“Theo, grab her coat.”
I’m still dizzy, blood still rushing in my ears from our kiss as Marcus jerks his head at his friend.
Theo snatches my abandoned jacket from the ground and hands it to me, his gaze lingering on mine as I accept it. Shivers race up my spine at the strange mix of emotions that seem to clog the air in the small alley, making it impossible to catch a full breath.
“Come on. We’re taking you home.” Marcus heads toward the mouth of the alley, and I follow, conscious of the other two men behind me.
We walk half a block to Marcus’s car, which is just as expensive-looking as Theo’s, although I have no idea what kind either of them are. Marcus holds the door open for me, a strangely chivalrous gesture for a man who just got into a brutal fist-fight in an alley.
I don’t comment on it though. I just slide into the car and wait while the three of them pile inside too. The stereo is playing, a song I know and love, and when I glance at the dashboard, I’m surprised to see it’s not the radio.
This is music Marcus chose.
It doesn’t seem to fit him—or at least, what I know of him—and I find myself curious about why he likes this song, or if he even does.
But I’m tired of being curious about this man. Tired of being drawn to him. Tired of flailing against the fucking bonds that only seem to grow tighter every time I struggle.
So I don’t comment on the music either.
The drive is silent, and when we pull up outside my apartment, I half expect Marcus to shove his door open, yank me from my seat, and carry me upstairs to fuck me against a wall.
But he just grips the steering wheel tightly, his gaze focused straight ahead. “Goodnight, angel.”
He’s still pissed. I can see it in the way his body seems spring-loaded, the muscles bunching under his leather jacket. When his gaze cuts to me for just a second as I unclip my seatbelt, it’s not fury I see in his eyes, though. It’s something almost like hurt.
I can’t make sense of that, so I just mutter a goodnight under my breath and slip out of the car quickly, escaping the too-tight confines that roil with too many emotions. The cold night air bites at my skin as I hurry up to my apartment building and let myself inside.
I take the stairs to the second floor two at a time, but when I get inside my unit, I slow my frantic pace, taking my time as I shimmy out of my clothes and pull on a pair of sweats and a worn t-shirt, then brush my teeth and wash my face.
I’m not in any hurry anymore.
As late as it is, I don’t want to go to sleep yet.
I don’t want to fucking dream.
Of course, sleep comes anyway. I’m fucking exhausted, and no matter how long I manage to hold it off, my eyelids eventually slide shut.
I wake up three times over the course of the night, shocked out of sleep by vivid dreams of the three men who haunt me.
And as I lie in bed in the morning, clutching my pillow to me with my good arm, I realize why the dreams are getting worse.
I keep giving them new material.
Feeding them new memories.
For two and a half years, I’ve dreamed of the night I was shot, replaying it over and over, holding on to the vestiges of my memories of the three men from the club. But now that they’ve crashed back into my life, my sleeping mind has a long list of entirely new fucked up shit to pull from as it tries to process what the hell is going on.
And how I feel about it all.
Marcus didn’t fuck me last night, and I’m not the one who got into a fist fight, but my body still feels wrecked as I haul myself out of bed and take a shower.
It’s late morning, almost noon, but I don’t have to be at work again until eight tonight. Part of me wants to spend the day holed up again, to only leave my apartment when I have to go to Duke’s. Unfortunately, I’m pretty solidly out of food by now, and besides, I can’t live like that.
I won’t live like that.
Like a fucking mouse who only scrambles out of her hidey-hole to grab a bite of cheese before running back inside.
So I pull on a t-shirt and jeans, then grab my prosthetic arm off the hook on the wall and shrug on the harness. I slip my jacket on over that.
A second glance will make it glaringly obvious to anyone who’s paying attention that the hand sticking out of this sleeve isn’t real. But luckily, most people don’t look that hard.
I don’t wear the prosthesis often, but the barrage of curious glances and stares I get when I walk around without it wear on me. Not much; not badly. More like a constant background noise, something I hardly even notice consciously anymore.
But right now, I’m already pretty ragged, my emotions electric and sparking like frayed wires. Having to ignore a bunch of stares is just one more thing I don’t want to deal with right now.
When I step out onto the front stoop, I automatically glance around. I don’t catch a glimpse of any of the men, so I take the bus three stops to the little market where I usually do my shopping. The selection isn’t great, but the prices are good, and that matters to me more than how many different kinds of rice they have.
