Page 40 of Conor
“Aye, you did,” Reaper insists. “When ye were whining last night after ye got your mitts on the whiskey.”
Crow snickers. “That’s it? That’s the fecking problem? Ye’re all bent out of shape because Ivy hates you?”
“It’s not funny,” I counter.
He looks to Ronan. “Aye, it is. Do you recall how much my missus hated me when she came blasting into this place? That’s the nature of the beast. You better develop some thicker skin if ye can’t handle a little fire in the pan.”
I get what Crow’s trying to say, but our situations are different. It might have worked out for him, but he wasn’t exactly holding Mack hostage either.
“Besides—” Crow walks over to his desk and pours himself a drink. “That girl doesn’t hate you. I’ve seen the way she looks at you. Ye’re just being a mophead.”
That much is probably true. The way I left things tonight wasn’t my finest moment. Ivy went out of her way to make an effort, and I threw it back in her face because my pride was wounded.
“Get your arse home and make it right,” Crow says. “Then get your head on straight. I need ye to pull it together.”
“Aye, I will.”
The house is dark when I get home, and I don’t need to flip on the lights to know something isn’t right. It’s too early for Ivy to be in bed. Even if she was, she always leaves the lamp on for me. But when I walk down the hall, my gut twists with what I already know I’ll find.
All of her things are gone. And Archer’s too. The house is empty, and it takes a full minute for that to sink in.
She left me. Just up and left without so much as note. Can’t say that I blame her after the way things have been. Crow was right. I am a dumbarse, and now my girl is gone and the wee lad too, and I’m sitting here alone wondering where they might be. But then I wonder if it even matters.
If she’s out of the city, and she’s safe, maybe that’s for the best. Maybe that’s exactly what she needed. I know it’s what she wanted.
But it isn’t what I want. I can’t get my head around that. The idea that I won’t ever kiss her again. Or hold her again. I’ll be coming home to an empty bed every night where she should have been.
Fuck.
I let her down. I let them both down.
I told her in the beginning that I’d come after her. And I know now that I meant it. Because if nothing else, I need to know she’s safe. I need her to look me in the eyes and tell me that it’s over. Even then, I probably won’t let them go. Because I need them. I love them, and she can hate me for as long as she wants because I’ll do whatever it takes to get her back.
I comb through her empty drawers, looking for any evidence she might have left behind. But everything is gone. She just deleted herself from my life. Her clothes, her shoes, her scent. None of it’s here, and it isn’t right.
The only thing I find is the last thing I’m expecting. Her journal is still tucked beneath her pillow on her side of the bed, forgotten. And I can’t forget how badly things imploded the last time I looked at this, but it doesn’t matter now. My feelings don’t matter. I need to make sure she’s safe.
I crack the pages and flip through to the end, and that’s when I notice the gap. The pages I read before weren’t the last pages she wrote. Not by a long shot. She started again in a different section of the journal, and when I see the words written there, I collapse back onto the bed.
I miss him. I miss him so much it hurts. But I know that I can’t make him love me. I just wish I’d never fallen for him.
My heart drums out a war cry in my chest.She fell for me. She wants me.It’s right here in black and white, but now she’s gone.
From somewhere in the house, something creaks, and I shoot up from the bed, whipping out my Glock. I listen for the noise again as I slink down the hall, but it’s quiet. Archer’s room is open, and everything is just as Ivy left it. The bed is made, but all his toys are gone. It stabs at me all over again.
And then I hear a sniffle. A tiny inhale of air, and my pulse pounds. Someone is under the bed. Ivy and Archer are gone, but someone is under the bed. I kneel down, ready to kill whoever the fuck thought they could come into my house. Only, what I find there is a pair of terrified, tear-soaked eyes.
“Archer?”
He splutters, and a sob bursts from his chest when he realizes it’s me. I reach in and drag his tiny body toward me, wrapping him up in the safety of my arms.
“It’s okay, buddy,” I whisper. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
He clings to me, squeezing me so tight it scares me. Because I know something awful has happened. Ivy would never leave him. Never. And as much as I want to give him time to calm, I need to know what went down here.
I rub his back and tip his chin up to face me. “Tell me what happened. Where’s mama?”
“She said Mr. Potato Head,” Archer sniffs. “That means danger. I had to go hide.”
