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“Won’t you?” he asked again.
That’s when I woke with a startled gasp, which dragged my mind into the here and now. The dark room where I lay in my bed. The sheets were twisted around my legs, like I’d thrashed myself awake. My hands shook a little bit as I swiped them over my face, and the skin on my back was damp with sweat when I sat up in bed and took a few deep breaths.
“Fuck,” I sighed.
I never did get back to sleep.
Instead, I laced up my trainers, tugged on some athletic shorts and a sweatshirt, and went for a predawn run in my neighborhood, needing the relentless pounding of my feet against the pavement over a sterile gym.
April in Colorado was always a gamble when it came to the weather. We’d gotten snow the week before, one last grasping attempt from winter as it ushered itself out. But it had melted almost immediately. This morning, the skies were still, but it smelled like rain as I punished my body for that stupid dream I couldn’t shake.
My lungs heaved the farther I ran, and instead of seeing Chris’s face, I saw Mira’s.
I saw Zoe’s when she’d chased me down in that parking lot.
When she’d charged down the steps, ready to decapitate me because she thought I was a burglar pilfering from her friends’ house.
And again when she’d told me to leave the key behind.
It’s for family, she’d said. Like she hadn’t just twisted the proverbial knife straight in between my shoulder blades. It was a wound that I’d earned. I couldn’t be mad at her for doing it, no matter how badly I wanted to be.
On the final stretch of my run, with my house in view, I sprinted. My muscles screamed in protest. My lungs bellowed from the effort to breathe.
You’ll take care of mine, won’t you?
The sound of my feet as I slowed to a stop, the slap, slap, slap against the pavement, wasn’t enough to drown out the memory of his voice.
He’d never said that to me in real life. Not once.
I bent over, hands on my knees, as I tried to catch my breath.
I couldn’t. It simply wasn’t there.
Because either my brain had planted that guilty message after I’d drifted off to sleep, or my asshole best friend had just hijacked my dreams to remind me what a selfish git I was.
I stood, hands on my hips, and stared up at the house where I’d lived for twelve years. I’d bought it with money from my rookie contract. It wasn’t big; it wasn’t flashy. It was fine for me.
The bigger house I’d purchased was for Mum, her husband, and my two half sisters, who at the time were still young enough to live at home.
That was a home for a family.
Mine was just a house. It had walls. Nice-size rooms and a pool in a private backyard where no one could watch me do my laps.
Chris and Amie’s house had been a home too. I liked being there. Always felt at ease when I walked through the door.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I had to clarify that statement.
Hadfelt at ease.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath.
I thought about calling my mum for advice, but I bloody well knew what she’d tell me. With an ocean between us, I could practically hear her voice.
Liam Andrew Davies, you apologize to that young lady. You apologize, and then you fix it, because the only apology that matters is the one that comes with changed behavior.
“Fuck,” I said, just a bit louder.
“Morning, Liam,” my neighbor Bill called out as he wheeled his trash bin to the street.
