Dirty, Reckless Love (Boys of Jackson Harbor 3)

Levi grimaces, looking away. “Yes. Sort of. He stopped with the street shit after that. That was a victory in itself, but he never stopped being an addict.” He hesitates before continuing. “He broke a few ribs in a race about a year ago. He legitimately needed painkillers. But I think the line between need and want got fuzzy, and . . .” He shrugs. “It was never easy for him.”

“Right.” I study a patch of weeds sprouting from a crack in the concrete.

“Don’t say anything to Ava about all that,” Levi says. “She never knew about Colton’s drug problems. You and I always handled it ourselves.”

“Yeah, that would be a crappy thing for her to learn while she’s trying to prepare for her wedding day.” I release a dry laugh. “I feel like I’m going to do something like that. Reveal some secret I don’t know is a secret, or accidentally break someone’s heart because I can only see part of the picture.”

He studies me for a long beat, and I’m sucked back into the memory of him above me, his hands cupping my face. “No regrets.” Again, I wonder how we got there.

A car honks down the block, breaking the silence and tension between us.

“Are you ready to go in?” Levi asks.

“Sure. Yeah, let’s get this over with. Just like ripping off a Band-Aid, right?” I walk up to the door with hands that are shaking so hard I can’t get the key in the lock.

Levi takes the key from me, unlocks the door, and pushes it open. The dark interior fills with the staccato beeping of an alarm, and he swings into the house to press the glowing buttons on the panel. After the beeping stops, he flips on the lights, illuminating the living room. “We assumed you’d be coming home and wanted to make sure you’d be safe here.”

“Oh.” Goose bumps prickle to life down my arms, and I try to rub them away. “Thanks.” I step into the house and stare at the panel.

“To disarm it or arm it, just press the star twice and then the code, 102469, followed by the star.” He laughs. “And I guess I could have told you that at the bar. It’s not exactly technical.”

“No, but I’m glad you came.” I look around the living room. “It’s weird to be back here. I’m not sure I’d have had the courage to walk in the door without you.”

He clears his throat. “Directions on how to work it are on the coffee table, and you can change the code with the security company if you don’t want to use the one I set.” He meets my eyes for a long beat. “Just promise me you’ll use it, okay?”

“I promise.”

“Ava and I have been over a few times to check on things, and the neighbors keep an eye out too. Your nosy neighbor across the street is probably the reason you’re alive. The night you were hospitalized, she heard shouting and called the police.”

I wonder what kind of shouting she heard. Was I arguing with someone or simply crying for help? “I guess I’ll write her a thank-you note. The old prude proved useful after all.”

He grunts. “You do remember.”

“She isn’t a fan of PDA, and Colton never had a problem with it. He’d kiss me out front or grab my ass, and she’d flip out.”

He shrugs, clearly not interested in talking about my escapades in PDA with Colton. “Do you remember this place too then?”

I nod. “I do. I bought it not long after I left the gallery.”

He cocks his head to the side. “You never told me. Why did you leave the gallery?”

My instinct is to give him an honest answer, but if I tell him the truth, he might ask why I didn’t call the cops to report the stolen paintings. Even though I trust Levi on a gut level I can’t explain, I don’t know enough about him to know if I should. “Nelson and I didn’t see eye to eye. It was time for me to move on.”

He lets it go with that. “So, I don’t need to show you where the bathroom is or to explain that you need to push and turn the knob on the kitchen sink to keep it from leaking?”

“I think I’m good.”

His broad chest expands, and he points a thumb toward the front door. “Then I guess I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Would you stay for a minute?” I blurt before he can move. “I know I have the alarm and everything, but I’d rather not be alone until I’ve walked through the whole house.”

“Sure.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks around. “The place was a little bit of a mess after the police searched it, but Ava and I cleaned it up.”

“You didn’t have to do any of this.” A sharp stab of guilt hits me center mass. My friends were cleaning up my house and installing an alarm system, and I was planning to spend the rest of my life pretending they didn’t exist.

“Of course we did. That’s what friends do.”

That ache again. For friendships I don’t remember well enough to understand