Grabbing a small cart, I head down the first aisle. It feels shockingly nice to be doing something so boring and mundane after the pure insanity of the last few days, and I take my time browsing each aisle, picking out a small array of items.
I’m slipping a jar of pasta sauce into my cart when I almost crash into someone walking the other way down the aisle.
“Oh, sor—”
I look up and stop.
It’s Ryland.
My heart thumps in my chest, but I school my features into a neutral expression and step around him, continuing to scan my gaze over the items on the shelves and pretending I have no goddamn idea who he is.
Just as I expected, my reaction doesn’t deter him one fucking bit. He just falls into step beside me, his large form seeming massive beside mine as we make our way down the cramped aisle.
“Are you here to give me shit for what I did last night?” I ask, keeping my voice as carefully bland as my expression.
“No.”
“Well then, shouldn’t you be hiding in the fucking bushes outside?”
A noise that’s almost a snort comes from beside me, but when I glance up quickly, Ryland’s face is as set and stoic as ever.
Did he just… laugh?
It’s hard to believe. Almost impossible, honestly.
He walks beside me in silence as I make my way up and down the remaining aisles, and when I head toward the cashier at the front, he plucks the items from my cart and sets them on the counter by the register, digging into the back pocket of his crisp charcoal slacks for his wallet.
As he flips it open and hands the cashier a black card, I gawk at him. This is the first time I’ve been truly surprised since he materialized in front of me in aisle seven. His appearance wasn’t all that unexpected, but this? This is.
“What are you doing?”
He doesn’t answer. Just lifts his chin at the man as the guy hands his card back and starts bagging up my groceries.
I watch with a weird mashup of feelings churning in my gut. Gratitude mixes with annoyance and a hint of shame.
These men are all fucking loaded. I already know that from seeing Marcus’s house, and his and Theo’s cars. There’s also the thing Theo mentioned on the drive home that night—something about how his two friends both have a hand in their family’s businesses. Whatever those businesses are, they’re obviously bringing in a shitload of cash.
I’ve been trying to save for college for the past two years, scrimping and putting away whatever I can manage to during good months and living hand to mouth during bad months.
But it’s not like I can’t afford to buy my own goddamn groceries.
I’m not a charity case.
Ryland grunts something indecipherable that might be a “thanks” as he grabs the two plastic bags full of groceries from the cashier and heads toward the door. I stare at his broad, retreating back for a moment before moving after him.
He shoves the door open with his shoulder and then waits for me, keeping it propped open until I’ve walked outside. Then he falls into step beside me, one bag’s handle gripped in each hand.
He’s wearing a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up his forearms, and colorful, intricate tattoos creep out from under each sleeve, cascading all the way down his arms and over the backs of his hands. He’s got tattoos on his neck too. They frame his jawline in a way that’s oddly beautiful.
It’s weird. He’s often the least casually dressed of the three men, wearing button-up shirts and slacks while Marcus and Theo seem to prefer jeans and casual tops. But he’s the most tatted up of the three of them. I haven’t seen the rest of his body, but I’d bet anything that the tattoos on his forearms travel up his arms and over his shoulders to connect to others on his chest and back.
When we reach the corner, it occurs to me that I’ve been staring at him for an entire block, and I drag my gaze away.
I cross the street, passing the bus stop. For some reason, I don’t want to wait for the bus right now. I don’t want to stand in one place with this man so close. It feels better to keep moving. It’s only about a twenty-minute walk anyway.
Ryland’s forearms flex as he adjusts his grip on the bags, and I press my lips together as I cut him a glance out of the side of my eyes. “I hope you enjoy the food.”
“What?”
“Well, you bought it all. It’s yours now. So I hope you like noodles.”
He glances at me like I’m an idiot. “You know I didn’t buy this shit for myself, right?”
I shrug. “Too bad. I don’t accept charity.”
He blows out another breath, a snort that’s almost a laugh. “You’re so goddamn stubborn.”
“Says the man who won’t quit stalking me.”
He pivots on his heel suddenly, stepping ahead of me and cutting me off mid-stride. I almost bump into him, and I stumble to a stop as he glares down at me.
My heart jumps at the look on his face. I’ve never had an interaction with Ryland that wasn’t fraught with angry tension, but for a second back there, things seemed different. He didn’t seem to hate me quite so much.
I must’ve fucking imagined it.
“You think I want to be doing this?” he asks, his voice low and intense. “That I want to be following you around like a fucking dog? I don’t. I don’t want Marcus following you. I don’t want Theo following you. I don’t want any of this.”
