Page 35 of Say it Ain’t So

I watched as Zane left his hidey-hole and shuffled out the door. My frustration grew as Weston followed shortly after, the three women still hanging off him, all anxiously awaiting his attention while this… thing… in front of me touched my dick for the fiftieth time.

That was it. I was done. I didn’t need to be groped again. Didn’t want to take this any farther when it’d already gone on way too long.

Leaning down, I took Trina by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “I gotta take a piss.”

She licked her lips as she grabbed for my hips. “You need me to help you, gorgeous?”

Her wrists were so small, I swear I could break them with one wrong move. I pulled her hands away from my body and shook my head. “Been doing this myself for almost thirty years. I’m good.”

Trina pushed up on her toes, despite the fact that I was still holding her away from me by the wrists, and she pressed her mouth to mine. “Hurry back, gorgeous.”

Whipping my head back, I wiped my palm across my lips.

Gorgeous.

I hated that word.

Hated that anyone else would say it.

Hated that I’d lost the only one who’d ever be gorgeous in my eyes.

Without acknowledging Trina or her kiss, I turned and headed straight for the door. I wasn’t taking a chance of being hunted down in the restrooms here. I had half a mind to clear out my apartment and find a new place to live.

Coming to Chicago a year and a half ago had been a fucking Hail Mary. I’d tried everything I could to find my wife, and this city was all I had left.

The chance that I might see her again, might find her here after that one conversation, was the one thing that had kept me from giving up completely. Despite the security job I loved, despite the friends I’d made and the life I’d tried carving out for myself far away from my home, some days it didn’t feel like enough. It didn’t feel like anyone cared.

Today was one of those days.

Scrambling into the back of a cab from the frigid Chicago winter, I tugged my phone out of my pocket and texted Lee.

Me: I can’t take it anymore, boss. I know I told you I’d give it a chance, but I gotta move on. I quit.

I’d barely gotten the words, “Take me to the airport,” out of my mouth before my phone was ringing. I lifted it to my ear as the cab pulled away from the curb, but I didn’t get a chance to speak before Lee’s deep voice was thundering through my ear.

“Like hell you are.”

“I tried⁠—”

“The hell you did, Dennis. We agreed you’d give this a real shot. It hasn’t been one week since you were at my door trying to quit.”

“I’m not just trying this time. I quit.”

“And I’m not accepting your resignation. You need a break? You need to hop on a plane and chase your goddamn adventure? You do that. But I’m not losing one of my best damn employees because you got a fuckin’ itch.”

I turned my gaze toward the dark sky, searching out the stars.

Another damn thing that reminded me of Joss.

Lee sighed on the other end of the line. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter, like he was trying not to yell anymore. “Go. Take a vacation. Scratch your fuckin’ itch, whatever it is you gotta do. But I expect you back in my office after the beginning of the year.”

When I didn’t respond, he spoke again, this time with more urgency.

“Look, Rylan. I need you here, okay? You’re the best I got, and I’ve got so much shit on my shoulders right now, I need your help. With Kelly⁠—”

His voice broke and it felt like someone was squeezing my chest. Kelly O’Connor was one of the women we’d saved earlier that month, and Lee had been obsessed with her ever since.

And I got it. I understood exactly where he was coming from, how a single woman could come into your life and steal your goddamn sanity until you looked in the mirror and couldn’t find a hint of the person you always thought you’d been.