The back door opened and Brooklyn walked over to me. “Hey, I was supposed to meet up with Cooper tonight.”
I grinned at that. “Cooper’s good looking and he seems nice.”
“He is, but he canceled on me because he had to go help Ryan and I thought you’d want to know.”
I put my foot out to stop the swing. I hated that my heart sped up at the mention of his name. I’d gone to find him at the garage but there’d been no answer and he wouldn’t respond to my calls or my texts. I should hate him for the way he’d acted with me but I could no more hate Ryan than I could jump off a roof and fly. “Why does Ryan need help?”
“He was beaten pretty badly from getting jumped back in. Juvante and his brothers are going to confront Chanos. Ryan called Zane because he’s going after them. I don’t like the sound of all this.”
“Do you know where Ryan is?”
“Zane said he was at a hotel but—”
“Take me there. Please.”
Muttering that this was a bad idea, Brooklyn and I headed to her car. She couldn’t drive fast enough for me, but thankfully she was fast enough to reach the hotel while Zane’s car was still in the parking lot. I beat my fist on the room door and when Zane opened it, I pushed past him.
I stopped after I walked in and blinked, my heart dropping to my feet. Ryan looked like hell. Seeing him that way made me feel physically ill for the hurt he must have felt. He was on the edge of the bed with his shirt off. He looked worn out. A five o’clock shadow covered his jawline. Dark bruises littered his body. His lip was swollen and split. I’d interrupted Zane in the act of taping up Ryan’s ribs. When he saw me, his eyes blazed with welcome and a fire of want before he doused it. He stared at me with a blank expression.
“You can’t do this Ryan, please.”
“Still not my girlfriend, Tana.” He groaned when Zane pulled on the tape.
“No, but I am your friend.” I knelt to help Zane with the wrapping. My hands shook as I touched the heat from Ryan’s body. My lower lip trembled and I fought to keep from giving in to the tears. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“It won’t.”
“You don’t know that. Your brothers and you could all die if you confront Chanos,” Brooklyn said quietly as she swung her gaze from Zane to Ryan, her expression saying she clearly thought they were all idiots.
“Please don’t go.” I touched my hand to Ryan’s face. “I love you and I want you to walk away from this.”
With Zane’s help, Ryan stood. His eyes were flat and hard. “How many ways do I have to show you? What are the right words that I need to say to you so that you’ll believe me? I don’t love you, Tana. And this,” He tapped his Southtown Brothers tattoo, “is who I am. It’s where my loyalty lies. So take Brooklyn and leave. You’re in the way.”
“Ryan, please. I’m about to leave for college. I won’t see you again. I don’t want to part like this. I deserve closure.”
“You want closure? Fine. Leave for college and don’t look back because if you’re looking back for me, you’re wasting your time. Trust me when I say there’s nothing here for you.”
“I don’t believe you. I think that you love me but for some reason you won’t say it.” I put my hand on the width of his chest. I didn’t care that Brooklyn and Zane were witnesses. “We’re good together.”
“You are just a fuck. Now go.”
Humiliation burned on my face. He wasn’t pretending. Wasn’t playing. Ryan really didn’t love me. I’d thought...I pulled myself together, gathering my pride and my heartache. “I’m sorry. I thought you were someone I knew. Goodbye, Ryan.”
I made it to Brooklyn’s car and fastened the seatbelt before the sobs tore through me. I doubled over, holding my stomach. How would I survive having loved and lost Ryan? I knew that I would go on, that eventually I’d think about him without feeling as if I was being crushed from the inside out but right now, at this moment all I could do was hurt.
I went with Brooklyn to her house because I didn’t want my mom to see me upset. Though she was doing well, she was still drained and I didn’t want to add to her burden by worrying about me.
At Brooklyn’s house, she took a couple of bottles of beer from the kitchen, then we went into her room and locked the door. She popped the cap. “Fuck boys. Who needs them?”
I took a long drink. “You’re right. Who needs them?” I cried harder, then shook my head. “I hurt so much.”
She got up from the desk chair and sat cross-legged on the bed beside me. “I know that it doesn’t feel okay right now, but it will. You might not be okay today or tomorrow, or even for a while to come. But you
will
get over him.”
“I don’t know.” I plucked at the blanket covering her bed. “Ryan’s my first love.”
