We drove around for an hour, Bossy having a whale of a time, nose sniffing at the crack in the window she couldn’t reach, my eyes burning from forcing them wide open, my head hurting from concentrating so hard on what I was doing, and not on anything else, so we wouldn’t crash.
After an hour, we came home.
The house was empty.
I wasn’t surprised.
But I was destroyed.
Completely.
Utterly.
In a way I knew I’d never be right again.
Not ever again.
Until the day I died.
I collapsed on the floor of my foyer.
And I learned something.
Puppies licked tears away.
And Boss Lady had her work cut out for her.
In the end, I found she was good at it.
It didn’t make me feel better.
Not at all.
Chapter Seventeen
Let Her Go
Deacon
Deacon Gates lay on his back in the bed in the hotel room, his laptop open beside him, the flash drive Cassie gave him stuck in the side, iTunes up, the sounds of the piano coming from the speakers.
A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera singing “Say Something.”
The words started.
They cut deep.
He no longer felt it. He’d listened to the song fifty times. There wasn’t an inch of him that wasn’t lacerated.
The song ended and he started again.
Halfway through, his phone rang.
He paused the song, took the call, and listened to the asshole, piece of shit, dregs of humanity on the other end of the line asking for his help.
When the fucker was done speaking, Deacon said, “I’ll be there tomorrow.”
He flipped the phone closed and slid his finger on the mouse pad, starting the song at the beginning.