SIX (21 page)

Hell is feeling every nerve-ending in your body burn and scream for relief all at the same time and being granted none,” she shouts, clawing up over her body.

Misty and Parker startle, their bodies jolting with a whimper.

“After the first three took their turns, they moved on to using their fists and anything else they could find.”

She looks over to Parker and then Misty.

“I passed out so many times and kept coming to only to experience soul crippling pain and humiliation while they destroyed what was left of me.

Their blades sliced through my skin, over and over, marking me forever to relive their hate.” Her eyes close.

“How could they do that to someone?” she asks into the night sky.

“I was a nineteen-year-old girl with my entire future ahead of me.” Her voice breaks. “They killed me. I died that day and now I’m forced to walk around in this corpse.”

Misty drops my hand and steps forward.

Reaching out, her hand hovers inches from Haley’s.

“Men like that are too sick to feel empathy, shame, or remorse,” Misty tells her. “Nothing I or anyone says will make any difference to how you feel, but I’m so sorry this happened all the same. No one deserves to suffer the way you have.”

“Who were these people?” Parker asks on a sob.

I suck in a breath to prevent myself from passing out through lack of oxygen. “The person I was having a fling with was a member of a rival gang. They found out,” I state frankly, even though knowing and admitting it feels like a bullet shooting into me and getting dug out over and over.

“What did you do?” Lucky asks, knowing I wouldn’t have taken that abuse laying down.

“I killed six of them.”

I keep my eyes on Misty, watching for her reaction, but she doesn’t give one.

Her eyes are trained on Haley, who’s picking at scars on her arm.

“I want to go to sleep now. I’m sorry I ruined the party,” Haley announces, walking past Misty and taking Max’s hand to lead him inside.

“You okay?” Lucky asks me.

No, I’m fucking numb.

After getting back to the apartment and showering, I leave Misty to sleep while I pace the apartment, willing my mind to switch off.

Finally, at six a.m., I slide into bed, but I still can’t close my eyes without seeing Haley bloody and broken.

Misty’s scent washes over me as her arm wraps around my middle.

“You can’t hold on to the blame,” she whispers, but it’s not as simple as that. “You know, I’m not opposed to Max.” My head jerks to look down at her.

“We could have some fun.” She shrugs, biting that lip.

“We? You better be speaking in French.”

“I just know you have needs I can’t fulfil, and—”

I place a hand over her lips, silencing her.

“Why are you talking crazy? I don’t need cock, Mist. What we have isn’t just about sex.”

Her eyes widen and a smile breaks across her lips.

“I know, and that’s why I’m okay with adding a member to the bedroom every now and then.”

This woman can’t be real.

There’s no jealousy or trickery in what’s she’s saying, but I hate the thought of another man touching her, and how fucking selfish would I be to fuck another man and not let her do the same?

Regardless, I don’t want to fuck anyone else.

She doesn’t understand how fulfilled and good it feels being with her.

“I don’t want Max,” I say, throwing it out there so she knows.

This whole topic is because of Max kissing me and I don’t want her to feel like she needs to offer anything more than herself out of some weird obligation or misconstrued thought.

“I wish you’d told me about Haley.” She squeezes her body tighter against mine.

“I’m tired,” I grunt, putting a stop to the conversation.

“Get some sleep.”

I close my eyes and the bodies of the men I killed flash in my mind.

They don’t have faces and all blur into one.

My head wasn’t in a place that could store such pointless information then.

Some of the assholes who took part in Haley’s attack are still out there and my demon roars inside my chest, begging me to release him.

Weeks have passed since the night Haley broke down and shared her pain.

Six hasn’t been the same since that night and I don’t know how to help him or bring him back to the man who spent days making love to me.

Pretending not to notice someone you love pulling away from you is like stepping closer and closer to the edge of a cliff without knowing when you’re going to fall. Trying to find pleasure in ignorance to the fact that we are slipping from each other is getting more and more difficult.

His words tell me all the right things, and he spends his time here with me, but he’s not present in his body.

His mind is preoccupied and he comes in later and later and leaves earlier with each passing day.

He spends more time in the shop, even when there are no clients.

He insists on checking in on Haley at all hours, knowing she is spiraling into depression, but he can’t see that he is being swept up in the aftermath of her confession, dragging him into old thoughts.

I found a note on his chest one night, signed by Haley, asking him to avenge her. It was crinkled and torn in parts showing the signs of age.

His past is swallowing him, transitioning him back into the man who did avenge her.

It terrifies me that he will go back to kill the rest, and that he could go back to prison or get himself killed.

If I can just bring him back to the now, show him it’s okay for him to move on, that he did enough, gave up enough of his years to avenge Haley, then maybe everything would be okay.

