37

Davis

I’m not supposed to be asleep, but apparently I am, because I jolt awake when the passenger door of my truck slams shut next to me.

I jerk straight in the driver’s seat, then twist and pull my arm back, ready to?—

“Fuck. It’s you.”

My sister merely lifts a brow at me, completely unconcerned that I was actually going to hit her.

Or, more likely, fully ready to duck and defend herself since she’d know this is how I’d wake up when I fall asleep on guard duty.

Morning’s coming soon.

I glance across the street at Sloane’s house.

All quiet.

“Patrick’s not talking about his accomplice,” she says.

I scrub a hand over my face, then glance at my watch.

Four in the morning.

Roughly eight hours until I pretend-marry Sloane.

Eight hours to get my courage together to ask if I can see her again. Take her to the movies. Cook dinner for her at my place.

I shake my head. Focus . “They still interrogating him?”

“I don’t think that’s the question you need to be asking yourself.”

I suck in a frustrated breath, knowing where she’s going.

And it’s exactly where my head’s at.

How am I going to ask Sloane out on a date ?

“Can a guy have a few days to recover and think?” I ask her.

“Not what I meant. Your girl has visitors.”

I stare at her, then past her, and then?—

Fuck me.

Sloane’s screaming.

I’m out of my truck and across the street like my feet are made of lightning.

Silent alarm. There’s a silent alarm.

Sheriff will be notified.

I barely verify the alarm panel is flashing with the silent alarm as I burst inside.

After that, I follow the noise.

The light in the bedroom.

“ Grandma? What the actual fuck are you doing? ”

And that stops me almost as effectively as the cat stepping into my path.

“I’m doing what I should’ve done years ago, and I’m taking you home,” a familiar-ish voice replies. Granny Gaslighter. That’s who it is. Standing there in Sloane’s bedroom doorway. “Nigel. Pick her up. It’s time.”

“ Get the fuck out of my bedroom .”

Someone moans.

There’s a large figure bent double, groaning.

Sloane’s largest dildo is on the floor next to him.

Peggy meows at me.

I slow and bend to pick her up. Not sure I shut the front door. Don’t want to let the cat out.

“Put those things down and get off the bed,” Granny Gaslighter says. “Nigel, stand up and go get her .”

Nigel’s panting. “She’ll come—willingly, Bernice. We—don’t need—to kidnap—her.”

“That’s exactly what we need to do. Listen to her language. And look at those—things—she’s holding. She needs to come home and find her soul again.”

I suck air in, willing my heart to quit beating quite so fast, and I silently creep the rest of the way down the short hallway to the bedroom.

One word—one look—one signal of any kind—and I will set the cat down and take both of these motherfuckers out.

Gently with Grandma.

Less so with Nigel.

Though, clearly, Sloane’s already half taken him out herself.

That’s my girl.

I spot her standing on her bed wearing nothing but a Shipwreck Pirate Festival T-shirt and tiny pink panties, holding dildos in each hand. “ My language? Do you know how bad Nigel’s language is? And you never correct him for it? I am so sick of your hypocrisy. Also—I. Am. Not. Going. With. You.”

Her grandmother sniffs. “Nonsense. Get dressed and throw those obscene objects away. We’re leaving.”

“I’m. Getting. Married. Today.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Well, you’re fucking old, so that might happen,” Sloane snaps.

I suck in a smile as her eyes meet mine.

Her shoulders dip.

Her grip on the dildos wavers.

She blinks twice, eyes going soft and shiny, and then she’s glaring again.

“Nigel. Your private parts can recover later. Be more useful than that other one and pick her up,” the old lady orders.

“Over my dead body,” I growl softly.

Grandma screams.

Nigel screams.

Peggy yowls and hisses and shoots out of my arms, dashing to the bathroom.

I step forward, pushing Granny Gaslighter into Sloane’s bedroom. “What do you mean, the other one ?”

Nigel moves like he’s trying to get over the pain in his private parts.

I hold one hand up, and he freezes. “Take one step toward me and Sloane’s gonna give you a concussion with one of those dildos next. Don’t test her arm. She’s gotten fucking good playing softball the past few years.”

“Who do you think you are, issuing orders?” Granny Gaslighter says to me.

She’s taller than I expected. Almost as tall as Sloane.

