Ocean (Damage Control 5)

“Leaving where?” Micah asks quietly, as if he’s trying to decide whether I’m drunk out of my mind or pulling a prank on him.

“Wish I knew. He wouldn’t talk about it.”

“But he said he was? When was that?”

“Yesterday morning.”

I stop at my row of plants and pet them. One of them, my agave, is losing color, its leaves curling and going brown around the base.

“Just that? He said, I’m leaving?”

I run my fingertips over the dead parts of the leaves. Dry, rough. “He said he wished he didn’t have to leave. And then he said…” I straighten. “He said he won’t forget me.”

“Are you serious now?” Micah’s voice rises and falls. Maybe he’s walking. “He said that?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck. He can’t have meant anything by it. I mean, he’s away almost every weekend lately. I bet you ten bucks he’s coming back. Damage Control is the guy’s life.”

Then why do I have this cold, heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach?

“He’s not a melodramatic guy,” I say, and I’m mortified when my voice wobbles. What the hell, Kay? “And it’s not like there was anything going on between us and he had to lie.”

“Wasn’t there?”

I freeze half-way to the far wall. “What do you mean?”

“Guy’s got eyes only for you. What did you think I meant?”

Shit. “Nothing. So you think he’s off to visit whoever it is he visits and is coming back?”

Funny how important that is to me, even if there’s zero follow-up in the fun-and-games category. I want him back. Not for his ripped chest and big cock—though that was hot—but for his smile and his gentleness and his big heart.

“Yeah, I do. I dunno if this is a secret, but it’s his folks he visits every weekend. He said something about his mom being unwell.”

“That bitch?”

He snorts into the phone. “You’ve met?”

“No, but who calls her children Ocean and Raine Storm?”

He chuckles again. “You’d be surprised.”

Hm.

Anyway, okay, he’s probably right. Ocean’s coming back, and the relief spreads through me like cool water.

It’s a strange feeling, like boarding a bus a second before it leaves the station. Like I almost missed something amazing, something that was missing from my life.

Someone.

I put away my phone and stare blankly at the wall. This makes no sense. But Ocean is coming back, and I want to know more about him, about his brother and his cruel mother and the things that make him sad, and angry, and happy. Somehow spreading the cards doesn’t hold a candle to asking him face to face and finally getting some answers.

Why I should need to know more about him is another matter. One I don’t exactly understand, but the need can’t be denied. The desire to break through his walls and see who he really is. Because he’s changed, or else his mask has crumbled these past months. He’s different.

More complicated. More interesting. More important to me.

Nothing wrong with that.