Brody (20 page)

Shifting, I brought my legs up on the seat and underneath me. I didn’t like what I was hearing, but I made myself listen. I had to.

He breathed. “My heart condition made me susceptible to all kinds of things as an adult, something I didn’t know until well, I did. I found out the day when things got tight,” he said, putting his hand on his chest. “They got tight right here. I’d been at work at the time and I… I collapsed. I collapsed right there in the break room.”

I slid my hand over my mouth.

Oh my God.

He nodded like he knew my thoughts. “I’d been by myself and like an idiot, I tried to get back up and keep working. Thank God for my pop. He saw how I looked when I got out of the break room, must have caught on to how fucked up I looked, because he made me go home. I tried to, but barely made it to my truck. I ended up driving myself to the ER instead.”

Chewing my lip, I decided to push him for the rest. “What did they tell you?”

I lost his eyes to road, his arm over the wheel. “A bunch of shit I didn’t want to know,” he said. “My heart doesn’t work like it should. It’s an issue with the valves and the cocktail,” he said, tossing the bottle over with the rest. “Keeps them doing what they’re supposed to be doing and regulates my blood pressure among other things. The doctor said I wouldn’t need surgery. Just a lifestyle change, which I guess meant leaving the only job I’ve ever known how to do. My body couldn’t handle the stress anymore.”

The way he said that last bit hit me hard and something he’d said to me before slammed into me harder.

“Would it be weird if I said anything I want?”
he’d mentioned to me at the carnival, and now, it all made sense. It all was achingly clear. Brody was being bound by something he couldn’t control and that didn’t sit well with him. It wouldn’t with anyone.

We sat in silence on the shoulder of that highway, other cars zooming by. But I just sat there, thinking, and the longer I did, the longer I found it hard to just sit. Brody couldn’t do anything harsh with his body and though I didn’t know the extent, I knew the situation in which we met couldn’t have helped. He fought for me that day and that’s when I realized something.

He could have died for me that day.

Brody

She was quiet, so quiet.

I slid a hand over her shoulder, squeezing. “Alex?” I questioned, trying to get into her head space.

This was a lot to take in, the mental wraparound of it I was still working my way to process through to this day. But she didn’t have to worry about me. Physically, I had this thing down. I had been keeping up on my meds and hadn’t run into any problems yet. Still, I could imagine she had some concerns. She looked up at me and I didn’t see that though, her worry. Instead, narrowed brown eyes stared back at me and full lips went tight into a hard frown.

She put her hand to her brow, pushing her fingers into her short hair. “So you had to leave your job because your body couldn’t handle it, right? It was too much on your heart?”

Hearing the words so bluntly made it beat harder. She put it all out there, vocalizing something I, myself, found to be a hard feat. I nodded. “Yeah, but you don’t need to worry. This is something I’ve had to deal with for quite a few months now and I’m to the point where I’ve got it managed. I keep up on my medications and—”

“But you still went in,” she bit out, nostrils flaring. “You still broke down the door of that bathroom at that diner and… And…”

Her hands went up to her hair, elbows on her raised knees up on the seat. “You could have died,” she sniffed, turning to me, and the water glassing her eyes was evident. “All it would have taken was the wrong hit. Him sending a blow into your chest or you—your heart could have given out in that fight and
still
you saved me. You saved me…”

Her small body went breathy, her chest rising and falling, and I pushed a hand to her cheek, forcing those glassy eyes to look up at me. I leaned in cradling her face between my hands.

“I was fine that day, Alexa. Nothing happened.”

“But it could have!” she shot back. “It could have been the opposite of fine. It could have left you dead, but you did it anyway.”

Her body shook, tremors under my hands and I brushed her cheeks with my thumbs, shaking my head. “I wasn’t thinking about me,” I told her, because I wasn’t. How could I? It was her. She was the only thing on my mind.

“But you should have,” she said blinking her tears way. “You should have thought about that. If something happened… If I never got to know you…”

She closed her eyes, leaning her forehead against mine and forcing my cap off her head. It fell to the truck floor, but she paid it no mind, pushing her tiny fingers into my hair.

