“You’re not doing a very good job of it.”
Rivers didn’t relent. “I’m just trying to wake you up a little. You’ve been here for months, and I have yet to see you do anything but go to your apartment and back here. Every time I ask you to come out with me and my friends, you have an excuse.”
Shaw had, in fact, gone to a bar last night, but Rivers wouldn’t count the Tipsy Hound even if Shaw told him. He’d gone in because he really wanted a drink, and the place was dark with loud music. Not a place to socialize. But somehow he’d ended up outside with a pretty woman, treading into way-too-dangerous waters.
The liquor had loosened his good sense, and he’d found himself drawn to the woman who’d sung her guts out and then run offstage, and not drawn to her for the obvious reasons. The woman was a knockout with her cloud of dark curls, black-rimmed glasses, and a pink blouse that had exposed just a hint of smooth brown skin at the open collar. She was all curves and quirky sophistication. Rivers would say nerdy hot. But Shaw didn’t think hot needed any kind of qualifier.
Despite all that, the thing that had drawn him to her was the way she’d sung onstage. She hadn’t opened her eyes the whole time, but once she’d gotten started, it was as if she’d opened a vein and let it bleed onto the floor in front of them. Her voice hadn’t been classically pretty. It’d been powerful and raw, with sandpaper rubbing the high notes. He’d felt each note of her song like she’d shoved the music directly into his chest, sending a shot of adrenaline straight into his system. He’d been sweating a little by the end. So when she’d stumbled by him, he couldn’t stop himself from reaching out. He’d wanted to help her, but more than that, he wanted to know why she was running.
But he should’ve minded his own business. In those brief moments outside the bar, she’d nudged a part of him he’d thought he’d long ago cut the wires to—the part that said he should smile at her, flirt, and get her story. The part that said he could want the normal things a man could want.
What a fucking lie that was.
“I don’t do clubs,” he said to Rivers, shutting down the memory of last night, of him walking away from her like a coward who couldn’t even manage to tell her good night.
“Fine, go to a movie then. A bar. Whatever. You don’t need to do the monk thing anymore. I get why you shut yourself off from the social scene, but this is a big town. You have a new name. You don’t look like the guy from those old news stories anymore. Go out, have fun, take a roll in someone’s bed.”
“Riv,” Shaw warned.
His friend raised his palms. “All I’m saying is don’t rule out a simple hookup. It’s unhealthy not to get laid at least every now and then.” He gave Shaw an up-and-down look. “I don’t know if it’s wise to test out that use-it-or-lose-it theory, you know? What if you actually can lose it?”
Shaw’s fingers curled into his palms. “I’m going to make some calls to price out adding another AC unit.”
“Shaw.”
Shaw ignored him and shouldered past him. Use it or lose it. Right. Like his damn dick was going to fall off if he didn’t have sex. Ridiculous.
The thought sent a shudder through him anyway. He tried to shake off his irritation as he made his way to the office. Rivers meant well. The guy thought he was helping, but these types of discussions were off the table. Rivers didn’t get it.
Shaw had tried that road and had ended up getting serious with someone. The one woman he’d dated after the Long Acre shooting had acted as his confidant, had gotten him to open up about all the shit he was going through. Then, when things had gone bad between them, Shaw had made a dumb mistake, physically attacking a reporter who’d been goading him about the relationship. Shaw had gotten arrested, and the woman had gone to the press to confirm everyone’s worst assumptions.
An unnamed source close to the shooter’s brother, former Olympic hopeful Shaw Miller, says he’s drinking too much, angry, and a loner. Studies show that mental health issues run in families. Joseph Miller, the mastermind behind the Long Acre shooting, was reportedly suffering from…
After reading the stories, Shaw had thrown his laptop against the wall and broken it into pieces. He hadn’t read a news story about himself or touched another woman since.
Sex was amazing. He missed it at a level so primal, he couldn’t describe it. But no matter how good it could be, it wasn’t worth risking feeling that exposed again, that…violated.
Rivers didn’t get it. He couldn’t.
No one could know how it felt to be stripped down and no longer seen as an actual person but only as a news headline, a sensational sound bite to be sold and collectively hated. To be shamed. A name to be thrown around the dinner table and judged.
Mass murderer’s brother.
Fallen Olympic hopeful.
Shaw Miller was now just a name on endless web pages. A cautionary tale. A common enemy.
He didn’t get to meet a pretty woman at a bar and ask her out. He didn’t get to want the things normal people wanted. That life had been stolen the day his brother had ended all those others.
Maybe he should feel angrier about that loss.
He would.
If he didn’t know that he deserved to pay every bit of that steep price.
Chapter
Four