Sinners' Playground (The Harlequin Crew #1) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,139

ago, it still stung.

But back then, I guess I knew I’d never really had a shot with her until I had a growth spurt and managed to grow at least a few facial hairs. And those things were like a bare minimum. What I’d really wanted was to time jump forward to a place where I was a grown ass man who could offer Rogue the world, and I guess I’d finally gotten my wish. So was I really gonna let some doubts over Maverick hold me back? I mean, I probably should have been more worried about the fact that Fox had explicitly told the whole world Rogue was his girl. And as my boss, I definitely should have respected that wish. But as my friend, I was saying fuck no with a spiky dildo. Because I’d loved her just as much, missed her just as much. He didn’t get to swoop down like some possessive eagle and whisk her away before I’d barely said so much as a hello. I’d done my time missing her too, hating myself over what we’d done to her, going over every single thing I’d do if she ever came back. And fuck if I was going to miss my shot because he called dibs. Of course, the element of danger helped. Because I liked the rush of doing something bad, of how fucking good it was to have her this close and have her look at me like I really could fulfil her fantasies these days.

“Would you rather fuck a stripper or a gang leader?” I asked, biting down on the inside of my cheek to hold back my grin.

“Hmm…I’d rather fuck a butt alien called Al,” she said and I roared a laugh, my stomach knotting as I looked at her. I swear I was gonna crash if I didn’t tear my gaze off of her pretty face. But I couldn’t stop.

“Man, I really fucking missed you, Rogue,” I sighed and she smiled sadly at me before turning to look out her window. I didn’t expect her to say it back. Maybe she had, maybe she hadn’t. I was always going to be one of the reasons she’d left, and maybe nothing would ever fix that.

“Did you ever blame me for what Luther made you do?” she asked after a stretch of silence. My throat constricted and I scrubbed at my jaw as I thought over my answer.

“No,” I said at last. “I was angry at what happened. And it took me a while to…accept who I was. After a year in the Harlequins, god this will sound fucking crazy, but I realised there had never been any other life for me anyway. We could have run, but there’s nothing in the world I’m made for better than what I do now. Shit was bad for a long time, but I know I’m where I belong. I just wish things could have been different. That we could have lived out our dream here, got some apartment together, grown together.”

“Yeah, I used to wish for that a lot too,” she said coldly. “But then reality bit me in the ass and it’s made a habit out of doing that ever since.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she said and I slowed the car as I turned onto Little Street. I parked up at the side of the road beside a palm tree and killed the engine.

“It matters,” I growled, leaning over and gripping her chin to make her look at me. “But I can’t change it, sweetheart.”

“I know,” she said bitterly, pushing my hand off of her. This wasn’t going how I’d planned, though I dunno what the hell I had planned. I just wanted to spend time with her. I wanted to prove, fuck, I wanted to prove so much to her and yet now I realised how fucking selfish that was. Who cared if I’d grown up and knew what to do with a girl these days? She didn’t want me anyway because I’d hurt her too deeply, thrown her life off course and was in some way responsible for all the shitty stuff that had happened to her since. And I didn’t need her to spell it out to know there had been a lot of it. I could see it in her eyes, and I knew that she blamed us for throwing her out into the world all alone. Hell, I blamed us too.

I wished she’d had faith that we’d come