“The hurt won’t last forever.” She drained her beer and stuck the bottle beneath her bed where it fell over and rolled and clinked against glass.
I leaned over the edge of her bed at the noise. There were dozens of beer bottles under there and a few vodka ones. I gave her a questioning look.
“Sometimes I can’t sleep.” She stretched out on the bed. “But I don’t want to talk about me. This is about you. You’ll go off to college and you’ll immerse yourself in classes and studying. After a while, Ryan will be a memory that doesn’t sting anymore.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve been there. Hang on.” She sat up, left the room and returned with another beer. When she sat back down, she said, “When I was fifteen, I met my Ryan. First guy I ever loved, first guy I ever had sex with.”
“What happened to him?”
“He became a memory. I think about him from time to time but it doesn’t make my heart ache the way that it used to.” She held her beer next to mine. “So bottoms up.”
I knocked the bottle against hers. “You’re right.” I heard myself say it but my heart wasn’t buying it.
“You can call me any time when you’re still in the not yet before the memory quits hurting, okay?”
I reached out and hugged her. “I wish you were going to college with me.”
“I know, but the timing isn’t right.” She took another sip and tilted her head, her earrings flashing. “And you know what a believer I am in timing.”
“I know.” I laughed even though I really didn’t feel like it. “Do me a favor after I’m gone?”
“Anything.”
“I don’t want to hear a thing about Ryan. Good news, bad news. Nothing. Don’t pass any messages to me. I’ll get my number changed and I’ll tell Mom not to give it to him. The only way that I can move on is to not hear about him, not talk to him. Because if I hear the sound of his voice, it’ll be my undoing.”
“You won’t get anything out of me about him. It’ll be like he never existed,” Brooklyn agreed.
That wasn’t true. I would always know that Ryan existed. I carried the memory of his touch, the image of his face and he had my heart. I would always be a part of him and he would always be a part of me. But hopefully Brooklyn was right. Maybe one day it wouldn’t hurt so much.
*
RYAN
“Brooklyn’s right. We could die today. So if you want to drop me off and go, I understand,” I said as Zane drove toward the pool hall where Chanos hung out and where we suspected everyone was headed.
Zane’s jaw clenched but he ignored what I’d said and eased the car to a stop at a red light. “You were pretty harsh with Tana. I know why you're pushing her away, but you were an asshole.”
“Yeah. I was. I did what had to be done. I need her to be safe and that’s only going to happen if she stays away from me.”
“It’d be hard to walk away from a girl like that.”
“I don’t know that I walked away as much as I crawled.” I swallowed. “I feel like someone ripped my nuts out through my heart.”
“That’s what loving a girl does to you, man.” Zane swung the car into the parking lot of the pool hall. I didn’t see Juvante’s car anywhere. Zane let the car move forward until we circled around back out of view of the road. “Try not to hurt anyone by passing out on them, will you?”
“I can handle this,” I said.
“With one good eye right now, you can only see half a person coming at you.”
“Then I’ll hit that half.” I sucked in a breath as I pushed the car door open and got out. I had to put a hand on the roof of his car to steady myself, hating how weak I felt.
We walked in through the back door and gave it a few minutes for our eyes to adjust to the dimmer light. The air conditioning blasted us and was a welcome relief after the heat. Chanos laughed in the corner of the room and the sound grated on me, growing louder as Zane and I advanced toward the pool tables.
The light flooded the room again as the door opened and Ryker, Cooper and Juvante joined us. “Got Roman and Clarke outside on the lookout,” Juvante said.
We moved forward together and the laughter died down. Chanos straightened from the table where he’d been about to take a shot. He gripped the pool stick and his gaze went instantly wary, then darkened when he saw Cooper. There was plenty of bad blood between him and my brother. He swung his dark gaze my way. “Who told you it was okay for dogs to come into my house?”
“Your girlfriend told me I could come anywhere I wanted,” Cooper taunted.
Chanos curled his lip and let loose a string of venomous words in his language.
The muscle around the pool table shifted, edging toward us.
I tensed, ready to fight even though every cell in my body was calling out for me to sink to my knees and fade into oblivion.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Chanos demanded, with another cold stare my way. “Have you been away so long you’ve forgotten that you don’t bring others in unless I tell you it’s okay?”
