“Abundantly,” I retorted. “But unless you want your dentist to have to extract your balls from somewhere behind your twelve-year molars, I suggest you back the fuck up, Mr. Banks, and get out of my personal space.”
I drew an imaginary arc in front of me to exhibit where my personal space started and stopped. Not that he was even noticing.
“Okay, cut to the chase here, dude. Why did you agree to see me today? If you don’t have any information about where Grant is or how much longer they will keep him prisoner? Hell, it doesn’t even sound like you know who these people are. Maybe it’s time to call the police. Get some professionals on the case.” I knew I was goading him with the comment, but if it spurred him into actually doing something instead of just bullying me, then his ire would be worth it.
“Don’t be a fool,” Elijah scoffed.
“A fool? How is that being a fool? Sitting around doing nothing seems like the fool’s bet here, Elijah.”
“The police despise Bas. And just because you see nothing, or know of nothing, doesn’t mean nothing’s being done, Ms. Gibson.”
“What does LAPD’s opinion of Sebastian have to do with Grant?”
He tilted his head in a wordless you can’t be serious. But I was serious. As a shark attack.
Chapter Two
Grant
Elijah, the stubborn bastard, finally gave up trying to have a conversation with me after the third time even though I could clearly hear him. He’d handed me a headset for that exact reason before the chopper took off from the small municipal airport on Santa Catalina, but instead, I just stared at my white-knuckled grip on the armrest beside me.
The flight was a quick one from the best-known Channel Islands back to Long Beach. I just wasn’t ready to talk about what happened yet, and he would have questions. Roughly three thousand and twenty-nine of them, according to my best guess—and I couldn’t stomach the thought of answering even one. So I took the pussy’s way out and chose radio silence for the aerial hop back to LA.
Yet sadly, that wasn’t the end of the entries in my King Wuss journal. Yeah, that was me, pushing his phone away when he offered it to me to call Rio. That was also me, glowering at his equally confused look when I refused to have him call her on my behalf. The only clipped explanation I could offer was something along the lines of “Not yet, man.”
Fortunately, Elijah backed off with a firm nod. I don’t know what that nod was supposed to mean, but I’d deal with it all eventually. Just not yet. Exactly like I’d explained. I wasn’t a complex man. Not like him, at least. And sure as hell not like the leader of our little brigade—the guy who still had me on his persona non grata leaderboard—Sebastian.
But that was a different concern for a much different day.
Once we landed on the mainland, my best friend continued to eye me cautiously. Concurrently, I kept pulling in air through my flared nostrils, hoping he’d get the overall message. One more sideways glance when he thought he was being covert, and I’d backhand him. My hand-to-hand fighting skills had gotten a fast refresher course over the past—
Shit.
“Hey. How long was I gone?” I asked, my voice gravelly from shouting after such a long stretch of disuse.
“A little over a week,” Elijah answered as we started across the tarmac. “Nine days today.”
The information was both relieving and troubling. If he’d gone into months on the answer, I wouldn’t have been shocked. Still, I’d just been robbed of nine goddamned days of my life.
“I’m so tired,” I finally muttered. I still hadn’t explained how I’d gotten to a private resort’s beach near Avalon, Catalina’s main port. I was sure Elijah already had some theories and was spinning up more as we left the terminal.
“All right, man. You sit here, and I’ll get my car. I had to park at the end of the lot, it’s just about noon and it’s damn hot already. Gonna be a scorcher today.” He tried to steer me toward a concrete retaining wall that was low enough to sit on.
I stepped back, raising my hands. “I’m fine, Banks. I’m tired. My legs aren’t broken.”
He huffed in frustration because we both knew I was being the stubborn bastard now. It didn’t escape my notice that he slowed his pace considerably so my pussy ass could keep up. He hadn’t been joking about the heat, either. Even as we entered the big parking structure, the shade was compounded by the compressed heat of the abnormally sultry day. Thank God for the dependable onshore breeze in Long Beach, always blowing no matter the hour of day.
Still…me and my damn prideful ways.
The parked cars began to morph into different shapes and shades while we lumbered up the incline, heading in the direction of Elijah’s vehicle. I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again when a nearby pickup looked like a melting ice cream cone. Christ, I needed water. I was dehydrated and overheating. Fast.
The first time I reached wildly for my buddy’s arm, I got nothing but air. “Liii—” I desperately clawed his bicep to hold myself up while calling his name to make him stop walking, but the syllables came out in unintelligible grunts. “Shuuuh.”
On the second try, I made contact. It was enough to grab his attention. He spun around, now seeming to get the full point.
“Holy shit, brother,” he muttered. “You’re in a world of trouble.”
But somewhere between hearing him and comprehending him, my balance spun out of control. My knees buckled, and I crumbled to the rough concrete of the parking garage.
After that, things went by in woozy blurs. I was conscious of him swearing more and then helping me get upright again. But exactly where I’d ended up was a mystery. It was still shrouded in cool darkness…like the garage but so much more comfortable…
Just when I thought of dozing off into a sweet little catnap, the asshole nudged me. Hard. “Twombley, you stubborn motherfucker. Do not space out on me now.”
“Space,” I repeated in a daze. “Ohhh. Is that where we are? My favorite planet is Saturn. What’s yours?”
“Shut up and sit up. You need to drink more, or these hallucinations will get worse.” When I didn’t respond, he gently touched my arm. “Hey. You still with me, man?”
I shook his hand off—or at least in my mind I did. Based on the quiet tone he still used when he spoke again, I hadn’t been as successful with my menacing display of male power as I thought.
After cracking one eye open ever so slightly, I grimaced before asking, “Why are you naked, Banks? I thought I told you no the last time you tried this shit.” I let both eyes fall closed again but could feel his body vibrate on the seat beside me with his chuckle. “Seriously, man, why don’t you have a shirt on?”
“Your knees were bleeding. I didn’t want that shit on my interior.”
I weakly wrapped my fingers around the water bottle he put in my hand and had designs on drinking the entire thing, but the dickhead plucked it from my grasp after only about a third of the liquid made it down my desperate gullet.
“The fuck, man? My throat is so fucking dry and raw.” Even to my own ears, I sounded like a whiny brat. Worse, I was too weak and pathetic to do anything more than that.