don’t know, I’m grasping at straws. “Are you hauling shit for them? Playing mule?”
Her head snaps up at the word mule and genuine fear whips across her face.
“No,” she snaps. “We’re just trying to get away.”
I study her flashing blue eyes, sense that she’s telling me the truth through her hot anger. Which just makes this more baffling than ever.
“Who are you running from? Give me a name.”
She bows her head, the spark in her eyes fading as she presses a hand over her mouth.
Now I’ve done it.
The tiny, strangled sob she chokes out makes me feel like absolute shit.
Sure, I want my answers, but not by grinding her down to a pulp for them.
She’s had enough of that. It’s been obvious from the beginning.
I cross the room, rubbing my hands softly up her arms.
“Hey, I’m sorry. I went too far. I’m just trying to figure out what we’re up against, how I can make it fuck off and leave you alone. Those idiots aren’t going away. Today proved it.”
“I-I know,” she whispers.
She sniffs, trying to hide the fact that she’s crying.
That I made her cry.
Fuck.
Apparently, I’m no good at this hero shit in real life.
All the boy wonder superhero roles ever written can’t prepare you for the grim reality of trying to clean up a mess like this without making a girl’s heart collateral damage.
Or maybe I’ve just always been a bit of a moose in a furniture store when it comes to handling emotions.
That’s why I was an actor. Let a script dictate what I’m supposed to think, feel, or do next.
What I say. How I act. How the story ends.
Sounds a hell of a lot easier than trying to come up with a solution on my own and accidentally pushing her down a dark hole in the process.
I rub her shoulder and then pull her closer, giving her a hug, fitting her head neatly under my chin.
It feels good, having her in my arms. The warmth of her body. The clean, fresh, flowery scent of her hair.
And I don’t deserve a single damn bit of it.
“Sorry,” I whisper. “I promise you, I want to help. I can’t stand seeing you suffer. Grace, if I could find out—”
“No!” She stiffens. “No one can help us. Nobody ever could. We need to go, pull our things together and get out of—”
“You need to stay here,” I rumble firmly, holding her tighter. “Go on. Hate me if you want. Just don’t put yourself in danger again. Nelson’s sick; you barely got away after being roughed up, and...”
I pause, amazed I’m able to bring myself to say the next words.
“And part of me still likes the thought of you sprucing up this dreary castle. Give me something to look at besides an urn that doubles as a vase for yellow roses.”
She pushes against my chest like I’ve slapped her across the face, breaking the hold I’d had around her shoulders.
I don’t understand.
“Urn?” she spits out.
Head cocked, I nod.
There’s a different form of distress in her eyes, something I can’t pin down.
It’s not that odd, is it?
Plenty of people keep urns of loved ones around. Maybe the custom vase thing is a little out of most people’s budgets, but hell, it’s tasteful and it gives Mom’s ashes some kind of life until I can figure out what to do with them.
I shrug, plenty confused now. “I wasn’t sure what to do with my mom. It was sudden and so were the arrangements. Tobin did most of the stuff with the funeral director, if I recall...I was too fucked up at the time. We wound up having her ashes sealed up in the core of that vase. The flower chamber, they crafted separately, so the two would never mingle. Never cared to understand the process but...she loved yellow roses.”
In my mind’s eye, I can still see her beaming after she came home from this big promo shoot for this film where she played a florist in love. She got to lay down in the flowers, laughing, and she brought big bundles of yellow roses home. I swear, Tobin smelled like perfume for the next week after unloading them and struggling to find enough vases to hold them all.
It’s the best I could do to honor her.
All I could bring myself to do, not counting the night I lost my mind.
Half of Hollywood wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone after her “suicide.” Then I tried taking justice into my own hands, and that botched