Shock fills me at the vehemence in his words. “Then why are you—”
“Because he’s my friend, and I owe him everything. Because I’d do anything for him, including this. But he knows how I feel about it. About all of this. He knows I think it’s a fucking mistake.”
Hope rises in my chest, along with something else I can’t quite identify. Something that makes my chest ache and tastes bitter on my tongue. “Then stop him! Tell him to leave me alone! Tell him to—”
“You don’t think I have?” He exhales sharply through his nose. “We’ve fought about this a dozen times since the night you got shot. As far as I’m concerned, we should’ve stayed the hell out of your life after that night. Never seen you again.” He shakes his head. “But he can’t fucking let it go. He can’t let you go. He’s kept tabs on you for two and a half years, obsessed with understanding you, with getting inside your goddamn head.” He drops his chin, catching my gaze with his fierce hazel eyes. “But I don’t want to be inside your head, Ayla. I don’t want to have anything to do with you.”
My mouth goes dry. It’s never been a secret that Ryland doesn’t like me, but I don’t think I realized until this moment quite how much he dislikes me. How much he dislikes all of this.
It… hurts.
I can’t explain why it affects me at all, but the way his face contorts into a grimace as he talks, the way he glares down at me like he wishes he could scrape me off the bottom of his fucking shoe—it makes me feel like I’m everything my worst foster parents ever called me.
Stupid.
Disgusting.
Worthless.
The flash of pain that burns through me leaves hot anger in its wake. It’s a knee-jerk reaction to the hurt I feel, and also to the fact that I feel anything at all. I hate that this man has any power over my emotions. I hate that what he thinks means anything to me, especially considering I clearly mean so little to him.
“Then stop.” My voice is hard. “Tell Marcus you’re done and leave me the fuck alone. You think I wanted this? You think I wanted my life invaded like this?”
He lets out a breath, looking away. “It doesn’t matter what you want. Or what I want.”
I sneer up at him. “Right. Because Marcus is the one running this show. He texts Theo, and five minutes later, Theo chauffeurs me home. He tells you to follow me, and whether you want to or not, you fucking do it.”
A muscle in Ryland’s jaw jumps, but he doesn’t respond. He just glares down at me with the same hard, impenetrable look he always wears.
I can’t stand it.
My heart drums faster in my chest, and I cock my head at him, narrowing my eyes. “Have you been a good little stalker, just like he told you to? You say you don’t want to get inside my head, but you know a fuck of a lot about me, don’t you? Have you been in my apartment? Huh? Have you watched me through the window? Do you watch me dress and undress, watch me brush my fucking teeth, and hate it the whole time?”
“Ayla.”
There’s a warning in Ryland’s tone, but I refuse to listen to it. I shove at his chest instead, desperate to make the solid, unyielding force that is the man in front of me just—fucking—move.
“If you hate it so much, then stop! Just stop! Fucking st—”
The last word is stolen from my lips as Ryland drops both the shopping bags and grabs me, yanking me toward him. My chest smashes against his, and for a wild, insane second, I think he’s going to kiss me. Our faces are so close together that I can feel his breath on my skin, and his big hands splay across my back, seeming to cover the entire width of my body.
He’s like a rock.
Like a fucking brick wall.
But as I stare up at him in shock, the rock cracks.
For just a heartbeat, something besides the usual hard disdain crosses his face.
It’s soft.
Almost sad.
Then I blink, and it’s gone.
He releases me, holding on to my shoulders as he pushes me away from him. His voice is low and controlled when he speaks. “I can’t do that, Ayla. It’s too late.”
I don’t know what the fuck he means by that. What’s too late? How is it too late?
But he doesn’t explain. He just backs away from me several steps, his gaze still glued to my face. Then he turns and strides quickly across the road, disappearing down another side street.
Leaving me alone.
Trying to catch my breath, I stare down at the two bags of groceries Ryland dropped on the sidewalk when he grabbed me. The jar of pasta sauce broke. I can see the thick red liquid spreading across the bottom of the bag like blood. A container of juice cracked in the other bag, and it’s leaking out to pool on the dirty sidewalk.
Jesus. If that isn’t the perfect fucking analogy for my relationship with these three men, I don’t know what is.
They stalk me. They buy me groceries. Then they ruin those groceries and leave me standing on the sidewalk feeling like my chest has been turned inside out.
They patch up my heart and then break it.
Over and over and over again.
