Come to Me Softly (Closer to You #2)(82)
Author: A.L. Jackson

I gestured to one of my guys who’d taken up my right side, about ten feet away. A friend, I guessed, the only other person I knew to call when I found my ass without a place to sleep. Not that I’d been doing any of that. “Crashing on Kurt’s couch. Sound familiar?” It came with a sneer.

“Sure does.” Christopher crossed his arms over his chest, bristling with contention. “Does he have a little sister to keep your dick warm at night, too?”

Bitterness thickened my tongue. My chest squeezed. “Fuck you. I won’t ever step out on Aly.”

The thought of someone other than Aly touching me made me physically ill, and Christopher suggesting it just pissed me right the f**k off.

Green eyes narrowed on me. “You aren’t ever going to step out on my sister? And how is this any different? Leaving your pregnant girlfriend, the one you’re supposed to marry, alone? Are you really going to stand there and call that devotion?”

“What else am I supposed to do?”

“Maybe what Aly asked you to. Get some f**king help, man. Talk to someone.”

I backed away. No way was I going there with him.

Frustrated, he threw he hands out to his sides. “So what? That’s it? You’re just going to walk away?”

My heart skidded at the notion. Every last cell in me screamed no. Of course it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. There was no letting Aly go.

Christopher’s demeanor shifted when he saw the panic in mine, and he dropped his voice. “Damn it, Jared, look at you. You’re just as messed up as my sister.” He gulped over a hard swallow, asked on a heavy exhale, “Do you really think this is what your mom wants?”

With the mention of my mom, my insides curled, turning me inside out. Exposed and raw. I struggled for a breath.

“You think she’d really want Aly alone and scared and missing you? That she’d want her grandchild not to know its dad? Do you really think you owe her that? That holding all that guilt inside is somehow going to make it up to her?”

He dropped his gaze to the ground. When he lifted it, all the sympathy was gone. “You need to grow some balls, man. Own up to your shit. For a guy who will take down the first ass**le who gets in his face, you are nothing but a pu**y. Making excuses with every turn you take.” He flung his arms out. “Look around you. My family, Jared . . .” He shook his head. “All of us . . . we love you. Care about you. Stop acting like you don’t deserve that and f**king face the shit you don’t want to. Quit being a coward . . . because all this bullshit about not being good enough?” He began to back away. His eyes narrowed with disappointment. “It’s just that. Bullshit.”

Then he turned and walked away.

Frozen, I stood there watching him go.

Jumping into his truck, he turned the ignition and the engine roared. He gunned it, dirt spewing as he flipped his truck around in the middle of the road and left the way he’d come.

I jerked my attention around to my crew who stood there gaping.

“What the hell are you all looking at? Get back to work,” I yelled, hoofing it across the yard and toward the office trailer because there was no way I could stand out here for a second longer, couldn’t bear this f**ked-up world for a minute more.

I hated Christopher for everything he’d said.

Because I knew every word of it was true.

TWENTY-THREE

Jared

Noon held the sky captive, the sun sitting high in the center of the endless expanse of blue.

My pulse thundered just as loud as my bike, and I gripped the handlebars, my legs stretched out to prop up the rumbling mass of metal.

What the f**k was I doing?

Torturing myself this way?

But after Christopher left this morning, coming here felt like the only thing I could do.

I blinked to clear the haze. From across the narrow street, I forced myself to watch what I’d thrown away. The little house was quiet. But I knew she was there. I could almost feel her inside. Missing me. Swimming through the void that had taken over our lives.

How many times had I promised her I was done with all the hurting shit?

Movement fluttered at the window where rays of sunlight glinted and glared, blinding as they shined down against the glass. Still, I saw her, recognized that trusting face.

My heart clenched, just as tightly as my jaw.

God, I wanted her, to run to her and hold her and tell her everything was gonna be okay.

To take away the hurt I felt crying out from her now.

But I understood the separation.

The walls I’d erected.

The bridge I’d burned.

Aly pressed her palm to the window, her fingers splayed wide, calling for me, like she could reach through those barriers and pull me from the rubble.

Pain clawed up my spine and settled at the base of my neck. My head throbbed.

I didn’t know if there was any way to reconstruct it, to rebuild this f**king unbearable mess I’d brought down at our feet. Didn’t know if I could fix this.

If there was, there was only one way.

That unspent emotion grew at the base of my throat. Pulsating. Pressing out.

Watching the curtain drop closed, I sucked in a ragged breath.

For her, I would try.

How many times had I told her she made me better?

It was about damned time I proved it.

Cranking the throttle, I spun the bike around in the street and hit the open road.

Vibrations rocked through my body, and the roar of the engine overtook my senses, partnered with my spirit that thrashed and fought and warred, shouting out that I was a fool.

Beneath me the road blurred.

It took the rest of the world with it.

And I knew I’d either find it, or lose it all forever.

• • •

Bright city lights stretched on for what seemed forever. Each unbearable mile I put under me just ratcheted the foreboding higher and higher. Night closed in, this f**king ominous glow hanging too low from the bleeding sky. My muscles ached with fatigue from straddling this seat for the last six hours, though I felt completely strung out. Like I hadn’t slept for days and was coming down from the worst kind of high.

Wasn’t all too far from the truth.

Rapidly I blinked, gritting my teeth as I cut through the gridlocked traffic that overflowed with people fighting to make their way home.

Guess that’s what I was doing, too. Fighting my way back to Aly. Even though the direction I was heading felt like a dead end. A trap. Still, that address was all I could see. Every part of me screamed to turn my ass around, tuck my bastard tail, and go back.

But I had nothing to go back to.