“Thank you, Dash. I’m sure my worries for Allison are unfounded, but I can’t say they don’t exist anymore. They do.”
“She left, Allie. Just like you left publishing. Everything different isn’t bad.”
He’s right, of course. Logically I know this, but my gut isn’t about logic. It’s about something that cannot be seen or spoken. It’s just there, demanding attention. Needing to hear something to shut it up I say, “And you think that was better for her.” It’s not really a question considering his obvious feelings, and yet, I need an answer.
His cellphone rings and his lips press together. “Almost as if the universe doesn’t want me to go there.” He snakes his phone from his pocket. “My sister.”
“She probably heard there was an issue at the bar.”
“Or Tyler called her.”
“He didn’t. He told me you wouldn’t want him to call her.”
His lips press together, his eyes shuttering, as he answers his phone, turning away from me as he does. And I fear that is exactly where we are headed—me standing right in front of him and him turning away.
CHAPTER THREE
The idea that Allison was here, rather than someone else, settles into my gut and wants to hang out, but it’s also far more appealing an idea than an intruder.
As I watch Jack and a group of officers investigate my break-in, I decide Dash was right about leaving the necklace out of tonight’s equation. I mean technically, it feels a bit like I’m the one who stole it, and the more that idea takes root, the more awkward and wrong it feels. I have to do something to return the necklace to the sender and pretty darn quickly.
When all that can be done in the wee hours of the morning has been done, Jack gives us one last update, and then he’s gone. Dash loads my bags into his trunk and then helps me into the passenger side of the M4, kneeling beside me as he does. He reaches over me, his body warm, as he slides my belt into place. “I was already on my way to see you when you called.” His fingers brush my jaw. “And thank fuck I was. You have no idea how freaked out I was when your call dropped.”
“And you have no idea how relieved I was to hear your voice.” I touch his face.
A mix of heat and emotion pulses between us, seconds ticking by, but there’s nothing more to say. Not now. Not like this. Maybe not even tonight or should I say, this morning? There have been too many harsh words, too many words laden with booze, too many, so many.
Dash pushes to his feet and seals me inside the car. A minute later, he slides into the car beside me and I’m still reeling from his words. He was on his way to me when I called. I guess on some level I knew this. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have made it to me so quickly after the phone call, but hearing him say it, hits me in a whole different way. Despite everything that happened tonight, first, he’s concerned I was really in danger tonight, and I wonder what he knows that I don’t know, but even more so, I needed Dash and he was here for me. For now, that’s where I want to root myself, where I want to root us and with good reason. My mind goes to him in that ring, allowing that man to beat on him, even daring him to hurt him. I squeeze my eyes shut with the visual, the horrible visual.
Dash needs me, too, I think.
He says he should never have left me tonight. I should never have left him.
We are, without any doubt, two messed up people, both of us spiraling out of control, in our own way. The question becomes, do we land more gently together, or do we accelerate the inevitable crash and burn? I don’t know the answer, but he wasn’t better without me tonight and I wasn’t better without him either. I sink down lower into my seat, settling into the idea of what is right tonight, me here with Dash. The warm heat of the car and the lethargy of too much booze and not enough sleep are ever-present, but I fight the heaviness of my lashes, rotating to my side to face Dash.
He glances over at me and catches my hand, and it feels like everything that was wrong is right. That’s the lie I tell myself, but it’s a good lie. One I’d like to pretend isn’t a lie for the rest of the night. Just tonight. That’s all I want. And I think it’s what Dash wants as well. Tomorrow is another day, one we will face with a bright light that will scorch us with the burn of reality. But that’s then. And this is now.
CHAPTER FOUR
The calm beneath the storm is locked in a fragile silence.
Dash and I don’t speak on the short ride to his apartment and not for a lack of words. I haven’t even asked him about the call with his sister, let alone, the ten other questions that come to my mind about Tyler, Allison, and of course, his fighting habit. But Dash knows we have to talk. Pushing him, and making that happen now, rather than later, could ultimately push him over the edge. And I’m not sure just how dangerous that edge might be, not after what I saw tonight.
Once we arrive at the apartment, Dash doesn’t pull us to the front of the building, but enters the private garage. I can’t help but wonder if that has something to do with his bruised and abused face or maybe it’s just how bruised the two of us are together. Dash parks in a private space, kills the engine, and when I’m planning to exit my side of the vehicle to meet him, he’s already there, opening my door and helping me to my feet. His eye is swollen now, so very swollen, and while I have no doubt his body is all about pain and punishment, both of which he’d welcomed, it’s my heart that hurts, and it hurts for him. Tyler isn’t wrong when he says Dash is punishing himself. And what kind of pain must Dash feel, to want to do this to himself?
“This is where you belong,” he says softly. “With me.”
My aching heart races with this declaration made more impactful by the fact that I saw behind the veil tonight. I know his secret or at least part of his secret, and he still wants me with him. I also know that he doesn’t share his secrets with anyone, not intentionally, not even me. But he’s also not running away. In other words, Dash is far braver than I have been in my life. He faces his problems, even if he does so in a self-destructive way. But is it really more self-destructive than running and hiding?
And I do run.
I ran away from him earlier. In truth, I’ve run away from a lot in my life, too much, it seems. But that ends now and with that decision, and despite the fact that deep down, I know that Dash will eventually leave me bleeding and heartbroken, every reservation I’d had about staying with him until I leave in January, falls away.
“I should never have left, Dash. I really, really wish I could turn back time and do this night over again.”
“You’re not the one who messed this night up. I am. It’s all on me.”
Tyler’s reference to Dash’s fighting habit since his brother’s death hits home in this moment. While I don’t know the details of that tragedy, in my core, I believe that Dash owning too much blame in his life is why he ever stepped into a fight ring. “We both made mistakes tonight,” I say. “I made mistakes tonight. I own those mistakes. Leaving was one of them.”
His fingers flex on my hips, his eyes flickering with some emotion that I cannot name but I can feel the tug between us, the bond, growing in that moment. He needs to know that I want to be here. And I believe, too, that he needs to know that I’m not judging him. I hope that’s what he now knows, but I’m going to drive home the point, every chance I am gifted.