Has the same blue eyes, but Granny’s are snappy where Sloane’s are kind.

“He’s my friend, and he’s welcome here, and you’re not,” Sloane says.

Red and blue lights flash against the wall.

Her breath audibly catches.

“You’re not marrying my granddaughter today, you sheep-lover,” Granny Gaslighter says.

“You’re right, he’s not,” Sloane says. “We’re not getting married. I told you we were and he was kind enough to go along with it because I was so fucking tired of your absolute bullshit attitudes, thinking you know me better than I know myself, that I can’t possibly know that I’m so much goddamn happier thousands of miles away from you.”

It should be the best thing I’ve heard all week.

It is.

But I still freeze, my body flashing hot and cold at the same time.

She doesn’t need me anymore.

It’s both the most beautiful and the most terrifying thought I’ve ever had in my life.

She doesn’t need me.

She’s strong.

She’s capable.

This week—it’s changed her. And with the right people in her life, ultimately, it’ll be for the better.

And she has those people.

She has Tillie Jean and Max. Annika and Grady. Cooper and Waverly. Their parents. Pop and Nana. The bartender at the Grog. Doc. Her patients.

Beck and Sarah.

Sloane’s voice wobbles as she continues, but I don’t think it’s sadness.

I think it’s fury.

All aimed at her grandmother.

“Thank you for putting your life on hold to raise me and Aiden. Thank you for what you sacrificed. But you know what? I didn’t ask for that either . So stop fucking blaming me , and stop fucking trying to run my life .”

“Enough! That’s no way to talk to your elders.”

“And that attitude is exactly why I don’t want to talk to you at all.”

Nigel breathes wrong.

I look at him.

He resumes breathing appropriately without looking like he might fully straighten to take a swing at me.

“Davis?” Sloane says.

“Yes?”

“Please remove them from my house.”

I start to answer, but before I can, a stout, furry body pushes past me. “ Maaaaaaaa ,” it yells.

Granny Gaslighter shrieks.

And Sue the goat leads a charge of six other goats into Sloane’s bedroom, all of them bleating and snorting and circling the old lady.

“Make it stop!” she yells.

“Sheriff’s office, everyone freeze,” Chester calls. “We’re on our way, Sloane. Somebody finally let the goats back out, and I can’t—we’re coming! We really are!”

“Back, Satan’s handmaidens,” Granny Gaslighter shouts.

“Sue, eat her purse,” Sloane orders.

Sue’s easy to pick out. He’s been Grady’s pet for as long as Sloane’s been in Shipwreck, and he’s missing one of his horns.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Granny Gaslighter cries while the goats back her against the wall.

“Because you’re a fucking evil old lady and you deserve it,” Sloane yells back.

Nigel straightens.

Sloane fires another dildo at him.

He makes a gargled noise and drops, grabbing his chest, and one of the goats backs into him and shits in his lap.

“We’re here,” Chester says. “We’re here. We— Ahhh! What happened to your beautiful hair? ”

He’s staring at me.

Beanie must’ve fallen off in the car.

Fabulous.

Except I don’t really care.

“Get the fucking goats out of my newly cleaned bedroom and arrest them, please, Chester,” Sloane says. “And once again, yes, I’d like to press charges, and can this please be for the very fucking last time ?”

“Sloane?” Tillie Jean calls. “Are you in here?”

“My grandmother’s trying to kidnap me with Nigel’s help and I just called off my wedding because fuck the whole fucking world,” Sloane calls back.

Her breath catches.

“You are not arresting me,” Granny Gaslighter says. “I’m old.”

I stride through the goats, grab her purse, and toss it to the other deputy now standing in the bedroom doorway. “The goats want whatever’s in here.”

Sure enough, they turn and charge him.

He dashes down the hall, and they follow.

Probably chasing candies.

I look at Chester and jerk a hand at Granny Gaslighter, who’s gripping her chest like she’s thinking of faking a heart attack.

As if any of us will fall for that.

Have to have a heart for it to have an attack.

“She’s Dixon’s accomplice,” I tell Chester. “I’d bet my biological weapon on it.”

Sloane chokes.

Not sure if that’s a laugh or a sob.

Maybe both.

I step around her grandmother and Nigel and head to her on the bed.

Take one dildo from her.

Then another that she must’ve grabbed after throwing the second one.

Pull her off the bed.

