Blonde hair illuminates off the full moon, her petite frame that I’ve touched so many times and got lost in.
My peace within the strife of this place.
She takes a hesitant step in my direction, and I match it, gaping at her like a ghost that vividly comes to me.
“Kace,” she whispers as she has so many years before. My heart accelerates double-time. It’s been forever since I’ve laid eyes on her.
It has been forever. Ever since she broke your heart.
“Cam.”
Three Weeks Later…
“Everything’s a fucking mess,” I profess, dipping a hot McDonald chicken nugget into my tangy BBQ sauce. “But it always is when he’s involved.”
Taking another bite, I watch the trees around me gracefully dance along with the wind, a few leaves blowing off their branches.
I shouldn’t be here.
I definitely shouldn’t be found here.
Kace Bishop will have my fucking head if he finds me looming around his rented condo like a type-A stalker with a severe problem of following directions.
Our plan is simple, has been for years—stay the hell out of each other’s way.
His route has been easy. He evades me like a foreseen disaster that’s about to make a collision course to his untimely fate.
And I…I try my best to detach my previous and obnoxious feelings towards him so that I don’t waste my time carving into a man who’s already hollow inside.
Well Enough Alone by Chevelle starts on my Jeep radio, and I exaggeratedly sigh, immersing another nugget in my sauce.
Now, if I could take the name of the song literally, maybe I wouldn’t find the urge to be sitting out in a condo parking lot like a damn psychopath.
“This is crazy.“ I shake my head. “Why am I even doing this? I mean, if he wants to ghost everyone on the squad, why am I wasting a perfect Saturday making sure he’s okay? Do you think he’d do that for me?”
Silence answers me as I snatch a french fry out of my brown bag, peering to my left then right down the quiet street for cars.
No one.
Like it has been for over two hours.
“Then again…he made things perfectly clear, several times. When I believe he’s going to do one thing, he sikes me out and does something else. He just likes to fuck with me.”
The twinge of anger that I’ve been attempting to hanker down begins to smolder in my chest.
This is a waste of time.
And it’s not just now that I’m doing it, but for the past six to seven years, I’ve misused perfectly blaze days to spend on him.
It’s pathetic.
He’s manipulated me into believing that—I stop myself right there.
This is madness. Utter and pure stupidity.
I stuff more fries in my mouth, shoving back the truth with salty food to keep the bile from rising. “But I’m doing it for you, right? He’s your dad…who won’t answer his damn phone.”
I steal a glimpse to my passenger seat at Bishop’s giant German Shepherd staring at me. His pink tongue hanging from his mouth with only one thought—he wants one of my chicken nuggets.
“Are you even allowed to have these?”
Armageddon blinks both eyes simultaneously as he patiently waits as his owner trained him to do.
The dog is eerily responsive. After I learned some Russian commands—because leave it to Bishop to teach a dog another language—he immediately sits, stays, lays down. Half of them I know I’m not saying right, but he complies, so I go with it.
Diving my hand back into my McDonald’s bag, I pull out what Arm has been watching me enjoy, unlike my babbling on and on about things that shouldn’t be a conversation or even a landing thought. “I’m throwing you under the bus if you can’t have these.”
Handing one over, Arm nicely takes it between his teeth, then settles into his seat, laying on his front legs.
“Actually, fuck that, we’re going to have words. Who leaves a poor dog alone in the woods with no babysitter during a torture episode? I mean, he doesn’t even know if you’re alive.”
Yes, he does. You’ve only sent him six photos of Armageddon in a baseball hat, one wrapped in a blanket, another on a walk, two where you’re feeding him from your couch, and a beautifully composed selfie with Arm with my middle finger between us.
Dark brown eyes peer back up at me, not giving a shit about what I’m saying or that I feel any sort of way about the matter.
Just like his daddy.
Except I can’t shove the feeling down that something is up with him, and it’s not a three-week vacation that he decided not to tell anyone on B723 about.
Not only that but if he was on a mission, Kyson would be privy to it as well.
No, he’s up to something, and I can’t help or stop the jealousy and irritation that keeps showing up in my head.
Yeah, he’s a quiet douchebag but a responsible one.
Hell, it’s impressive how he’s the biggest asshole but yet the dude that keeps the rest of our squad in line. I mean, hell, the boys need it. When we’re not assassinating the bad guys because politicians don’t want to get their hands dirty, they’re making poor decisions and creating havoc.
We’re the unseen and unheard, the ones that don’t get the recognition of putting our lives at risk to save this country from terrorists and the likes of people who are out for their own paycheck for the sake of American security. However, the boys like the stakes, I can’t say I’m not guilty of it either, but they’re a bunch of idiots.
First, Marty wrongly kidnapped a woman he believed threw an attempt to kill his sister, Reagan.
Then you have Kyson, who is secretive but sweet who dodges shit, so he doesn’t have to come to terms with us thinking he’s doing something shady.
Mills, our clown, poor asshole, can’t catch a break with women, but he doesn’t seem to care either way.
And Blue…I hate the bitch.
MARTY: Where are you?
I clench my teeth together in an exaggerated
