“Okay, let me have it,” he finally said.
“What do you want me to say?”
“You’re angry,” he said.
I nodded but spoke calmly. “Yes.”
“I haven’t touched those girls.”
“I know.”
His eyebrow went up.
I sighed. “I’m angry because you’ve shut me out. We’re supposed to be together but you’re turning away from me.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
Again, my eyebrow shot up. “You’re secretly meeting with prostitutes. I think that’s newsworthy.”
“For no other reason than to find out what the hell is happening.”
There was no need to rehash his reasons for meeting with Rosie and Nancy. They had been very straightforward in what they were doing for Cade. He needed them to be his eyes and ears on the street. He bought them pie.
“It’s not just that,” I said, my heart thumping in my ears. “There’s a gap between us and it’s widening every day.”
He lifted his brows. “What gap—?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.” The fire in my eyes met the darkness in his. “I had to fuck myself the other night because you weren’t there to do it. You’re never there to do it.”
“Jesus Christ, Indy.” He shook his head and sat back in the booth.
I glanced around the room. Apart from a mom and her two kids down at the far end of the diner, and a lone lumber worker nursing a cup of coffee a few tables away, the diner was quiet.
“It’s the truth,” I said.
He shook his head. “We’re not doing this here.”
“Fine.” I stood up. “We’ll do it at home.”
He stood up, too, and threw a couple of twenties onto the table.
When I walked away, he stopped me, gently placing his hand on my wrist. His eyes softened. “I love you, you know that, right?”
“That’s not what this is about,” I said, stepping away from his touch. “See you at home.”
He followed me home in his car, and he was behind me when I ascended the steps to our front door. And when I walked into the kitchen, he was right there, behind me. I stood on one side of the island and he stood on the other. Two coffee cups left over from earlier still sat on the countertop between us.
“Do you blame me for not saving Isaac?” I asked, the idea suddenly occurring to me. “Is that it? Do you blame me for him dying.”
Not that Isaac could have been saved. Even if his injuries had happened in a fully equipped ER, he would’ve still died.
“No!” he said.
“And Tex? Do you blame me for his death, too,” I snapped.
“What? No!”
“Even though I wasn’t the one who worked on him. I suppose it was my goddamn fault that he started his car before running inside to grab something. My fault he slipped and knocked himself out—”
“Stop it!” he said darkly.
“My fault he fell on the garage door remote so it closed, trapping him inside with all those car fumes —”
“Stop!”
“Well, it wasn’t my fault. Just like it wasn’t your fault Isaac was shot dead—”
“I said stop!” he yelled, slapping the coffee cup across the countertop and sending it smashing to the floor.
He was angry.
But so was I.
So I slapped the other coffee cup and sent it flying, too.
“You don’t get to do this!” I yelled at him. “You don’t get to blame me for Isaac.”
“Blame you? I don’t blame you. I blame me!” he roared, pointing to his broad chest. “It’s my fault he died. It’s my fault he was there. If I hadn’t called him that night he would’ve still been sleeping in his bed.”
“Isaac was killed because he was fucking with the heroin trade.”
“No! He was killed because I was pissed at him and wanted to fuck with him by getting him out of bed at 2 am. Maverick was on callout with me. Not him!”
He fell forward, his palms slapping against the flat plane of the countertop.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said with a shaky voice.
He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the pain to subside. I could see his guilt had gotten the best of him. It had festered inside of him. It had been chewing him up for weeks, rotting his usual, easy-going nature.
“He wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t called him,” he rasped.
“If they didn’t get him then, they were going to get him another time.”
He looked up, his face pained and my chest was heavy with emotion when I saw the torment burning like wildfire in his agonized eyes.
“Isaac died because of me,” he whispered.
“Stop,” I said. “You know that’s not true.”
His fist pounded the countertop, veins as taut as ropes winding around his wide forearm.
“That’s the thing, Indy.” His throat worked as he swallowed. “It is.”
He turned his back and began to walk away.
“Is that it?” I called after him. “Is that the reason you haven’t been around? Or do you just not want me anymore?”