Into my arms.

“How did you get here so fast?” she says on a gasp.

“Right outside. All night.”

I know this sound.

This one’s definitely a sob.

“If I’d gotten here before Chester, there’d be bodies on the floor,” Tillie Jean says as she wraps her arms around both of us, which isn’t as odd and uncomfortable as it should be to have someone outside my circle hugging me too. “You’re not staying here alone for the next month. My family’s taking turns.”

I’ll stay with her .

It’s all I have to say.

I’ve got her. I’ll keep her safe .

Sloane squeezes me tighter like she wants me to say it too.

But the words are stuck in my chest.

She’s the one.

She’s my all-or-nothing.

She’s the only woman I’ll be with for the rest of my life, or she’s the reason I will never, ever, for all eternity, have companionship again.

“I almost killed a man,” I whisper. “That’s what happened in Denver. That’s why Bro Code broke up. Because of me. It’s my fault.”

Sloane squeezes harder.

So does Tillie Jean.

Tillie Jean .

Fuuuuuuck.

Just as quickly as she’s squeezing me harder, she lets me go. “Chester. Get these assholes out of here.”

“Excuse you, I am an old lady, not an a— not what you called me.”

“You’re an asshole,” Sloane says into my chest, still squeezing the hell out of me while my heart tries to claw its way through my ribs. “Nigel, you’re a bigger one. Come back here again, and I will self-defense you into your grave.”

“ Out ,” Tillie Jean repeats. “You’ve got them both in cuffs. Quit hoping for a peep show and get out .”

Granny Gaslighter keeps yelling. Nigel arrogantly insists that he can’t be charged for assisting an old lady, that he was trying to stop her and his balls were caught in the crossfire.

And Sloane keeps holding me tighter and tighter.

Which is good.

I think I might fall apart if she lets go.

“Cat’s safe and sound in the living room and I’m closing the door,” Tillie Jean calls. “Alarm’s set again too.”

The door clicks shut.

The alarm beeps.

And Sloane keeps her grip on me. “Tell me more,” she whispers.

So I do.

I tell her everything.

All of it.

Nothing held back.

“I was breaking. Being on the road. The fame. The attention. Limitless money to try to ease the anxiety. Too much time too. Started playing a game—I hacked into the AV system everywhere we went. Harmless at first. I’d play that dancing hippo that was like the first meme on the internet. Put the videos up on the scoreboards while the crew was setting up. Did it at every stadium, every arena, but people assumed it was one of our roadies taking over the sound and video systems, or people who heard it happened and wanted to be the next to do it. Nobody suspected me. So I started doing darker and darker and darker shit. Started trying to hack local banks. Local police stations. Prove I could. I’d shut the lights out entirely in arenas and put it in straight darkness while our roadies were setting up.”

She presses a kiss to my chest, and my breath shudders out of me.

Spent six years singing my lungs out on a stage. I can run a marathon. I can swim for miles.

And I can barely breathe right now.

But she kisses my chest again, and it gets easier to find my breath.

“There was a guy on the crew. Terrified of horror movies. I knew it. We landed in Denver. They were setting up. And I—I put on The Exorcist . He was on the lights. Up about twenty feet. Scared him so badly, he—he fell. Landed on his shoulder. Broke it. Wasn’t tethered right. If he’d landed four inches to the left, he would’ve?—”

I shudder, still picturing the thing that’s haunted me for fifteen years.

Four inches to the left and his head would’ve hit the corner of a platform.

He would’ve been dead.

The imaginary blood that wasn’t there haunted me every night for the first two years after the band broke up.

That’s the part I still can’t say out loud.

“But he didn’t,” she whispers, like she knows.

Of course she knows.

She worked in an emergency room. She knows it can always get worse. She’s seen worse.

“We paid all of his medical bills. Set his kids up for college. Him for retirement. He kept blaming himself for not tethering right, but—it was me. It was my fault. Tripp knew it. He was always the dad. He called it. Took one look at me, one look at my computer, and it was over. He smashed the computer. Only time I’ve ever seen him do anything remotely violent, and it wasn’t enough. Beck knew. Levi knew. Cash—he was half hot mess, but he knew too. And we all just—we did what we needed to do. Moved on how we needed to move on. And I don’t—I don’t tell people because how the fuck do you trust people when your own flesh and blood are the people who betray you? And the guys who have everything to gain from spilling your secrets are the only ones who protect you? The guys who’d go down with you for being accomplices when they didn’t fucking do it. How do you find people who’ll do that for you?”

