I snorted.
He wouldn’t be looking for it. He’d be avoiding everything there was when it came to the Kilgore paper.
Dinner flowed smoothly after that.
There were no other mentions of Luca. There was no other real focus on Riel or me at all.
At least until dinner came and everyone watched me put away almost all of my food.
The stuff I had left I boxed up, and Piper was still shaking her head in amazement.
“If I ate like you,” she said. “I’d be the size of a house.”
She gestured to where her own plate, a salad that she’d finished exactly half of, lay.
“I got my dad’s genetics,” I said. “But, saying that, when you only eat one meal a day, you’re allowed to consume all the calories with no repercussions.”
Piper snickered.
“I like you,” she declared.
I liked her, too.
Five minutes after that, I gave the waitress money for my part of the bill, then stood up.
“I have to go,” I said to the group at large. “Thank you for allowing me to eat with y’all.”
There were a ton of murmurs of ‘any time’ and ‘thanks for joining us.’
After saying my goodbyes, I was unsurprised to find Riel walking me out to my car.
“You could’ve finished your food,” I said to him.
He shrugged. “I wasn’t too impressed with the steak.”
No, he never had been. He and Luca used to cook their own steaks and find them quite a bit tastier than that particular restaurant.
I hadn’t thought that I needed to tell him, though.
He would’ve been curious if he hadn’t figured it out on his own.
“You and Luca used to make some great steaks,” I said. “Y’all would go buy the biggest steaks you could get your hands on. Then you’d grill them up and eat them all without any sides.”
He grunted out a sound that was somewhere between a ‘cool’ and an ‘interesting.’
I decided not to say anything else.
At least, I’d intended not to.
But then he’d finally walked me to my car which was still parked in the fifteen-minute pickup parking spot.
I turned to see him standing with his arms crossed over his chest.
“Your car is a piece of junk,” he said.
I rolled my eyes.
That’d been a familiar argument between me and Luca.
Apparently, Riel was going to continue it now that Luca was gone.
“I know,” I said. “I need a new one. It’s on my to-do list.”
After I paid off my student loans, anyway.
Or, at least, the student loans that I had.
My dad had covered what he could. And those he couldn’t, Luca had tried to cover.
I hadn’t allowed him to and thank God I hadn’t leaned on him for that. Because there was no way I could’ve ever guessed where my life would’ve proceeded.
But I was thankful that I’d at least succeeded in winning that one argument.
Riel shifted to the shadows as he was used to doing, and I allowed my eyes to flicker to his face.
“You look a little rough, Riel,” I said to the man that walked me out to my car after our meal.
The rest had stayed, ordering dessert.
“I’m tired,” he admitted, sounding lost.
“Do you sleep okay?” I wondered. “I’d imagine there’s some underlying PTSD. It could be…”
“No PTSD,” he said. “For there to be PTSD, there’d have to be a memory there for me to remember. Which I don’t. So, with no memories to torture me, I’m just a blank slate. Nothing fucked up about me. I just can’t sleep.”
Luca had that problem, too.
I’d wake up in the middle of the night and find him staring at the ceiling counting the proverbial sheep.
Nothing had ever helped. Not exhaustion. Not talking. Not reading. Not medications.
Nothing.
“Luca used to be like that, too,” I said. “If you’re anything like him? I’d guess you just have to get used to it.”
He snorted.
“I was prescribed some sleep meds from my psychologist,” he admitted. “The department made me see him once a week for a mandatory three months due to a few concerns they had with my well-being. Anyway, when I take those, it knocks me out, and I don’t like the way I can’t wake up. It makes me feel… confined.”
I shifted from foot to foot, my feet aching, but reluctant to leave.
There was just something about Riel that drew me in. That made me want to stay. To comfort.
My reasoning was that Luca would’ve wanted me to care for his friend.
“They can give you a different type of medication,” I suggested.
He shook his head. “No. I’m just… I’ll deal with it. Someway.”
I smiled. “Luca used to take naps. During the day. I’d call him, and he’d be asleep. Maybe you should try to get some sleep where you can.”
And maybe you should stop telling him to be like Luca.
“I have to go,” I said abruptly, not liking how eerily right my inner voice was sounding. “Have a good night, Riel. Take care.”
With that, I hurried over to my shitty car, opened the crappy door, and sat down on the dilapidated seat.
Starting her up, I refused to look at Riel or his disapproval.
Instead, I focused on what I would do in the future.
And that would have a whole lot of ignoring Malachi Gabriel Stokes written all over it.
Chapter 6
Starter fluid.
-Coffee Cup
Malachi
It’d been a week since I’d last talked with Frankie.
A week where I told myself it was for the best.
But, since that night, not only had I slept like utter shit—even worse than usual—but I couldn’t turn my mind off.
Couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Which was why I found myself walking into the ER after escorting a criminal inside to get checked out after he decided to go for a run to try and evade the police—i.e., me.
I was in an actual cruiser today thanks to the rain that had hammered the city of Kilgore.
It’d started two days prior and hadn’t let up for two entire days.
It wasn’t due to let up at all until the weekend. Which was still three days away.
Meaning I actually had room for a criminal to ride in my car.
The uniform, however, was still the same.
Which sucked.
But, it was better than the alternative of not working—which was also a possibility.
There’d been some discussion on whether to keep us on but put us in patrol cars or allow us to have the days off with pay since we weren’t able to ride.
The debate had been hairy.
According to the chief of police, we’d originally been planned to get into a cruiser and use those instead of the bikes on the days that it rained. However, they were about four cruisers down thanks to a hit and run last week, and a police chase this week that resulted in engine failure in one cruiser, while another had suffered minor damage to its side and front thanks to the suspect trying to ram the cruiser in his haste to get away.
The last cruiser was at the paint place getting outfitted with the new KPD stickers.
Leaving me with one of three options.
A new vehicle that hadn’t been outfitted with all the necessary items, things that might be useful - the bullhorn, the lights, and siren, or the computer. Or I take the chief’s vehicle.
The last option was to not go out at all.
I was all for option A or C.
Luke Roberts had chosen option B.
Which was how I ended up making an arrest in the chief’s personal cruiser and the guy bleeding all over it.
Luckily, I was now officially on lunch break for an hour. I
t would give me time to clean up Luke’s back seat and hopefully get all the blood out of it so it didn’t start stinking.
Unluckily, I first had to drop the little fucker off and wait for backup to arrive and take him off my hands.
Yao had arrived ten minutes ago and relieved me of my duty.
After a quick few words about the foot chase, I found myself heading toward the ER and Frankie.
I found her at the nurses’ station staring into space.
Her eyes, however, found me the moment that I stepped through the glass doors.
Her face lit with a large smile.
One that quickly fell off her face just as fast as it’d arrived.
I felt that hit like a shot right to the gut.
But instead of turning around and leaving like I knew I probably should do, I walked up to her and stopped right where she was sitting, only across the counter.
“Riel,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
I flicked my head in the general direction of Yao.
“I had a person he’s been searching for in custody,” I answered. “Had to bring him in because he decided to run. There was a foot chase, and he decided to meet pavement.”
She looked over her shoulder at where Yao was standing next to the young teen who’d been of interest in the case he was seeing to with the gunshot victim at the high school.
This kid was, supposedly, the one that had been doing the shooting.
Which was why Yao had been called in, and why the be on the lookout, or BOLO, had been put out on him in the first place.
“You’re working in this weather?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Kind of. They put me in a cruiser.”
She blew out a breath, looking relieved.
“That’s good,” she said softly, looking away. “The thought of you on that bike in this weather scares me.”
I tried not to feel happy that she cared whether I was safe or not but failed.
“Would you like to grab some lunch with me?” I asked, wanting her to say yes, but knowing she’d say no.
She looked around for something to help her get out of the offer, I assumed, but came up short.
“You should go,” the woman next to her said. “Your lunch break is coming up.”
Frankie looked like she’d been shoved into a corner with no way out.
I took a step back and raised my hands. “I’m not going to force you to go, Frankie.”
I didn’t force women.
I didn’t want Frankie to go to eat with me if she’d rather be anywhere but.
Frankie’s eyes went to the side where the woman sat, then sighed and stood up, gesturing for me to follow her.
I did, at a very safe, respectable distance.
She rolled her eyes and gestured for me to follow her into the break room.
I did, reluctantly.
The harsh lights hurt my eyes, and with one quick sweep of the room, I realized there would be no escaping them.
At least in the hospital hallways, there were still parts of it that were less bright than the others.
In the break room, though?
There wasn’t a single place to hide.
“I brought enough food for a couple of days,” she said, going to the fridge.
I was already telling her no before she even opened it.
“No,” I said. “I’m not eating your food.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I’m serious,” I said. “I don’t want to eat your food.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and looked at me with a sad smile on her face.
“You’re avoiding me,” I said.
She hadn’t outright walked the other direction when I’d come into the room, but I had seen her three times since dinner the other week, and each time she’d found something to keep her busy.
The first time had been at the supermarket.
She’d seen me, made eye contact, smiled. Then she’d turned down the nearest aisle, adding food to her buggy and moving at the speed of light in the opposite direction.
The next two times had been at the hospital.
Both times had been me either transporting a patient to the hospital or taking one from the hospital to temporary lockup.
Each of those times, she’d seen me and turned and walked in the other direction.
And it was starting to get on my nerves.
