Page 46 of Ache
“Ahhh, okay.” He seemingly gears up for this explanation. “Everly was sixteen when I met her. I was twenty-four. It was my first undercover assignment.”
“You’re a cop?”
“Mmm.” He winces, “Not exactly. I work for a private contractor called Endeavor. We sort of work on the fringe of the law. We’re the ones who break the rules and don’t exactly get in trouble. It’s very involved, and yet what we do is extremely important.”
“So, you were there to take Everly’s stepfather down?”
“Not exactly. Gunner was moving up the ranks pretty damn fast, and we were enlisted to collect intel. Find the bigger fish, so to speak. You don’t grow that fast or that quickly without knowing some pretty powerful people or making some pretty significant contacts. We needed to find out who was funding him. Where he was getting his influx of drugs. And I did. I also fell in love with Ever. It was a massive no-no. Getting emotionally and physically involved with a minor while working undercover. I was there to do a job, not get off. But I found myself doing both. The girl in the window intrigued me. I tied to ignore her, but every night I saw her staring out into that courtyard, and I just had to find out who she was. Why she was there. And so much more ended up happening.”
I can actually see the regret sketched on his face.
“So, how did you hurt her?”
“I made promises.”
“What kind of promises?”
“I promised I would take care of her. That I would always be there for her. And I kept those promises, just not in the way she expected.”
“So, you were fucking her, whispering sweet nothings in her ear, and then you pulled the rug out from under her? Am I following correctly?”
“That law school degree didn’t go to waste.” He clicks his tongue and points at me. “I wasn't just fucking her. I genuinely loved her. Istillgenuinely love her. My cover was blown somehow. Gunner found out about me, so I had to act fast. The night everything went down, the night his compound was raided, I promised Everly I would take care of her. I wasn't even supposed to be there, but I couldn't not warn her. She hadn’t seen the outside world in three years. The only people she had contact with were me and Gunner, and her mother when the fancy striked. Ididtake care of Ever. I made sure she got a fresh start. But I couldn't be part of that new life. Not the way she wanted me to. She wanted us to be together. To be a family, but my work, my life, it was just too complicated. I didn’t want that for her. I wanted her to be happy. I wanted her to be free. I wanted so much more for her than just . . .me.”
“So you walked away?”
“In a sense, yes. I would pop in to check on her now and again. I always kept tabs, but she hated me. Resented me. I broke her fucking heart, and I knew it, but I couldn’t stay away. Deep down those feelings were always still stirring. And then she met you.” His wavy, blond hair is shielding his eye and cheek of his profile, but I don't have to see his expression to know. Seeing her with me drove him batshit crazy. The same kind of crazy it drove me when I found out they were together last night. Knife. Stab. Wound. Chest.
“What a fucking pair we are.” I down another shot, my throat nearly numb from the burn of the whiskey.
“What a fucking pair,” Tage agrees as he follows my lead.
“So, what the fuck are you two sad sacks gonna do about it?” the elderly bartender croaks from his stool in the corner. Who knew he could hear so far?
Tage and I exchange an unsure look. We have rammed head first into an impasse.
“My brother and I felt for the same girl once,” the old man muses.
“Oh, yeah, and what did you do about it?” Tage asks gruffly.
The old man shrugs. “What our mother taught us to do. Share.”
Tage and I are silent as we absorb this response.Share?
We don’t get to analyze the response for long as a middle-aged man storms into the bar.
“Pop. Jesus, Pop, we have been looking all over for you.”
Tage and I just stare confused as the man strides across the cracked wood floor to where his elderly father is sitting.
“I’m right where I should be,” the old man bristles.
“The bar is closed. We sold it. You can’t keep coming back here.”
Tage and I freeze.Closed? Sold?Oh, shit.
“I’m sorry.” The man with a graying goatee and button-up shirt turns to us. “He has dementia. He’s supposed to be in a nursing home, but he keeps sneaking out and coming back here. We sold the bar a few days ago.” He looks at his father with pity. “It’s been his home for over thirty years.”
“It’s still my home. It always will be, Justin.”
