I scramble around my vacated seat and bend to grab the broken and shattered photo from the ground, gasping when I see which one it was.
I don’t even remember who took the picture, but I had never been able to take it down and put it away. It’s been one of my favorite images and cherished memories for so long that I should have realized it was the one Levi had seen.
It was a few months after Nate had started tutoring me. Everyone had been enjoying a long day at the Reid’s. My skin was pink from being out in the sun for hours, but I didn’t mind a second of that sunburn later that night.
I had been standing at the edge of the lake; you could see the out-of-focus people peppered in and out of the water, but at that moment, the camera caught me laughing at something Nate had said to me. My head was thrown back, hair down my back; my bikini had been a new purchase that I got in so much trouble with from my dad. I looked beyond happy and carefree.
And Nate … he was standing next to me, his board shorts low on his hips in the most delicious way. But I loved his face the most about this picture. He wasn’t laughing with me. Instead, he was looking at me as if I was the most precious thing he had ever seen.
That look helped to convince me months later to take a chance and tell him how I felt. I was desperate to see that look again with my own eyes, but it wasn’t until last night that he ever gave me a chance to see it once more.
There is no doubt in my mind that Levi saw the same thing I had built all my hopes on when he saw Nate’s face, and as twisted as it is to feel this way, the only thing his outburst has done is given me the verification needed to see the direction my heart wants me to follow.
NIGHT AFTER NIGHT FOR THE last week, Dirty has been insane.
A good insane. The kind that solidifies the fact I knew in my bones for a long time coming that this place would be a success.
But it’s also been somewhat of a double-edged sword.
The madness kept me there for the past seven days while I’ve had to fight with myself every second of that time not to say fuck it and rush off to find Ember. I hadn’t even had time to jump over to CS until now to finish the cases I still had to close.
I spent the first day after my chat with my dad still struggling to get my cock under control. The day after that, I kept going over and over what he had said. Picturing my future without Ember in it. Visualizing her meeting someone, getting married, having his kids … and in the end, I felt like I would be sick. Hell, I almost was.
There was no doubt about it; the thought of her with someone other than me was unfathomable. At that moment, I knew that my old man was right. I had to work my ass off to make up for the shit I had done that not only hurt her and pushed her away, but also get to the bottom of that night at my sister’s wedding.
My memories still start and end with the dream that had haunted me for months, but until I hear it from Ember, I’m not sure how to make up for that.
The only thing I know for sure is that I’m going to fucking do it.
I hear the door open but don’t look away from the monitor in front of me. I had neglected my responsibilities here at CS for a week now, and regardless of my responsibility to be at Dirty, I can’t let my dad down.
“What’s wrong with your face?”
I look up from my computer at the sound of Maddox entering the room.
“Shit,” I mumble under my breath.
“I can hear you,” he says, walking around to drop down on the chair at his desk. I look up in time to see him scowl at the picture of his girls, the same picture that I had turned slightly so I could see Ember better earlier, and wince when he grumbles low in his throat before shifting it back—only this time so I can’t see shit.
“You want a picture on your desk of my girl, you need to earn the right to have it there.”
“Yes, sir,” I smart.
“Nate,” he calls, and I pause my typing to focus on him. There’s no way in hell I’m going to do anything that could piss him off when he knows I’m after making his baby girl mine, so I wisely give him one hundred percent of my attention. “Did you fix things with her?”
A lesser man would have looked away when Maddox Locke turned his penetrating black eyes on them. He’s a hard man; rarely smiling unless it’s at one of the three women in his life, but that silent dominating hold his very presence commands hits hard. He has a dark side; a side you don’t ever want focused on you.
“Working on it,” I respond, my voice strong and true.
“Work harder. I don’t like seeing her upset, Nate.”
My brow furrows. “I wasn’t aware that she was upset,” I add.
This time, his expression darkens, and I know I fucked up, even if I didn’t mean it in the way it sounded.