I stared at Chanos, knowing what I had to do. “One of us is leaving in a body bag.”
He tossed aside the pool stick and it landed against the balls, scattering them across the table. “Say goodbye to your brothers, then.”
The back door flung open and Clarke rushed in, his arm extended. The gun I’d buried waved nervously in the air. His eyes were wide and reddened and it was easy to tell he was hopped up on something.
“I didn’t know he had it. I tried to stop him.” Roman reached for Clarke but Clarke stepped to the side and waved the gun around.
Roman jumped to the side, away from the barrel. “Whoa! Shit. Put that down.”
“Clarke, let me have that.” I edged toward him.
Clarke kept his focus on Chanos. “My brothers shouldn’t have to pay for what I did. Especially Ryan.” Tears tracked down Clarke’s face. “He looked out for me when no one else would. He’s a good person. I’m the one who messed up. I took your drugs and I started this war.” He sniffed. “I should pay for this. Not him. Not them.”
“Then put your gun down and let’s do this man to man,” Chanos said wiggling his fingers toward the gun. He took a step closer to Clarke.
“Stay the fuck away from him.” I moved between them and shoved Chanos back. The movement hurt my shoulder and I bit back a groan. Turning to face Clarke, I held out my hand. “Come on, man. Give me the gun.”
“I’ll make you beg to die.” Chanos took another step forward in an effort to grab Clarke.
“Stay the fuck back,” Ryker barked.
“Why? Clarke won’t shoot,” Chanos sneered. “He’s a coward. A pussy that couldn’t—”
Clarke pulled the trigger and the sound was deafening as the bullet zipped past my ear. Everything exploded into chaos as the pool hall descended into hell. The muscle with Chanos fired back and I screamed at my brothers to take cover. The air filled with the odor of gunpowder as glasses on the counter shattered and the fragments rained down as bullets plowed into them.
Clarke pulled the trigger until there were no more bullets left, then he began reloading. That’s when I saw one of the guys with Chanos stand up from behind the pool table and take aim at Clarke.
“No! Clarke, get down!” I flung my body into the air, but the beating I’d taken had slowed my reflexes. The first bullet caught me in the side. The second one in the leg. The floor was so far away. I hung suspended in the air, futilely trying to grab Clarke to make sure he was safe, and then I fell down forever.
The bullets peppered the air, some of them plowing into the floor right beside me. I tried to move, tried to crawl forward to make sure my brothers were okay but I couldn’t make my body work right. I wheezed as I struggled to draw in enough oxygen. The sticky wetness of what I hoped was only my blood covered my side and leaked onto my back.
“I got you, man.” Juvante covered me, his face screwed up like he was about to cry.
“Let’s get him out of here.” Cooper started dragging me toward the door and I saw one of the muscle take aim at Cooper’s head.
Ryker took him down with a pool stick shot to the balls and the bullet meant for Cooper ended up in the ceiling.
“You idiot. What the hell have you done?” Zane demanded, after staring at Clarke.
“We’ll sort it out later. Let’s get the hell out of here,” Cooper said.
Clarke leveled a zombie like stare at each one of us. “I’m not leaving. Go.”
The guy Ryker hit with the pool stick tried to rise and Clarke calmly popped a shot off near the guy’s head. He muttered and hit the floor to crawl under the table.
“What the fuck has gotten into you?” Roman demanded as sirens started in the distance.
Clarke walked over to a stool and sat down. “I’m manning up. Now go.”
Cooper looked at me and I shook my head. He sat on the floor with his back against the wall and pulled me in a half sitting position. Ryker knelt and pressed his shirt against the bullet wound in my side. Roman walked over and put his hand on Clarke’s shoulder.
Juvante plopped down in the middle of the floor. “Mama Leena is gonna fucking kill us all for this shit.”
Clarke looked at me. “I got a paycheck coming from the warehouse. Will you make sure Mama Leena gets it?”
“Yeah,” I managed to say as I drifted in and out.
***
When I came to, I was in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV. The sky was dark outside the window. I turned my head to look around at the family filling the room. Mama Leena. Destiny. Roman and Juvante, Cooper and Ryker were there.
“Zane went to get some coffee,” Roman said when I raised an eyebrow. He looked awful. Like he’d aged years.