kind who could rally and leave to be by the side of someone who was always at hers.
"You are," Bry's voice cut a lengthy silence as we all digested her story.
"I am what?" Dusty asked, head cocked to the side.
"You are my emergency contact. Always have been. Probably always fucking will be."
"Even though I couldn't..." Dusty started, only to be interrupted.
"Emergency contact is who you want informed if something happens to you, who knows you and your wishes best. Who the fuck am I going to put? My family I haven't seen in years? It's you, Dusty. Always will be. Figured even if you couldn't leave the apartment, you could tell them over the phone that they leave my fucking plug alone if it ever came to that. No one is pulling it on me."
She smiled at him, liking that he trusted her enough with that. She was silent for a long time, looking down at her lap. "Hey Bry?"
"Yeah?" he asked, looking over, suddenly seeming like the events of the day were catching up to him, making him seem pale and tired.
"Maybe, in like... a week or two... maybe we can try the diner again and see if it's... better this time. I mean, no promises, but..."
"Two things," he cut off what was sure to be an insecure, shy little ramble. "One, the diner changed owners and the food is the perfect kind of shitty- all grease and sugar. Two, you don't ever have to try to promise me anything. You know that."
"Sorry to interrupt the little moment everyone is having," Lo said, giving us all a smile. "But aside from him at the hospital," she said, nodding at Bry, "where are we dropping the rest of you?"
"Chaz's," I said immediately, seeing as that was where my car was.
"Alright," Lo said, turning back to the front as we got closer to town.
"Where are we going?" Dusty asked, looking as tired as I was feeling right about then.
"Think another night or two at the residence, just to make sure. Then we can go back to the apartment. Sorry, it's just..."
"Don't be sorry
. I like the residence," she said, giving me a wistful smile. "I'll always have a couple really good memories of that place."
I took a page out of her book, leaning down so that my lips brushed her earlobe. "Soon as you're up for it, I'll give you a couple more," I promised.
Her arm tightened around me and she buried her head again.
We dropped off Bry with an invite to check-in at the residence in the morning. Lo brought us to Chaz's where I situated a half-asleep Dusty into my car, grabbing something out of the glovebox, then taking it and handing it to Lo.
"What's this?" she asked, taking it.
"Ten grand. I really appreciate this, Lo. And thank Jstorm for me too," I added. "Take it," I pressed when she seemed like she was pausing. "No offense, but I don't want to owe Hailstorm. I think there's been enough crazy in our lives as it is."
"Understood," she agreed, tossing it into the open door of her SUV. "But if you ever need us again, don't hesitate."
With that, she jumped in and was gone.
"Can't say I enjoy how much trouble the women you pick to bring into this family have attached to them," Pops said as he walked up, "but it keeps a man young, I guess," he added, clamping a hand on my shoulder.
"Pops..."
"Not now," he said, shaking his head. "You have a woman to get home and comfort. We will all catch up once things have settled down."
With that, he threw an arm around my mother's shoulder and the two were off.
"I got eighteen texts from Fee about how much she likes Dusty," Hunter said, waving his phone at me. "And then twenty-four asking for updates while we were gone."
"I'd rib the shit out of you for that," Shane agreed, looking down at his own phone, "but I got twelve from Lea so I can't say fucking shit. Well," he said, nodding at me, "it was fun. Nothing like a little invasion and murder to keep brothers close. But I got a woman at home who needs some, ah, comforting of her own. Catch you later."
Hunt said his goodbyes too which left me with Eli and Mark.
"I don't have a woman at home, but I'm thinking there are at least... ten women in Navesink Bank right about now who could use some comforting, right?" he asked, giving me a nod and going inside Chaz's which, despite all the owners being off on a fucked up little mission, was still open. Business as usual.
"She's a good woman, Ry," Eli told me, nodding, then following Mark into the bar. While he likely wasn't on the prowl for a woman, one would inevitably find him.
There was, apparently, just something about Eli.
As for me, well, I planned to take my woman home.
And comfort her.
That was the plan anyway.
EIGHTEEN
Dusty
I floated in and out of consciousness in Ryan's front seat as he talked to the large group of people, two of whom were obviously his parents. His father looked just like his sons with a couple extra years on him.
I shouldn't have been able to sleep.
With my usual cycle of anxiety, any minor little hiccup in life left me tossing and turning and obsessing about it for hours on end until my body was too tired to let my brain keep it awake anymore.
But there I was after a day, actually a week, from hell and I was floating off as happy as a swaddled baby.
It was many of the things I would need to think on. Eventually.
The slam of Ryan's door had me mostly awake and I sent him a sleepy smile as his hand went to my thigh and squeezed.
Then we were driving.
And everything was fine.
Until we passed our apartment building and I remembered.
"Stop," I hissed, shooting upward in my seat.
"Honey, what's the..."
"Oh, God. Okay. Alright. Um... phone. I need your phone."
"Okay," he said, pulling the car over and handing it to me from his pocket. "Here. But what's going on?"
"How could I forget?" I cursed myself, stabbing the number into the phone and hitting dial. "He probably has a freaking police report filed already," I added.
"Your uncle," Ryan concluded as I just listened to the ring.