What if I’m not enough?

Standing in the kitchen of the bar, I’m making lunch and Parker is talking to the room, but neither of us are paying attention to what she’s saying.

Handing him a sandwich, I implore him to kiss me, touch me…anything.

“Thanks, Mist, I don’t deserve you,” he tells me, but I don’t feel his gratitude as he takes the plate and walks out of the kitchen without a second look back at me.

He’s been working non-stop lately and hasn’t been eating much.

“Why does he act like he’s not worthy of you?” Parker asks, grabbing a plate and slapping down a piece of bread, a slice of ham, then another piece of bread.

“Because he only sees himself as the bad guy.

He doesn’t see what we all do—that underneath the bad boy is a great man.”

If he just lets go of this anger
.

She picks the plate up and sighs.

“You love him so much, I just hope it isn’t too much.” She purses her lips and then spins on her heel and walks out the door.

I follow her through to the bar and try not to laugh when she hands Lucky the plate and he looks at it with a scrunched nose.

He’s leaning against the bar near where Max is sitting sipping on a soda.

“You call this a sandwich?” he asks, his pitch higher than usual.

“Bread, meat, bread,” she states, pointing to the plate and each layer of his sandwich.

“Where’s the mayo, lettuce, tomato, or more meat than one wafer thin slice?” he moans.

Grabbing the sandwich, she waltzes over to the trashcan, drops it in, and dusts her hands together to remove the crumbs.

“Make your own in future.” She informs him with a shrug.

“I will. You make the worst sandwiches ever. Six’s sandwich didn’t look anemic.”

“That’s because Misty is in love.” She crosses her arms together and stands in a defensive position, glaring at him.

“So are you.” He grins, waggling his eyebrows.

“You wish,” she jibes back, dropping her arms.

Max has been sitting there watching their exchange, giving me a chance to really look at him from the other side of the bar.

He is handsome, confident, and flirtatious, more toward women than men.

He isn’t flamboyant or forthcoming.

Knowing he is into men is impossible to tell—unless you walk in on him making a move on your man, that is.

Every time I see him, I can’t get the image of his lips against Six’s out of my head.

It was so erotic and the jealousy I thought I’d feel about someone else putting their lips on Six’s instead of my own didn’t come.

Instead, a gentle ache pulsated low between my thighs and I’d been wondering about Max ever since.

Is it just men he likes or is he bi-sexual like Six?

Maybe showing Six I can be open and share that side of him will take his mind off worrying about Haley and doing something rash.

I check the clock hanging on the wall next to where Parker is counting the tip jar. Lucky left and has come back from the kitchen with a new sandwich in the time I’ve been lost in my thoughts of Max and Six.

Haley came in for another small tattoo, so Max had been waiting for her for a good hour.

It made me anxious, her being alone with Six, implanting the need for him to make things right further inside his head.

There is no right in her situation.

What she went through can never be rectified and the death of the people who attacked her won’t undo what they did.

It will just take away more of them both because Six will have to pay the price for acting out the vengeance.

I need to keep his mind here with me.

“Max,” I pipe out louder than normal, startling us both.

“What?” he asks, looking around to see if my tone is a warning of some sort.

Lucky’s eyes lift from his plate and he watches us curiously.

“Can I have a word with you out back?” I gesture with a subtle head jerk to the door.

He gets to his feet and nods in agreement, following me and gaining Parker’s attention also.

I’ll just tell her I was asking him about how Haley is when she pumps me for information later.

“What’s up?” he asks once I get him to the rec room, folding his arms over his chest and coming to a stop a few feet from my jittery body.

Placing my hands in the back pockets of my jeans, I have to stop myself from biting my lip.

Nerves nibble away at my insides and I’m worried it shows in my mannerisms.

“You’re making me nervous,” he laughs, but it’s an uncomfortable laugh and he takes a step back from me.

God, should I be doing this? Six did say he wasn’t interested in Max, maybe he doesn’t find him attractive, but what’s not to find attractive?

“Misty?” Max questions, dropping his arms and raising a brow at me.

“I’m sorry. It’s just…I don’t actually know how to approach this.” I shake my head and wring my hands together.

“Just say it.”

“Do you want to join me for sex?” I ask, my voice muddled.

My eyes spring wide and my hands make animated movements in an awkward uncontrolled manner.

“I mean us—him, me.” Oh God, kill me now.

I slap my palm to my forehead and try to shake the heat burning my cheeks with a head wobble.

“Whoa, slow down and take a breath,” he tells me, taking my hand from my head and placing it at my side.

I gulp in air, wishing the air conditioning would cool my scolding cheeks.

Forcing myself to be the grown woman who’s been thinking about having a threesome to actually man up and act her age, I look him in the eye and ask,