Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 104802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
What feels like a ten-ton brick lands in the middle of my chest. He’s not supposed to see that. He’s sure as hell not supposed to talk to me about it. “Way to call me out on my shit.” I run a hand through my hair, which immediately falls onto my forehead again.
“I’m sorry. I don’t think sometimes before I speak. I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s fine. It is what it is. There’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do for Tiernan, Rory, and Aislin. Now that circle includes Dean because he’s Tiernan’s, and anything happening to him would hurt Tiernan.”
“Well, I mean, he doesn’t belong to Tiernan.”
I grin. “You don’t know how things work for them.” I shrug. “Anyway, Tiernan has Dean now, which is good for him.”
“Which makes you and Rory closer?”
“Me and Rory were already close. We didn’t start fucking people together when Tiernan met Dean.”
“That’s not what I…” He gives a shy grin. “Okay, it is what I was thinking. I think you’re secretly in love with him. Maybe you don’t even realize it yourself.”
“I’m not and never could be. I’m telling you it’s not like that. Rory is my person. He’ll be my person for the rest of my life. The bond is thicker than the romantic bullshit people cling to. I don’t want to talk about that shit anymore.” It’s like Ollie has this secret way of opening me up.
“Can I ask you one more question?”
I shrug. Why fucking not? I’ve already told him more than I should and more than I would anyone else.
“Your mom?”
My whole body stiffens, like those two words inject ice into my veins. “Dead.” It happened so damn long ago that sometimes I forget what life was like with her. Forget the way she made my dad smile, made me feel loved…made our world softer.
“Mine too,” Ollie admits, voice soft and full of hurt. It stings slightly that he doesn’t remember telling me, but he’d been half-asleep and on pain meds. “I loved her so much. We both did—me and my dad, I mean. I thought it would kill me when she died…I thought it would kill him.”
How do you do that? I want to ask. How does he so easily open up?
Ollie swipes at his eye, and I realize a tear leaked free. “God, you probably think I’m weak, don’t you? All that toxic masculinity. Real men don’t cry, right?”
“I don’t think you’re weak,” I admit. “I think in some ways, you’re stronger than me, stronger than most of the people I know, because you don’t hide that shit.”
“Whatever.”
“I’m serious.”
He watches me, and I don’t turn away from him, returning his stare just as intensely as Ollie is looking at me. What is it he sees? A drug dealer? A murderer? Both true, but there’s more to me than that. There’s this quiet part of me that wants him to see the more, that hopes he’d like it, but I know it would be better for him if he didn’t think of me as anything other than those parts of me he hates. Because I’ll always be those things. I’ll also be the guy who is lying to him right now about the men I plan to kill for him and the gun at the small of my back. The guy who didn’t tell him I knew his mom died because he talked to me about her last night.
“I need to get my homework done.”
I nod, pick up my cell, and pretend to be interested in it while Ollie gives his attention to his assignment. It’s not worth fighting with him about the screen.
Every now and again, I feel him watching me, his attention leaving what he’s doing and focusing on me. I don’t call him out on it, don’t even make eye contact. It feels like giving him something I’m not supposed to give, to do that.
I’m not sure how much time passes, but eventually I say, “I need to shower. Thank fuck you have one in your room. I don’t know how people deal with that communal shit.”
Once off the bed, I grab my duffel bag.
“It’s not that bad.”
“It sounds like torture.”
He chuckles, and I like the fact that it’s me who made him do it.
I jerk off in Ollie’s shower because my dick is really in need of some attention. When I get out, I try to wipe off the mirror with my hand, but it doesn’t work, fogging up right away, and I can’t see anything. My gun is locked away in the box in my duffel, so I wrap a towel around my waist and open the door. “It’s hot as fuck in here.”
“Hmm. Oh…” I peek out to see Ollie watching me, his gaze like a soft caress across my skin. I don’t usually think of myself as the kind of guy who likes most things soft, but the way he’s looking at me could change my mind.