Burn Down the Night (Everything I Left Unsaid #3)- Molly O'Keefe Page 0,84

time I’d fallen asleep in the middle of the day. The last time I’d been tuned up probably. There’d been that dustup with the Bastards outside of Neptune Beach a few years back. Such a stupid thing. They were all stupid things, in the end. Ego and drugs and money and some misguided sense of brotherhood.

What was I fighting for? What was I ever fighting for?

What was I going to fight for now?

Joan needed me to leave and that didn’t feel like fighting.

It felt like giving something up.

I sighed, sinking into the mattress when I felt the buzz of my phone in my back pocket. I rolled sideways and fished it out. I knew better than to hope it was Dylan.

A text from Lagan.

Where’s Joan or whatever she calls herself now?

I felt my heartbeat spike. There was definitely a right way to play this and a wrong way and I didn’t have any idea which was which. Truth? Lie?

And really, did we even need Lagan with Joan pulling in Eric’s connections?

Joan? I wrote back and then winced. That was stupid.

Don’t play dumb.

That text sent ice through my veins.

I got her outside the club and then shit went down with my crew. Didn’t see her after that.

I have someone telling me she got you in a car. And the two of you drove away.

That someone is lying.

Someone is lying.

Fuck.

Who are you going to trust, Lagan?

His silence was deafening.

Like a mantra I told myself: We don’t need him. Joan’s gone for the big guns. Lagan is irrelevant.

And those were good words, a calming sentiment, but when I put my phone down on my chest, I felt my heart beat right into my hand. Like it was doing everything it could to escape a sinking ship.

Joan

Max was asleep when I got back to the room. I looked at him through the crack in the door, his hand over his phone on his chest¸ like it was something he was keeping safe.

It made me wonder if Dylan called. I hoped he had. It made me happy to think of Dylan and Max having a relationship after all that had happened to them. It made me happy to think of Max happy.

Somehow, in the last few days, the blood and violence that had tied us together had turned into something else entirely. Something that clung and chafed. Desire and affection. Trust, a little. Hope, a little.

It’s that we were so much alike.

Stop. Just stop.

This thing between us was ending. Now. It had to. For him. For me.

I couldn’t save both of them. I couldn’t have both of them in my life. It was my sister or it was Max. Either-or. Never both. Never all.

I took a long, hot shower putting off the inevitable. I was working out what I was going to say with my face under the hot water, so I barely felt my tears.

When the water finally turned cool, I reluctantly cranked it off and put on the clothes I’d brought with me into the room. I was going to dress up for the cocktail party.

I was going to dress up to say goodbye.

But I’d left the shirt I planned on wearing in the bedroom.

So, in my skirt and bra, I left the hot, muggy shower and walked into the cool bedroom.

Max woke up when I came in and he gave me a slow, sleepy smile that turned my insides into pudding.

“Sorry,” I said, in a harsher voice than I intended. “Did I wake you up?”

“No, I woke up on my own.” He stretched, bowing his body off the bed and growling like a bear waking up from a long hibernation.

I’d missed my chance, I thought with real grief. I’d missed my chance at that body. At seeing how high this chemistry could take us. At this moment, on the edge of goodbye, it seemed unlikely that I would ever be so attracted to a man again.

And it hurt. But it would do me no good to show it.

I dug through my garbage bag and found my favorite dressy shirt and the necklace I usually wore with it.

“You talk to Eric?” he asked, with a voice rough with sleep.

I didn’t look at him while I slipped the shirt over my body. Taking extra care that it fell just right. “Not yet. Fern texted him and we’re going to talk later.”

“She thinks he’s going to help?”

I nodded, my throat tight.

“Hey, that’s good news. That’s…real good news.” He didn’t sound like it was worth a