I had one more quick stop to make before going back home to my cranky cop. As nice and modern as the loft was, it didn’t feel like a home. I didn’t want to be locked up in a fortress and I didn’t want to be lifted high above the streets that were my home. I liked Titus’s messy little Craftsman. I liked that once it was cleaned up and actually had some things inside of it to make it feel lived in and homey, it automatically felt like a home we had built together. He hadn’t even asked me to move in. I just did it as soon as he came home from the hospital. I knew he was going to need help since he could barely walk and still had more reconstructive surgery to look forward to, but he didn’t say anything about all my stuff overrunning the closet and overtaking the bathroom counter. I assumed he was happy with the situation since he never complained or batted an eye even if I did harp on him to pick up after himself. I never knew any one person could leave such a tornado of mess behind them wherever they went. He was lucky I loved him because the man was a straight-up slob.
I found the room I was looking for when I got to the hospital with minimal effort. I had wanted to come by sooner, but between the cops questioning him and the feds wanting a piece of him, Booker was a busy guy. Not to mention he had required three separate operations to keep him alive and to dig the bullet out of his chest, and was just now awake and lucid enough for visitors.
When I pushed the door open I wasn’t surprised at all to see that he wasn’t alone. Big brown eyes looked up at me guiltily as Karsen took a startled step back from the bed. The teenager flushed and bit down on her lip.
“Hi, Reeve.”
“Hi, sweetie. Does your sister or Race know you’re here?” The teenager flushed even hotter red and I knew the answer was no. I sighed. “You better go, then. You don’t need to get the brute in any more trouble with Race.”
She nodded and whispered good-bye to Booker before scurrying out the door. I shut it behind her and went over to take up the spot she had just vacated by the bed. Booker was looking up at me with weary blue-gray eyes and he had all kinds of tubes and wires coming out of him.
“You really do have a death wish if you think Race is gonna let you get your hands on that girl, my friend.”
He wheezed out something that sounded like a laugh. “You still pissed at me too?”
At first, when Titus explained why Booker had betrayed us all, I had been so burned, felt so violated, that I was sure I never wanted to see the man again. But I was a master of knowing all about drastic choices made in the vortex of desperation and frustration, so when I calmed down I knew I couldn’t stay mad at him. Booker was playing the only hand he had been dealt just like we all did. We all gambled with fate and chance every single day, so we were bound to lose every now and then.
That’s why I was here. I knew all about screwing up so bad that you felt like you were all alone and no one would ever be able to forgive you. I needed Booker to know that even though his actions had hurt me, had been dire and foolish, I got it and I understood what made him do it. The two of us were an awful lot alike, and in this place it was hard to find people that you not only liked but could relate to. I wasn’t going to cast him out and I wanted him to know that.
Race wasn’t as quick to forgive as I was. His fortress had been breached from the inside and that made him feel like he couldn’t keep his girls safe. I wasn’t sure what the future held for him and Booker and their working relationship, but with Karsen still sniffing around the much older and much harder man, I knew the road bumps were just beginning for Booker.
“No, I’m not pissed anymore. I understand why you did what you did, but that’s only because I’ve been there. The guys . . .” I turned my hand back and forth in a so-so motion. “They can only see you putting their women at risk, so they want to go caveman on you. Give it time. Race will see the entire picture sooner or later.”
“What about the cop?”
I shrugged. “He doesn’t love that I got beat up, and he doesn’t love that you got me the gun, but he’s proud of me for taking care of myself. I think he gets that you were desperate and grasping at straws. Someone had to do something and maybe it wasn’t the right thing, but in the end your actions brought Conner down, and that’s all that matters. Titus said you’re still going to get probation for skipping on your bond, though.”
He wheezed again, which I think was a laugh. “He let you keep the gun?”
I nodded a little. “No. But he got me another one. This one is licensed.” I was still doing me and living my life, I was just doing it with more clearly defined lines than I did before. It was actually pretty fun when I had my own sexy cop around to enforce the rules.
“Good. I don’t want you to lose your edge.” His eyelids started to droop, so I reached out and squeezed one of his hands. Despite it all, Booker’s heart had been in the right place even if he might have gone about everything all wrong. That was something that was painfully familiar to me.
“Those edges just smooth out naturally when they end up rubbing against the person that is your rock, my friend.”
He grumbled something and let his eyes drift closed. “I don’t need a rock. I’m hard enough on my own.” I didn’t say anything, but I did think of the doe-eyed teenager that had just snuck in to see him. Sometimes rocks were tiny pebbles tossed around in a storm, battering endlessly against a much bigger boulder, slowly, silently chipping away at the surface.
I slipped out of the room and went down to the GTO so I could get back to Titus. He didn’t throw the L-word around a lot . . . in fact he had only said it to me twice. The day after Conner was hauled away by the coroner and the day he finally came home from the hospital when he was still stoned out of his mind on pain pills. It didn’t bother me because the next day he had handed over the keys to that Liberty Blue muscle car and told me I could use it until his leg was out of the cast. If that wasn’t a full-on declaration of love and devotion, then I didn’t know what was. The keys to the GTO were better than any diamond ring he might give me.
I parked the car in the alley behind the house and made my way through the back door. The kitchen was a mess, obviously the leftover remnants of Titus trying to make himself lunch. I sighed under my breath and threw my purse on the table. It took me fifteen minutes to put stuff back in the fridge, rinse off the dishes, and wipe down the counters. I was irritated when I went to go find him. I wasn’t his maid for goodness’ sake.