Burn Down the Night (Everything I Left Unsaid #3)- Molly O'Keefe Page 0,64
yourselves.” Her eyes glanced over Joan’s body and then over to mine, covered in tattoos and bruises.
Me and Joan—we were a scene just breathing.
Fern slipped her big sunglasses down over her eyes and walked away toward the small brick wall and the gate that opened onto the brilliant white beach. She left a chill in her wake.
“Old habits are hard to break, huh?” I asked, closing my eyes again, letting the sun soak into my bones. I grew up in Florida, but I felt like I never got to appreciate the whole Florida experience. Not like the rich folks that came down every winter with nothing to do but sit and pick up shells.
I never even had a boat. It was practically a law—if you lived in Florida you needed to have a boat.
I had some money put aside. Not a lot. A few hundred thousand I kept in different safe deposit boxes and bank accounts. Some of that money could buy me a little fishing boat.
“What does that mean?” she asked. Something in her tone made me open my eyes and I saw her looking after Fern like a puppy who’d been left behind.
Right, I thought, softening toward her and not just because of the white bikini. Some habits were fucking impossible to break.
“Sit,” I told her, because I didn’t like seeing her that way. “Come get a sunburn.”
“Sunburns are for chumps,” she said. I could feel her in the air all along my left side. I could smell her—a mix of flowery shampoos and soaps and lotions.
Sweet. She smelled sweet.
I would know her in the pitch black. Without touching her or feeling her body, I would know her.
Shit.
I shifted in the chair as my dick started to stiffen.
I glanced over at her and she was rubbing sunscreen on her shoulders. I closed my eyes, because I didn’t need to make a scene with an erect cock.
“You left the condo early,” she said.
“Nice day, bright sun. Seemed a shame to waste it.”
“You really going to just sit here for four more days?”
“I’m thinking of buying a boat.”
That made her laugh and I reached over, my eyes still shut, and touched her leg. Ran my knuckles over the smooth skin of her thigh. She was like silk under my callouses and bruises.
Her laughter stopped.
“Your phone,” she said.
Ah…now we were getting to the point of things.
“What about it?”
“Don’t be fucking obtuse, Max. My sister is in trouble.”
I blinked open my eyes, staring right into her face. “Lagan didn’t call. No one called.”
“You promise?”
“Yeah, I promise.”
“Why can’t you let me have your phone?”
I cracked one eye. “Why can’t pigs fly?”
“It’s not like you care.”
“Doesn’t matter if I care or not. The phone is mine. Stop wasting your breath arguing.”
“You’re a dick.”
“No. I’m an asshole. Not a dick.”
“I’m beginning to get confused by the distinction.”
I grinned up into the sun and said nothing.
It took her a long time to relax. I could feel her radiating tension and anger and a kind of thwarted grief. She was reckless and strung too tight and not thinking clearly. It was the same kind of vibe Rabbit had, and Rabbit had been a sociopath who jumped at every shadow. He started fights with everyone who breathed his way.
And he had probably died a shitty death.
Come on, I silently urged Joan. Give yourself one day.
She kept fidgeting next to me. Just when I thought she might relax, she’d twitch around with her towel or her hair or her glasses.
It felt like life or death. I don’t know why and it barely made any sense. But if she couldn’t take a deep breath and let some shit go, it was over for her. She’d burn out trying to get her sister free. Trying to make things right. Blaming herself for everything that went wrong in her life, her sister’s life.
Fucking Murray’s life. She’d take it all on, all the guilt in the world.
If she couldn’t let it go for a few moments, she’d be buried by her guilt. Buried by her regret. She’d go up in flames trying to make everything right.
I knew it because it was as true for me as it was for her.
I wasn’t thinking about second chances today. About what might happen tomorrow. About if being the president of the Skulls was a game I wanted to play anymore.
I was thinking about none of it.
Except the boat.
Which made sitting here for a solid day a test we both had to pass.