“If I never got to be with you…”

I pulled her into my lap after she said that, holding her close to me; my heart. That space between my neck and shoulder dampened with her tears and I placed a hand on her hair. “Don’t cry. Don’t cry, it kills me.”

“I can’t help it,” she said, sniffing as she lifted her head. “You know it could have turned out differently.”

I did know that, but I also knew another thing. I ended up getting this job because of my heart condition and I ended up finding her because of this job.

That could only be fate.

But from the way she reacted, these series of events didn’t affect her the same way. She was scared. She was scared for me.

“Alex—”

“I want you to let me go at this alone,” she said, surprising me when she rose up and she reached out, touching my face so gently like she could break me. “I need you to drop me off. I need to go the rest of the way by myself. What if my sister’s ex turns up? I can’t, Brody. He could be a loose cannon and I can’t put you in any kind of situation where you’d get hurt.”

I took her chin. “We already had this discussion, Alex. You already know I’m going. I’m with you on this and nothing’s changed on that.”

“But that was before,” she breathed, sniffing. “I can’t let anything happen to you. I won’t let him have power over anyone else like…”

The words left when her eyes closed.

They left when I kissed her lips.

Bracing her cheek, I put everything into it. I wasn’t going anywhere. I wasn’t leaving her. I already had to make sacrifices because of my condition and I refused to let her be one of them.

Her lips fell from mine but not really. Bruised, they hovered over my mouth, her gaze that way, too.

“He’s hurt so many,” she whispered touching my lips. “He’s already broken my family once. I won’t let him break us, too.”

I brought my arms around her waist. “We don’t know he’s back and if he is, he won’t have the power. You said yourself your sister will make the right choice this time. He has nothing to hold power over.”

Her gaze escaped then, fleeting, and I made her look at me when I slid my fingers along a strand of her hair. “Don’t worry, Alexa. We’re in this together.”

Her hand moved up to cover mine. Her eyes closed and when she opened them, she closed the space, brushing our noses. “You don’t fight. If we see him, we leave. You don’t fight anymore for me. Promise me.”

It was a promise I didn’t feel at all good about giving. The unknown met us in California, but I could promise her one thing. If he made an appearance, we’d come up with a new plan, a safe plan for all parties.

“We’ll figure it out if we see him,” I told her. “But I promise no fighting. I won’t fight.”

“And if something changes,” she said, slipping both hands over my heart, “here, you tell me. If your condition at all takes a turn, you’ll tell me.”

She didn’t know it, but she was the only one that knew. I had told her more than I told anyone. I told her more than even my family.

I smiled, dampening my lips before leaving a kiss on hers. I didn’t tell her she was the first to know. I wanted to show her instead.

Her arms moved around my neck, her mouth opening with her kiss. “Can I do anything?” she asked pulling back slightly. “Anything to help? Maybe if you tell me what you take and what day and time, I can organize them. And do you watch your eating? I can help with that. With dancing, I had to do that all the time.”

Smiling, I brushed her nose. “I could stand to eat better.”

Her lips moved up in the corner in response. “Okay, we’ll do that. Aiden also has a special diet. He’s diabetic. We’ll all do it together.”

Her words reached me in a place I didn’t expect. I’d been battling this alone since I found out. I had to, I felt like, for the sake of my family. They’d already been through a lot, so much in the last year with my pop’s own health scare and they didn’t need another burden to deal with. With that, I decided to take on the load myself. It had been so hard to deal with alone.

So damn hard.

I brought her closer to me, encasing her frame completely in my arms. “Where have you been?”

She hugged my neck, burying her face there. “Trying to find you.”

I captured her lips under mine, her breath, and parting her mouth, I let her know something. She wouldn’t
not
have a way of finding me again. I’d be here whenever she needed me and I had a feeling I had the same thing from her. And she showed me that, easing those thighs apart over my lap.