My cheeks are wet. Eyes too.

I can’t catch my breath.

Can’t find it.

It’s gone.

Sloane sucks in a breath, and I follow.

There. There’s my oxygen.

She sucks in another breath, and I find more air.

“My tattoo. Three triangles and a coin. Mountains. Money. Problems. Change. That’s what it means. Behind me where I’m most vulnerable. Because it’s—it’s what can break me.”

“I won’t let it.”

“Don’t tell,” I force out.

“You’re safe,” she whispers back. “You’re safe here.”

“I haven’t—no one else?—”

“Shh. Breathe. No one else will ever know unless you want them to.” She strokes my back and breathes for me.

When I should be breathing for her.

My body quakes.

I need to be strong for her.

Fucking assholes invaded her safe space again.

And she’s here holding me.

Telling me I’m okay.

“The first step,” she whispers, “is accepting that you’re human. And you are. A very good human, but still human.”

“I should be doing this for you.”

“The next step is accepting that there are people who love you for exactly who you are. All of you. The good and the bad and the neutral. And there are, Davis. There are people who love you.”

Love me . Love me, Sloane .

Another breath shudders out of me.

“You’re worthy,” she murmurs. “You’re a good person. You take care of your friends. You take care of strangers. You took care of me.”

I squeeze her tighter.

I shouldn’t, but I can’t help myself. I need—I need to be closer.

I need to believe her.

“That’s why I’ve married random women.” I suck in another breath, realize I can’t breathe because of how tight I’m squeezing her, and relax just enough to reach for a little more oxygen. “Balance the scales. Do more good than harm. Right the world’s wrongs.”

She strokes my hair. “I don’t want to marry you, but I would very much like to date you. Under normal circumstances. Where I don’t have to press charges against people every time I turn around and no one’s breaking into my house and we’re not on a treasure hunt.”

Say yes. Say yes. Say yes.

Take the win.

Get the girl.

“Sloane. I’m…I’m untethered. Right now. No purpose. No goal. And I—this is when I hurt people. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t ever want to hurt you. Especially you.”

“Then let me help you find your way.”

I know people aren’t perfect.

But she is.

Right now, she’s absolutely fucking perfect.

“You deserve—” I start, but she cuts me off with a huff.

“Do not tell me what I deserve. I know what I deserve. I deserve what we all deserve. Safety. Friends. Happiness. Love. And you do too. I would—god, Davis. I would go to the ends of the earth for you, and I know better. I know better . But over and over and over—you’re the good guy.”

“I’m not.”

“ You fucking are . Let yourself be the good guy. Let yourself be happy. And if that can’t be with me—fine. Just tell me. Kinda been through worse. But I’m here. I want to take a chance. With you. Even if it crashes and burns. I want to know if any of this was real. I want to know I tried. I want to know if you’re the good man you’ve shown me this week. I want to know you . Your stories and your history and your motivations and your weaknesses. And I don’t want to want you, but I can’t help myself. Not if—not if this is the real you.”

I don’t know if she’s squeezing me harder than I’m squeezing her, but I know I can’t let go.

I need to.

Just to break the spell.

The spell where I think she’s right.

That we could—that we could do this.

That I could date her.

Take her to that movie. Have dinner together at the Grog. Come home with her.

Take her to my house.

I’ve never taken a woman to any of the houses I own.

Vanessa hasn’t even been in all of them. Mom either.

But I want Sloane there.

I want to show Sloane everything.

“Can we go slow?” I ask her hair.

Her sweet cinnamon hair. On the strongest, bravest, kindest woman I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing.

“As slow as we both need.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“My own grandmother just tried to kidnap me. You’d have to try pretty hard to hurt me.”

I kiss her hair.

Her forehead.

Her cheek.

And then I’m kissing her lips, those delicious, plump lips, tasting that sweet mouth, and I know.

I’m home.

I’m where I belong.

I’m where I’m loved. And where I will try ten times—a hundred times—a million times harder to love this woman than anyone else has ever tried to hurt her.

She’s my beginning and my end.

Fuck the gold.

Sloane—she’s the only treasure I will ever want again.