Five Weeks (Seven Series #3)(48)

I also didn’t know what a second chance even meant with Jericho. Friendship? Forgiveness? Or maybe just a romp in the sack and I’d be over all that sex appeal? Though I highly doubted it. Jericho had a reputation for being a greedy lover, and his women became as addicted to him as he had once been to drugs.
Then I laughed. Was I actually sitting handcuffed to my ex-lover’s bed, contemplating sex with Jericho? What made me think he’d even care? That’s when it dawned on me that I still loved him. Jericho was my best friend and the man who made me believe I could be more than just an ornament in life. He’d taught me how to be spontaneous and experience the world with passion. Because of him, I’d traveled and met so many fascinating people. Goals, money, or even finding a mate didn’t matter. He’d taught me the most valuable lesson in life: how to live in the moment.#p#分页标题#e#
A tear trailed down my cheek and lingered on my chin. I still loved him. The man I knew before he slipped over to the dark side was everything I could have wanted in a friend, a lover, and maybe a mate. I’d suppressed those feelings because neither of us had wanted that kind of commitment; we’d been too young, and I had valued our friendship too much to risk losing it to something that could never be.
Those tender feelings began to shift to resentment. I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t get the pain out of my head of seeing him with another woman. Decades later, it burned my heart like a raw wound. You’re never more exposed than when your heart is in your hand. I’d returned to our hotel room to have a serious talk with Jericho. I wanted to help him get clean, and I wanted us to do it together. I naively thought I would be enough for him to turn his life around, but I never got that chance.
Our relationship had become self-destructive, and if I’d stayed with him, I would have eventually been lost to myself. I needed to break free and figure out who I was. I needed to be able to love someone and have that love returned to only me.
As the pain in my body became a tolerable ache, I began to question myself. Was it wrong to bail when things got tough? It had saved me from the dysfunctional home I grew up in—raised by apathetic parents and treated as an outcast by my siblings. My father had been a lone wolf for too many years before marriage and had hardened as a man. Maybe that would slowly happen to me, and God, what a frightening thought.
“I hate you, Hawk,” I whispered. I felt more than cuffed to a bed; I felt bound to the miseries of my past and forced to confront them in the silence of the room.
My survival instincts were beginning to kick in. I wasn’t a frail girl who shut down when things got tough. The bed didn’t seem too heavy. If I moved it a little to the left, I just might be able to reach what was on the other end of that cord.
 
***
Evening rolled around and Jericho hadn’t slept in more than twenty-four hours. He’d tried to crash that afternoon but couldn’t shake the ominous feeling that kept him pacing most of the day. Lexi told him it was probably the change in weather, but Jericho didn’t even want to smoke. He tucked a cigarette behind his ear and occasionally would bite on the filter, but the urge to light up had completely left him.
He snatched the keys to the blue truck and headed over to Howlers with Wheeler. He needed to swallow his pride and apologize to Isabelle for the night before. Denver had the night off and had gone to play laser tag with Reno and Austin. Ben, Wheeler’s twin, hadn’t been around much lately. He’d been away for sometimes up to a week, playing card tournaments to earn money.
Wheeler crossed his left leg over his knee and wiped at a scuff on his black boot with his thumb. “You wanna spit it out? You’ve had a bug up your ass all day.”
Jericho pulled the truck into a parking space and it jumped the curb. He threw it in reverse, and they bounced in the cab as he backed out. “I don’t know. I’ve never had this feeling this strong before. Bad vibes—like a premonition or something. You believe in that stuff?”
“Maybe all that shit you did in your past is finally catching up with you.”
Jericho shut off the engine and twisted the giant ring on his left index finger. “I can’t stop thinking about Isabelle.”
“Sounds like an addiction.”
“We’ve got this… connection.”
“Maybe you need to sever that cord,” Wheeler suggested, popping open his door.
As they walked toward the building, Jericho glanced at Isabelle’s blue car and wondered if she knew her taillight was busted.
The jukebox played an old Nirvana tune on low volume, and most of the customers were eating. Jericho and Wheeler slid up to the bar and greeted Frank, an older bartender who usually worked the afternoon shift.