He blinked at me and frowned. “Are you worried it’ll happen again?”
I swallowed thickly, putting the fry box back into the fast food bag and wiping my fingers on my pants. “Aren’t you?”
This snapped a wave of sadness through his eyes, the depth of which scared me. “I’m more worried about you.” He chewed his lower lip for a second and then shook his head. “I mean... while we were still on the ship...I thought maybe you’d take off with Blake instead of sticking with us...”
“What?”
“You would have stayed with him if we hadn’t come with you,” he said, and that sadness and depth he had in his gaze affected me in a way that hurt my heart. “I feel like without us, you and him would have been dead. I keep almost losing you.”
I wondered how long he’d been sitting on that one.
And part of it felt like a complaint, that I would have chosen Blake over him.
I breathed out slowly between my lips. When I was in the hospital, it was the topic we all ignored because I thought I was dying. But now that I wasn’t, it was still left on the table.
I couldn’t stop myself. Not when he brought it up. “Did you not mean it?” I asked. “When you told me it didn’t matter about the others? That you...”
He reached out to me then, which made me pause. His hands stretched out, took me by the shoulders, drawing me in.
I leaned into him, and from the first moment when he put his arms around me and held me, I realized it had been long...so long... since I’d felt him in such a way. It felt like eons, even if it had only been a couple of weeks while I was in the hospital. He’d touched me on occasion, hugs and other stuff, but not like this. Not like he’d missed me too. He held tight enough that we could have melded together. In the car, it was a bit awkward, but it didn’t matter.
I hadn’t realized how much I needed to feel that.
And maybe he needed it too. He needed this because he just let his shop go. It was sinking in what we were leaving behind.
Brandon’s lips were close to my ears, and I felt their movement as he whispered to me. “I’m sorry. I want to talk about it, but let’s wait a bit.”
“I don’t want to wait,” I said. “That’s all I’ve been doing.”
He pulled back and looked me in the face, the depth of his eyes changing into something I didn’t understand. Unlike the usual sadness, it was replaced by something like concern and determination. “I just need you to know I’m not...I mean... I do love you. A lot. And I just need you to know, no matter what, I want to follow you wherever you go, as long as it’s safe for us.” He breathed out slowly and then pressed his lips together for a second. “We told the Academy we were just dating to keep it simple. I mean, hell, it’s just dating, right?”
I blinked at him, trying to figure out what he’s trying to explain. “So, it’s like dating without the commitment to just one,” I said. “Right?”
He nodded vigorously. “Exactly.”
“Do you want to just date?”
He stilled, then gave a slight shake to his head. “No.”
I paused. “Me either, but that’s me saying that with the others…” I groaned. “You know what sucks? I want to talk about it, but I keep dodging and tiptoeing around it because I don’t want to hurt feelings.”
He blinked at me. “I don’t have anyone to talk with about this either. I mean the others want to brew on the idea, which I get, but…”
I scratched absently at my elbow. “Can you talk to me?”
He shrugged and looked away from me out the windshield. “Rather you than anyone else.”
“Can you handle if I talk to you openly about the others?”
“I think so.” His eyes drifted to the Sargent Jasper. “Maybe not sexual things? Not yet at least.”
“Let’s keep it simple,” I said. “When I’m with you, and not talking about this, I’m with you. Okay? It’s us. And I’ll avoid doing things with them in front of anyone else.”
He nodded. “As long as we get time alone together.”
“Whenever possible.”
It seemed an easy agreement. Maybe this wouldn’t last forever between all of us. Maybe this was circumstantial and once we were out from under fire, it’d be different.
For now, this is what we were. Together, in a weird cluster with me at the center in a way. “Let’s just not bring anyone else into the mix right now,” I said.
“I don’t think I’d survive dating someone else right now,” he said. There was an edge of a smirk on his lips, amused. “I mean, I know you’re a married woman now and everything...”
I snorted. I’d signed a marriage certificate for Raven to keep him in the country. It was weird to think of myself as married at all when it was just a piece of paper. “I don’t even know what to do with that.”
“Yeah, me too.” He reached out again, putting a hand on my forearm. “I just wanted to tell you...I still love you, and I know it’s weird. But we’ll figure it out, okay? Let’s get Alice away from you-know-what, the others… We’ll get out of Charleston and away from her, and we’ll figure it out.”
I agreed with this. It would be weird for a while. After all the catastrophes that had happened over the last few weeks, we didn’t ever give ourselves time to exist in a space together and just figure things out.
Maybe running off where Alice and others couldn’t reach us for a while would, and give us a chance to sort it…maybe we needed it.
He kissed me once gently on my brow. “I got off track on what I was meaning to talk about.”
“I’m sorry about your garage.”
He shook his head and sighed loud. “I’m not.”
“Why?”
His brow and lip twitched at the same time. “You were worth it.”
It was a moment where time froze and what he said repeated in my brain a million times.
It was the determination in his gaze, steady and unwavering, the sadness gone. That’s what had me feeling he meant it. For whatever reason, he knew we had to get out of town, let go of things, and he went and sold his shop.
To get us out.
To keep us safe.
His sacrifice.
I hated this. I loved him, but I hated it. I hated that this was what it was coming to. Letting go.
How could I hesitate now? I had been thinking of my brother, but they had so much they were letting go, too.
My jaw hurt as I was clenching so hard. My emotions were too out of control to answer him.
He pulled away from me and opened his door. “Let’s get find out how to get out of Dodge.”
??????
We left the SUV and headed up to the apartments on the seventh floor. The Sergeant Jasper was the nicest building I’d personally lived
in, even though it was run down a bit. The lobby was fake marble flooring with ugly, white panel ceilings and some columns and stuff to make it fancier looking. It was all aged and showed it.
However, now, instead of a single security guard at a podium, there were two, plus cameras obviously pointed at every entrance, a metal detector arch to walk through, and an extra guard who stood by the detector. He was actively searching grocery bags from some lady as we entered.
“This is ridiculous,” the woman said. “Why is this all here?”
“It’s for your benefit,” the guard said, finishing up his inspection and waving her off.
“I’m not paying for it,” she said and stormed off toward the elevator. “Expect me to make complaints. I don’t want my rent to go up for this.”
I stuck with Brandon, doing what he did. He had to empty his pockets of phone and keys into a bowl and then go through the metal detector arch. I followed behind him.
The guard held a hand out for me but hesitated as I went through. The light on the metal detector arch went green.
He raised a dark brow. “Where’s your phone?”
“Don’t have one,” I said.
“Oh,” he said and he moved his hand out of the way. “Sorry. That’s usually…sorry.”
By the time we got to the elevator, it was empty. I was grateful when the doors closed and we were alone again. It felt like guard watch us go in, but I refused to look at him. That was awkward. Yes, I was too poor for a phone. Didn’t bother with one. The guys gave me one at times, but I left it behind so much because I wasn’t used to carrying one with me yet. In the hospital, I’d never thought to even ask for another one.
“Did you do that?” I asked. “Was that what you added? More security? A metal detector?”
“Yup,” he said. “We’ll take it out when we leave. And I’m not sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I said. The guard had been right.
It was for their protection.
Up on the seventh floor, Brandon used his keys to open the door to the apartment shared by Marc, Axel and Raven. Inside the three-bedroom apartment, not a whole lot had changed. The dining nook had desks and a couple of computers. The living room and kitchen were tidy. The three bedrooms’ doors were closed, the two bathrooms’ doors on either side were open.