to do yet.
Why had she shown up here tonight? What did she want to talk about before all hell had broken loose?
My God … Fletcher was messed up with the drug dealers who apparently started a meth house just over the county line. How the hell had he gotten involved in that? I knew his drinking was getting out of control, but this?
I look at the steering wheel of my car as if it will provide answers. I’m not sure if I want to punch it until my hands bleed, collapse my head in my hands and cry, or pray to my father, wherever he is, and ask what the plan is? What do I do? I’m not equipped to help my brother with something as big as getting clean from meth.
And then there is Presley.
Seeing that guy touch her, the gun on their leader’s belt and the place I’d taken her to? Having her there was more than I could bear. I’d needed to help my brother, to get him out of there, but I couldn’t breathe the moment she’d walked into that hell hole. All I wanted to do was abandon every thought of saving my family, of being the leader of the Nash boys, and carry her the fuck out. Over my shoulder like a caveman.
I’m livid she didn’t follow my instructions to stay in the car.
“I know, I’m so sorry. I thought … I wanted to help …”
“Well, you didn’t help!” My voice is louder and filled with more rage than I wanted to let bleed into it. “You only identified yourself to them. Do you realize how reckless these guys can be? This isn’t New York, Presley. There aren’t cops keeping real tabs on these guys. They roam the surrounding areas praying on the weak and for the most part, going unchecked. And now they know your face.”
She has the decency to drop her eyes in shame. “I couldn’t let anything happen to you.”
And in her recklessness, she’d let everything happen to me. When that creep had put his hands on her, I’d seen my life flash before my eyes. I was in too deep, with a woman who had no regard for her well-being or the feelings I’d confessed to her. Feelings she hadn’t returned.
“I think we should … take some time.” The words feel like sawdust in my mouth.
“What … what are you saying?” Presley’s voice notches up an emotional octave.
My right hand scrubs over my face. I haven’t been able to process anything that has happened in the last three hours, my brain is fried, my emotions are all over the place and I know I’m going to fuck this up but I don’t care.
“I’ve dedicated a lot of time to you in the past couple of months. And I’ve really enjoyed it … but I have a life here. I have people I need to take care of. You … you make that complicated.”
“So, you’re saying, that because of who I am, because of how I affect you, you want to end this? You’re telling me that you feel too deeply about me, and I’m reckless, and it’s dangerous because it makes you stray from your same-old routine? Well, excuse me for bringing a little spontaneity to your life. Excuse me for trying to better you as a person.”
Her words sting.
“Oh, come on, Presley. I saw you the other night when I told you I was in love with you. You looked like you were about to sprout wings and fly into the atmosphere. Anything to get away from me as fast as you possibly could. I told you how I felt about you and you avoided me for almost an entire week. Don’t tell me this was moving at the speed you wanted it to. You’re so freaked out about how we feel about each other that you can’t even say it back, let alone be around me. From the very start, you had no intention of putting down roots here. I think … I think this is going to be best for both of us. I think we both knew from the beginning that we were too different to ever work. You said it on our first date. That you didn’t know if you could see us together. If we’re being honest, this”—I point back and forth between us—“might have been dead on arrival. Maybe it’s good that it’s ending before either of us get seriously hurt.”
My words are