"Answer your phone," I growled at it as it went to voicemail. I hung up and hit dial again. Nothing.
"Dusty, what's his address?" Ryan asked calmly, making my mouth part slightly and a weird, hysterical little laugh to escape me.
Address.
Right.
Because we could just... drive there.
It had been so long since that was my reality I had actually forgotten there was another way to contact him than by phone.
So I gave Ryan the address, just three streets over, and we pulled up out front a house that had literally not changed a bit since I had been there. The brick was red and power-washed as it always was. The shutters, molding, and doors were all a crisp white because my uncle believed in keeping up his place.
I felt a surge of nostalgia as we each reached for our handles in unison, as Ryan took my hand as we walked up the path, as I raised my hand to knock. A weird little giddiness bubbled in my belly, excited at the idea of him being able to see me functioning again, out of my apartment again.
The outdoor light flicked on and the door pulled open.
And there was my Uncle Danny.
There was a similarity looks wise.
He was tall and somewhat thin with his blond hair cut somewhat fashionably with a sharp undercut and brushed back on the top. He had green eyes like mine, but a little darker. Always the casual sort, he was in jeans and a white tee.
"Jesus Christ!" he exploded as soon as his eyes landed on me. There wasn't even a hesitation before he reached out and dragged me against his body, wrapping me up tight. It was the kind of affection he didn't often offer me and was therefore evidence of how worried he had been. "Your apartment was destroyed," he said into my hair.
"I was robbed a couple days ago," I admitted, feeling guilt well up strong. While he had been all I had in the world for a long time, it also went to follow that I was all he really had either. At least when it came to close relationships.
"You're out," he said, as if realizing the significance of that for the first time, pulling backward, looking me over. His face went hard and I realized I still had scratches and bruising and a bit of swelling. "Your face."
"I was obviously home when they broke in," I supplied, hating myself for not giving the whole truth but understanding there would be a time and place for that and that this was not it. "They weren't shy in the hitting women department. Luckily for me, Ryan stepped in," I said, pulling back and gesturing toward him, making my uncle's eyes go there for the first time. "Ryan, this is my uncle, Danny. Uncle Danny, Ryan."
They shook hands and did that manly assessing each other thing for a minute. "I owe you one," my uncle said, giving him a nod.
"Think I owe you more," Ryan said, making both mine and my uncle's brows draw together in confusion. But then Ryan's arm moved out and went around my lower back, pulling me to his side.
"I see," Uncle Danny said, giving him a nod. "Well, come on in. I need to hear where the hell you were when I stopped by."
He invited us in and I almost laughed when I realized the similarities between Ryan and Danny's places. They both said 'bachelor' with their dark tones and resistance to all things knick-knack.
"Any chance you'd be the Ryan who lives across the hall from Dusty?" he asked, moving across the floor and going into the fridge, grabbing three beers and passing them out.
"That'd be me."
"I'd apologize for all the 'Sorry We Missed You' slips, but you never clear out your fucking mailbox."
"Fair enough," Ryan agreed, chuckling slightly when he took the beer from my hands that I couldn't twist the cap off of and did it himself.
"This new?" Uncle Danny asked, waving between us as he sat back in his chair.
One thing I had always appreciated about my uncle as I aged up and started dating was... he never went all 'dad' on me or my boyfriends. In fact, when I was about sixt
een, he had tossed a box of condoms on my bed and informed me, "I know you're gonna date. Do yourself and your old uncle a favor and make sure it's always safe."
That was it.
He never tried to scare away boys who came to pick me up or even question them. He just went with it, understanding it was just a part of life. I wasn't a little girl anymore and I would do what I wanted regardless of his opinions. So he kept them to himself.
"Yeah," I admitted, nodding.
"Since Christmas," Ryan added with a nod.
Danny nodded, taking a pull from his bottle. "Alright, how long have you been leaving your apartment without me knowing and why haven't you told me?"
I felt myself smile at the abrupt change in conversation. The 'getting to know the boyfriend' phase was over.
"I guess since the day before New Years Eve," I supplied, figuring it was as close to the truth as possible. "But then it was just... across the hall because my apartment was, well, trashed."
Danny nodded, accepting that. "What about today?"
Ryan looked to me, one brow raised the slightest bit like he was wondering what I was going to come up with that wouldn't worry him. "I was meeting Ryan's sisters-in law and then he and Bry and I went out for a... drive. Then I remembered I never called you and we stopped here. I'm so sorry I made you worry."
"Ace, whatever worry I went through was fucking worth it to see you standing at my door."
I felt my heart squeeze hard in my chest at that and, not able to stop myself, I flew at him, landing in his lap like the little girl I used to be always did. And his arms went around me like they always had- a bit tentative at first but then tight and reassuring.
"I don't think I have ever thanked you for always being there for me," I told him, my voice low. I knew I would probably tell Ryan about it at some point, but the moment right then was for me and my uncle.
"You got nothing to thank me for, kid."
"I don't just mean when I was little, though there is that too. I mean the past few years. I know it wasn't easy for you to watch me struggle. And you and Bry... you were the only ones who stuck by me. I really appreciated it more than I ever told you."
Ryan (The Mallick Brothers #2) Page 20