Page 87 of Slow Burn (Driven 5)
“She’s not with him?”
“Nah … kicked him out. He either was just fucking with you because he’s jealous or he really tried to get in her pants and she gave him the boot … and if that’s the case, I should have added a fist to his face too.”
Relief rushes through me. And then confusion followed by anger again. She’s all alone? What the fuck? Shit’s being thrown at me so fast right now, I’m having a hard time coming to terms with any of it.
And then it hits me like a goddamn bulldozer. She knew. She fucking knew that night. She was pushing me away, trying to protect me, choosing for me. Just like I told her not to.
Well, fuck that.
I shove up out of the booth again. My vision goes black, and the whole room pulls m
e into its tumultuous tornado of darkness and stars.
“Woah. Easy. Easy.”
I hear Colton’s voice. Feel his hands on me, but I can’t focus. The seat’s beneath my knees again, and my stomach lurches into my throat momentarily until I can swallow the bile and the gallon of alcohol back down.
“I need to see her,” I plead with him. Because even though I’m so shit-faced I can’t stand, my stubborn stupidity keeps hitting me in the face over and over. How could I not have seen right through her and what she said to me? How could I have been such an idiot?
“I know you do but not till the morning. You’re sleeping with me tonight,” he chuckles, trying to lighten the mood.
“When hell freezes over.” I mutter, but just maybe it has because, holy shit, Haddie really is sick.
“I think it already has, dude.”
I snap my head up as fast as I can without making the earth tumble and fall around me again. “What?”
He clinks his glass against mine and throws back the swallow of amber liquid. “You love her? What the fuck is up with that? I got you were dipping your wick, but now you want a permanent place to burn your candle?” He shakes his head and laughs before resting it back on the booth behind him.
I can’t help the laugh that falls from my lips, grateful for his random humor right now. “Candle?”
“Mm-hmm.” He’s buzzed enough now that he doesn’t continue the train of thought. Instead we fall back in silence, our eyes closed, heads fuzzy, and glasses empty. “Got quarter of a bottle left. We finish it off, get Sammy to drive us back to my place,” he says, referring to his bodyguard and sometime driver. “We’ll sleep it off, you’ll get a clearer head, and then you go see her tomorrow and fight like fuck to prove you want to be a part of her life. Sick or not sick.”
I choke back the emotion clogging my throat, stunned by my best friend’s ability to know this is what I need to hear when he’s never been good with emotions or relationships.
And from just hearing the word sick out loud in reference to Haddie.
“Yeah.” The word is barely a sound as it passes past my lips.
“She’s gonna beat this, Daniels.”
Images of Lexi flash through my head from the pictures I’ve seen in Haddie’s house—the only way I’ll never know her. And I can’t help but acknowledge the fear creeping in that that could be all I’ll have left one day of Haddie.
I’m immediately pissed at myself for even thinking it. Furious that for one moment I thought she’s not going to fight the fight so she can walk the walk afterward. But fuck if I’m not scared, even with liquid courage flowing through my veins like it’s my own blood.
“She has to be.”
Chapter 28
I left Rylee with just a note saying, “I need to think,” after she spent the night with me like old times. Too many bottles of wine, too many trips down memory lane, and so many laughs our ribs ached and cheeks hurt.
And it felt good that Ry was just Ry with me. Not looking out of the corner of her eye to stare at me with that pitying look I hate or to make sure that I wasn’t going to keel over and die.
Hence the reason I’ve kept my diagnosis from everyone.
I’m good with my decision—glad I’ve decided to keep it on the down low to just Rylee and my parents—but hell if my heart’s not hurting right now.
I was doing good. At least I thought I was. I was so busy thinking about surgery next week that I was pushing away all thoughts of Becks. And his parting words to me.
