Desperate to Touch

Fate is a cruel sorceress, but this time I love her. Because last night, I saw him. I spoke to him. He called me Babygirl and even through the fear, I want him to say it again.

Seth

She still doesn’t know how badly she fucked me over.

I try to keep that in mind as I wait for Laura. Waiting for her is all I’ve done since she said good night two weeks ago. Each hour has felt like an eternity. She whispered it when she opened the back door of my car, sliding out with tears running down her cheeks. She never cried in the open; she hated the tears. “Useless” is what she used to mutter when she was on the verge of tears.

Back then I always held her while she let it all out. That night, fourteen days ago, I merely watched as she stayed as silent as she could, wiping the tears from her cheek. Maybe that’s why she whispered “good night”—she didn’t trust herself to speak too loud or else I’d realize she was crying.

I already knew though. She should know better than to think she can hide from me.

If she thinks I don’t know how much it hurts, she’s dead wrong.

The tick of the clock in Jase’s office doesn’t stop. It reminds me that I’m getting closer to seeing her again. She’s to meet me, to come prepared to pay for the damages. She doesn’t know though, just how much she fucked me over.

“Anything else on Walsh?” Jase questions his brother, Declan, as I sit in the corner chair, a dark leather wingback. I listen to the two of them go over the details Declan’s been able to gather on the crooked cop hell-bent on revenge against the man known as Marcus. Only half my attention is on them. Until Declan says something about pitting the two of them against one another.

For a moment, I’m torn from my obsessive thoughts of seeing Laura tonight. The thoughts have been coming and going throughout the day. In the dark of night, alone in my bed with nothing but the memories of her, not a damn thing could get through to me. Certainly not sleep.

“Seth, what do you think?” Jase asks me, rolling up the sleeves of his crisp white dress shirt. Watching him lean back against his chair, the tailored suit jacket draped behind him, I’m reminded that I have shit to do other than deal with the woman who broke what semblance of a heart I had.

“I think being between the two of them is a piss-poor place to be,” I say, speaking up so Declan can hear me from where he is on the other side of the expansive office. His head is down as he types on the keys of his sleek laptop. It’s state of the art and expensive as fuck with all the software loaded onto it. He’s constantly searching for more information on Cody Walsh, the cop and former FBI agent who came to this town wreaking havoc.

“It would be easier if Walsh wasn’t blackmailing us to help him find Marcus.”

“It’s not like we can give him Marcus anyway. He’ll learn that it’s not that easy,” I comment but the foresight of what will happen along the way, and more importantly, after, breeds a disdain for the scheming cop. Months of surveillance on Marcus’s men have given us nothing but a list of men who work for the man. Nothing about him in particular. We don’t have a damn thing to give Walsh.

“Then how does him blackmailing us play out?” Jase’s unspoken concerns are read easily with the worry in his expression. If we can’t help Officer Walsh find Marcus, he could turn in the evidence he has on Jase and me. Then we’re fucked.

“We need to get something on Walsh. We can’t trust that he doesn’t have backups of the tapes. We could bury ourselves helping him and in the end, he’d turn us in anyway.”

“I agree with Declan,” I say as I nod solemnly. My voice is even and calm. The threat of going away for murder is there… but all I can focus on is Laura, and making her sweet ass pay for leaving me.

“Even if Walsh does turn in the evidence, we have ways to get around a conviction,” Jase says and his menacing glare moves to the lit fireplace on the right side of the room. “As soon as we’re able, I want him dead.”

I used to feel chills at the thought of murder. They would climb up my spine, sending a freezing cold deeper into my blood as they crept their way up. Not anymore, though. It’s been quite some time since I’ve felt any remorse or apprehension at the depravity I engage in.

“It must be done,” I agree.