She looked taken back by my honesty but shook her head and gestured to the chairs at the table between us.
When we both took our seats, she folded her hands in front of her and looked at the table as she started to explain.
“I’m not…” She blew out a breath. “Riel… I’m really fucked up.”
I didn’t doubt that for a second.
That made two of us.
“My lines are blurring,” she said. “Things are becoming a little confused in my brain, and every time that I think I have a handle on it, something sneaks out and yanks me right back into a place that I really shouldn’t linger in.”
I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
She rubbed her face vigorously.
“You’re enough like him that it’s making me project my feelings onto you,” she finally said. “You talk like him. Act like him. Smell like him. Hell, you even dress like him. And… it’s driving me insane. It’s making me chaotic. And it’s confusing, okay? Luca is gone. And you’re here.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
“It’s been two years, and I still want him just as much now as I did the day he left,” she whispered. “I pray for him to come home every night. I still check the news religiously. And, if I’m being honest, and I’m sorry if this hurts, I wish every day that it was him that came home and not you. Which makes me a terrible person.”
Her blunt honesty was refreshing.
“There are days that I wish that I hadn’t come home at all,” I told her bluntly.
Her eyes flashed up to meet mine, shock written all over the beautiful curve of her lips.
“Riel…” she breathed. “That’s never a way to think.”
I shrugged.
“Doesn’t mean that I don’t think it, though,” I told her. “I do. If I could switch places with Luca, I would.”
Her eyes went soft.
“That makes me an asshole to say what I said earlier,” she told me. “It’s not nice. And I hate that I think it.” Her eyes studied my face. “I don’t ever want you to think that I’m not happy that you came home. I am. I just wish Luca had come home, too.”
I grabbed her hand and squeezed it lightly before letting it go.
“Want to grab some lunch?” I asked.
She narrowed her eyes. “Are you inviting me to lunch because you don’t want to eat by yourself and I’ll hopefully deflect some of the town’s attention away from you?” she wondered. “Or do you have ulterior motives?”
Ulterior motives for sure.
I wasn’t sure why I felt the way around her that I did.
But when she was near, the screaming emptiness in my head didn’t feel quite so debilitating as it usually did.
I grinned. “Busted.”
She rolled her eyes.
“They’re just as infatuated with me as they are with you. Even more so, as a matter of fact.” She paused. “The day after you and I had dinner with your crew, I got a call from Ember, Luca’s mom, saying that she’d had several reports that we’d been seen out to dinner together.”
I frowned hard.
“Was she mad?” I asked, ready to defend her even though I had a feeling that it wasn’t like that with Ember and Gabe.
She shook her head.
“Honestly, she was happy that I was getting you ‘out and about’ and not letting you ‘hole up in your apartment.’” She grinned. “Though, I had to tell her that I was the one to see you there. I hadn’t dragged you anywhere.”
&nb
sp; I grunted out a, “Shit.”
She rolled her eyes. “They care about you. Just like they do about me. You’re going to have to get over it.”
I scratched my head and she stood up, walking over to the refrigerator and getting her food out.
I blinked when I saw her remove an entire pizza box.
“That’s the lunch you prepared?” I asked, grinning.
The scars pulled around my mouth, but I didn’t care.
Not when the woman was so full of surprises.
She rolled her eyes. “You don’t remember this, but I can burn water.”
My brows rose.
“I have a shit ton of pots and pans in storage,” I said. “I apparently can cook. People that can’t cook don’t have that kind of shit in the first place.”
She smiled, looking sad for a few seconds.
“You and Luca used to see who could cook the best meals,” she said. “The week that y’all were off for leave? I ate like a queen.”
I felt my chest puff up.
“If I can remember how to do that,” I said, “I’ll cook you something.”
She winked, even though she looked sad.
I wanted to bring her into my arms and hug the shit out of her.
Instead, I sat back and allowed her to heat me up half the pizza before she did the same for herself.
“I know you don’t like pineapple,” she said. “So, you’ll have to pick those off.”
I picked up the piece of pizza and examined it.
It was so weird.
There were things that I just knew instinctively.
Like how to clear a jam in an AR-15. Or how to pie a corner when I’m clearing a house.
Then there were the little things. Like finding out I didn’t like mint toothpaste, it tasted like absolute ass and made me gag if I used it.
Or the fact that I didn’t like chocolate but loved peanut butter.
Or even the sweet tea at the restaurant when she’d joined me with my team.
Honestly, it was the littlest things that surprised me.
Like finding out that I didn’t like pineapples.
Because smelling the shit was making my mouth water.
I took a hesitant bite and moaned at the taste.
“Shit,” I said. “This is good.”
When I looked up at her, she was staring at me oddly.
If You Say So (KPD Motorcycle Patrol Book 6) Page 6