Slide(Boosted Hearts Book 3)(56)

He slapped his hand against the glass. “Goddamn it, Lucy.”

He’d growled her name. Even muffled through the glass she could hear the rough edge to his voice.

“Don’t do this.”

The bus started moving, edging away, and, God, she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

“Lucy, please.” His gaze intensified. There was so much there, so much meaning and emotion. “Don’t go.”

A sob started to crawl up her throat. She almost stood and asked the driver to stop when he yelled those words at her. He sounded different…in pain. And she’d know. She was an expert on what pain sounded like. She’d been hearing it in her own voice for longer than she cared to think about.

Her eyes started to sting as she shook her head again, mouthing, “I can’t.”

He started walking with the bus, then jogging. The bus picked up speed and he pounded against the side one last time before they drove off. She twisted in her seat—couldn’t help herself. He stood there, one hand shoved in his hair, the other on his hip. And the expression on his face…

She spun away, sinking into the seat and slammed her eyes closed, unable to look at the haunted way he stared after her.

It meant nothing. It couldn’t.

None of this, the last few days, meant a damn thing.





~ * ~





Adam shot up in bed, breathing ragged. Fuck. He glanced at the clock.

Awesome. He’d managed a whole thirty minutes. He’d been lying there for hours, staring at the hotel ceiling, counting goddamn cracks, and wishing Lucy was lying beside him. Last night, with her by his side, he’d slept like the dead. For once his mind had been blank. No images of his mother, the way he’d found her, no guilt and pain and fear strangling him until he woke shaking and sick to his stomach. Lucy had given him the kind of peace he’d been chasing ever since that awful day. She was also so much more than that.

Fuck.

God, he was pathetic. What kind of man couldn’t sleep alone? But that’s what fear did, he guessed, and his was buried so deep in his subconscious there was no escaping it.

Running a trembling hand over his face, he let out a shaky breath.

He missed her. He missed Lucy.

Leaning against the headboard, he picked up the note he’d been trying to ignore for the last few hours. He’d read it once and put it aside. Reading it made his fucking chest hurt, his gut ache, like he was coming down with the flu. He stared down at it. Her writing was curved and round, a big loop on her Y. If he’d ever thought about it, that’s exactly how he would have imagined her handwriting would look. Could handwriting be friendly? Hers was. It was open and free, fun. His own was like chicken scratch. Tight, sharp angled.

He studied the note, each damn word, every swirl and curl. She’d written it hastily. The first part was just words, giving him the information she knew he’d need so he wouldn’t worry—that she was going home.

But the last sentence, it was darker. She’d pressed harder on the pen, emphasizing each word.

This was a mistake.

They struck like one hundred tiny razor-sharp arrows to the heart. Was she trying to convince him or herself when she wrote those words? Had the last couple of days been a mistake? Yes, but only in that now he knew what it was to be with her, to have a part of her he never thought he’d get a taste of. How would he carry on after this, like nothing happened? Like she didn’t mean everything to him?

He clutched the note tight in his fist, and shoved back the covers. His guilt and grief had sent him on a path that he wasn’t proud of. He’d become a thief, had done whatever the fuck he liked, had slept around. He hadn’t cared what happened to him. He’d only wanted to forget. A knock on the door pulled him from his thoughts.

He quickly pulled on his jeans. And, shit, even after the running list of the reasons he should stay away from her, he still hoped it was Lucy, and that she’d come back to him. Idiot.

But it wasn’t. It was the officer he’d spoken to about his cousin’s car. The irony of going to the police for a stolen car wasn’t lost on him. For once he was on the other end of the stick. He’d always been the thief; this time he was the victim. It didn’t feel great.

“We’ve found the car,” the guy said.

Thank fuck. “Where was it?”

“The idiot left it parked outside a bar in the next town while he was inside getting wasted.”

Sounded like their thief all right. “I’ll just get dressed.”

At least one thing was going right. He’d get the car delivered on time, his cousin would be happy, and he could go home.

Though, going home didn’t sound that great anymore.