Avenging Angel (Pounding Hearts 5)

“Sure,” I answer automatically.

Why not? I don’t have anything else going on, and it would be cool to see his gym.

“What time do you need me to come in?” I ask, relaxing again in my seat.

Logan starts to chuckle beside me, and I don’t understand why he’s doing it until Chase answers, with his eyes gleaming, “I’ll need you to help me open at six in the morning.”

Chapter Five

Emmett

Having Bear, the big, hulking motherfucker, beside me, breathing quietly and not saying a word, is unnerving as hell right now.

I haven’t had a drink since last night, and I can feel the nerve endings in my shoulder just fucking buzzing with the tingles. There’s also a headache threatening to encompass my entire head.

The tingles, though, are supposed to be more of a psychosomatic thing, at least that’s what the doctor said before I stopped seeing him.

He kept giving me too many warnings about how I was going to kill myself drinking.

“You going to fucking say anything or is this one of those silent gigs?” I ask as I pull up to a red light.

Still with the fucking silence. Nothing out of him beyond a grunt.

“Big, motherfucking, bear,” I grumble and push down on the pedal as soon as the light turns green.

It’s not like I really need his ass acting like a babysitter or anything. Though, if I had it my way, I’d still be passed out in my living room, or maybe awake with a good ice cold beer in my hand.

I don’t need this shit today.

“You planning on taking the longest way possible?” Bear asks in that deep, quiet rumble of his.

“No…” I say, and then turn off my blinker.

For some damn reason my mind was trying to turn away from the gym and head toward the interstate.

Subconsciously, I was absolutely going to go the other way.

“Then let’s skip the long way around and just get it over with. You’ve got obligations at the gym today, and like you said, no promises past today,” he says.

Nodding my head, I refocus on the drive to the gym. Not that I really need to remember how to get there. Before everything that happened, I practically lived there. Tommy and I were there almost every day and night.

Shit, even his son was a fixture.

Casey started getting involved with the youth MMA group Chase was running. He worked as hard as we did a lot of the time, and fuck… I haven’t seen him since the funeral. I tried listening to the messages Tommy’s parents left me, but I just couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t bear the thought of letting all those old fucking wounds open up.

“Bear,” I say quietly, “I… I’m not exactly sure I can do this.”

“Why not?” he asks, and I expect to hear judgement in his tone or maybe even anger.

Instead, he sounds so calm and interested in what I have to say it hurts my stomach.

“Because I… I should have swallowed that bullet,” I gulp out and my eyes start going fucking hazy on me.

Silence again reigns supreme.

Silence is not always golden.