Page 72 of I’m The Worst

I fuck. I use. I walk away.

That’s it.

That’s always been it.

But I let her stay there in my arms. Let her nails dig into my skin hard enough to leave marks. Let her breathe against my neck.

My dick twitches.

I clamp my jaw until my teeth grind and shove the thought down deep. Fucking pathetic. I’m not doing this. I’m not letting her get into my head any more than she already is.

The inn was a mistake.

The storm rolled in too fast. I should’ve seen it coming. I’m so fucking tired, and every decision is getting sloppier. Every call I make is half a second slower than it should be.

I need sleep. Real sleep.

Not this half-dead state—staring at doors, listening to her breathe, tracking Savva’s men every five minutes like I’m waiting for one of them to make a move.

My body is running on nothing, and I can feel it in my reactions.

Fuck.

Even the little sleep I get is poisoned now. Old memories keep surfacing—the kind I buried years ago for a reason.

The knife slips and the blade slices across my thumb.

I swear under my breath, slam the knife into its sheath, and press my bleeding hand against my thigh, letting the sting steady me. My mind circles every mistake I’ve made in the last forty-eight hours.

Savva wanted to stop and sleep in the truck. That was never happening. I wasn’t risking the engine freezing or the truck getting buried, but more than that, I wasn’t closing my eyes in that cab with his men rotating watch like I’m supposed to trust them not to slit my throat the second I lose consciousness.

I don’t sleep where I can’t control every exit.

So I made the call to move.

But she couldn’t make the safehouse. I saw it halfway through the storm—her hands going stiff, her pace breaking. If she’d lost circulation in her fingers or feet, it would’ve become a different kind of problem.

The inn was the only option left.

And to add to the mistake, the woman at the desk asked too many questions. Watched AJ too closely.

“Pretty girl traveling with a man who looks like trouble,” she’d said with a fake smile that never touched her eyes. The way she kept looking at AJ—for too long—like she’d seen her somewhere before.

The Nightshades are everywhere. Spotters. Informants. Greedy locals who’ll sell a description for pocket change and a bottle of vodka. One wrong word and we’re marked.

I should’ve put her down right there behind the counter.

Instead, I paid extra, kept my mouth shut, and got us a room. Now that decision is sitting in my gut like lead. Every extra minute we stayed there was another chance for someone to make a call. Another chance for this whole job to go to shit.

Fucking rookie mistake.

She shifts, her head falling against my shoulder, and I nearly flinch.

Her hair smells like cold air and the last traces of that cheap hotel shampoo. Heat from her body presses into my arm through my jacket, and every muscle in me tenses to keep from shoving her away.

My thumb throbs. Blood seeps into my pants.

Fuck.