Riot

He only laughs and pats my back. It doesn’t matter anyway. Booze is booze, and I need to start working on my goal for the night.

I order whisky at the bar and knock the first glass down before I take another look around. Yeah, student bar all right. It’s a weird feeling, seeing them flitting around the place, seemingly without a care in the world, giggling and dancing and taking group selfies.

They’re practically my age, minus a couple of years. I’m twenty-five and they’re, what, twenty?

It’s like we’re from different planets. Been working my ass off since I was sixteen and my foster mother got sick with cancer. She died two years later, and by then I was already fighting in the underground clubs of Chicago. It was the only job I could get that really paid, and I was damn good at it.

Until I decided to retire, find something else, something less dangerous, and caused Markus’ death.

The rest is history. Because Markus was the son of one of the founders of the club, and the blame is on me. His death is on me. I know it.

It should have been me.

Ever since, I haven’t been welcome at the club. Not that I want back, but still. It was my whole family for a while. I had friends there.

And this isn’t helping me straighten

out my thoughts. So I ask for more whisky, and knock that down, too. It burns going down my throat, spreading inside my chest.

Pax. When I’m with her, my mind is quiet. Calm. Filled with the need for her. The need to be inside her. The need to make her smile. To like me. To want me back.

Fuck.

“Hey,” a girl says, sidling up to me and pulling a stool. “You look lonely.”

Yeah. I am, at times.

“Why don’t you buy me a drink?” she goes on, and I take a better look at her. She’s a brunette, short and cute, and totally uninteresting to me.

Because she’s not Pax.

“I was just leaving,” I mutter, pulling out my wallet and throwing some bucks on the bar. “Maybe some other time.”

“Who gave you that shiner?” She puts her purse on the bar and gives me a narrow-eyed look. “Did you get into a fight?”

I shake my head and walk away. As I exit the bar, I text Gale to let him now I’m leaving. He doesn’t reply. Probably busy with some chick.

Gale doesn’t seem to have the doubts and conflicts I have lately. He says he’s happy not to have to deal with the feelings and responsibilities that come with relationships.

He’s never met Pax.

And a good thing, too. I’m the one she kissed, and touched, and told her pain to. He should stay away, because Pax is...

She’s mine. Hell.

All the whisky in the world can’t undo the damage now.

***

Again that itch between my shoulder blades, that feeling of being watched. Again nobody there when I turn.

My mind’s playing fucking tricks on me. More tricks. More doubts. Shit, that’s the last thing I need.

I stow away my bike and climb the stairs to my apartment, in a foul mood. As soon as I open the door, Dex jumps on me and climbs up to my shoulder. He starts purring and I pat his tiny head.

Not sure what I need right now—except the one thing, the one person I can’t have. It’s crazy that I’m so drawn to her. I’ve been with so many women, their faces blurring in my mind, while hers shines like a fucking star stuck in my thoughts.

Why her? Why now?