Niro (Henchmen MC Next Generation 1)

"I, ah, I pulled a bullet out of a man. And stitched him. On the kitchen table," she told me, grimacing, going a bit gray at the memory.

"Did he live?"

"I think so? I'm not sure. No one has, you know, said anything to me about it."

"Said anything. You've spoken to them since."

"Just once. Um. They're watching me, I guess. Or they were. I don't know."

"When did you talk to them?"

At that, her head ducked down, as a flush moved across her cheeks. "Andi?"

"The day in the parking lot at my work," she explained, refusing to meet my gaze. "After you ran up. I, ah, I guess they thought I'd called you. So he started to get out of the car. And I, um, I needed to distract..." she trailed off there.

But I didn't need her to finish.

Fuck.

"I see," I said, untangling my limbs from her.

I did.

I saw.

She needed to distract me from seeing the guy watching her.

She needed for me not to know he existed.

Because if this guy found out that she was talking to her people, he would have to kill them all. Me included.

All this time I spent analyzing that situation in my head, I'd always assumed that she'd never meant those words she said back to me in that bathroom, that she'd said them to protect herself, that she did want me.

Because, otherwise, she wouldn't have kissed me, wouldn't have let me touch her.

It was a comfort of sorts. A tortuous one, but one nonetheless.

But that wasn't how it was.

She'd kissed me, had let me put my hands on her not because she necessarily wanted me, but because she needed to distract me.

The fact that she was wet, that she came, that was just a physical reaction. It didn't mean anything.

"Niro," she said, reaching out, her hand closing around my arm even as I surged off the bed, needing space, needing to get my head together.

I didn't think it was possible anymore, what with all the work I'd done to beat my feelings down, but pain ricocheted through my hollow rib cage, so sharp it made me suck in my breath as I took a few steps from the bed.

"Where are you going?" she asked, voice a sad, small thing. I should have cared. I always cared. But I was too consumed in my own problems right then to worry about why her voice sounded upset.

"I need space," I admitted, moving out into the main area of her apartment. The space was dominated by more houseplants than I had ever seen, some of them arranged in such a way that their leaves trailed along the walls like art. She had natural-toned area rugs in the small living room area and through the kitchen where I could still see the box for her new coffee pot sitting on the island.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," she said, following me out, Nugget's little nails clicking on the floor as he came out as well.

"Once upon a time, Andi, you never would have hesitated. No matter what those bastards said to you," I told her, turning to find her standing several feet away, looking beat up from life. And I was just going to keep throwing punches, apparently.

"He told me what he was going to do to you."

"You would have trusted me to protect you."

"I wasn't worried about me," she said, voice rising, getting squeaky. She never handled confrontation well. We had about two more minutes before she started angry-crying, if things still worked how they once did for her in that department.

"I don't need you to look out for me," I told her, shrugging, resisting the urge to rub at the ache in my chest.

"Gee, I'm sorry I care about you. How dare I, right?"

"Enough, Andi," I demanded, raking my hands down my face, not sure the last time I felt quite so fucking tired.

"Enough what?"

"Enough pretending. Clinging to the past and trying to make it work in the present. Enough."

"I don't know what you are talking about."

What was I talking about?

A lifetime of love for someone who only ever saw me as a friend. The fact that I needed to turn myself into another person just to ease the hopelessness of it. And still, fucking still, when she came back and seemed the least bit interested, a part of me managed to feel hope and possibility.

But I couldn't tell her that.

Because I knew Andi.

I knew a part of her would feel almost obligated to give it a shot just because of my feelings, completely disregarding her own.

So telling her that seemed a hell of a lot like passing a loaded gun into her trembling fingers and aiming it at my chest.

I wasn't sure I was brave enough to play Russian Roulette with her uncertainty.

I'd been dealing with this for long enough.