She smiled, smelling like water lilies while she slid fingers down my biceps, moving her mouth to kiss my neck. My cock pierced my jeans, shooting up to seek that heat above it, but her hand made a fine replacement. She rubbed over me, undoing her shorts, and I laughed, easing her back a bit.

I touched her neck. “I don’t want to get you arrested.” We were still on the shoulder of traffic after all.

She simply replaced my hand with hers, sliding her zipper down and pushing my hand inside over her mound. Her lips hovered over my mouth. “You’re worth getting arrested over.”

I’d never let that happen, though. And I think it was the same for her. We had to get on the road, but these moments we took if only for a few seconds before we did.

A phone chirped in the air and we were denied that.

Alex sat up with it, pulling my phone out of her back pocket. I’d been letting her hold onto it just in case. She frowned while looking at the front and when she crawled back over to her seat, I leaned in, watching to see what was up.

“Aiden?” she automatically said. No, hello. Not one. Her hand gripped the phone. “Aiden, what’s going on? Are you there? Why did you call? Talk to me.”

Pulling the phone away, she stared at it. “He’s not saying anything, but it’s one of his numbers. He used my sister’s landline.”

I took the phone, pressing it to my ear. I didn’t hear him at all, but I did hear something, rustling. I put the phone on speaker, but held it out.

That’s when we heard a scream.

Alex ripped the phone away, horror on her face. “Aiden? Aiden, baby what’s going on?”

But it wasn’t Aiden. The scream was female and it’s constant shrilling tone sent the hairs on my arm standing on end, as well as a sharp turn in my stomach. Alex screamed into the phone, but I could barely hear it over the one coming from my cell. She kept on, crying for Aiden to respond, but he wouldn’t. Eventually the screaming stopped, a break. Alex opened her mouth again to speak, but I stopped her raising my hand.

“Maybe he can’t talk,” I told her. “Maybe he can hear us but he can’t speak out loud.” It was the only reason I could formulate that he would call and not respond. He wanted us to hear something. He wanted his aunt to hear something and that something was making a woman scream.

Alex pulled the phone toward her mouth, her hand shaking. “Aiden, baby, if you can hear me,” she said looking up at me. “I’m coming. We’re coming.”

Chapter Twenty

Alexa

Brody got us to California in half the amount of time it probably should have taken and it was a miracle we weren’t pulled over. Brody went well over the speed limit and nearly into triple digits; the clock on us, the clock on me. I recognized the voice too well through the phone. It was one that used to giggle alongside me, playing tag when we were children.

Brody made me call the cops after I heard Elena’s voice. He had to because I could barely keep the phone in my hands I was shaking so hard. So he dialed for me, taking the call before I was able to take it myself and respond with vacant answers, the shock unable to recede. They called me back right before we hit city limits, telling me what I didn’t want to hear.

“No one was there,” they’d said, making me think I was crazy. “Perhaps, you were mistaken.”

But Aiden, he’d called from the house phone. No, I wasn’t mistaken and made the cops check twice just to be sure. By the grace of God, they had, staggering their arrival to Elena’s home an hour later, but again they told me the same thing. The apartment was empty. They’d checked through the windows. The apartment wasn’t in disarray and no one answered the door. They circled the complex, but again ended up with nothing. They told me Elena might have left and I should keep calling to check, so I did. But that didn’t ebb the feeling, the feeling Elena and Aiden didn’t leave. It was a feeling they were still there.

Brody’s hand squeezed mine and I looked up at him.

It will be okay
, his blue eyes read to me, and they’d done that since the call, provided that reassurance so much stronger than words.

I’d take them even if it wasn’t true.

Elena didn’t live on the coast, her tiny spot rooted in the outskirts between occasionally planted palms trees within the concrete jungle of affordable housing. She had an apartment on third floor of a small complex, blue and white with brown shutters. From the outside, everything looked so normal, undisturbed like the cops said.

“They could still be in there,” I told Brody now, and he nodded, unbuckling his seatbelt.

He put his hand on the door. “I’m going to go check. Just make sure everything is okay, and then you can—”

“No!” I grabbed him, bracing his arm. “You can’t. What if he’s in there? What if…”