“Which Gwen and Tessa dealt with for Iris. Old ladies sticking together and all that,” Clutch says. There’s a note of pride in his voice.
I don’t remember any of that. “Fuck me. How badly was I out?”
The men laugh. “She chased Track and one of the prospects out of the kitchen while she was trying to make you some smoothie.”
“Which she also convinced me to add some powdered temazepam to, so you’d stay asleep to heal,” Switch adds.
“She drugged me?”
“Technically, I did, because I agreed with her.” Switch shakes his head. “She fought for you. Wish I had me a woman like that.”
I put my palms on the bar and study the cracked linoleum tiles on the floor beneath my feet.
She fought for you.
When I was out and down, she stood over me and made sure I was taken care of and safe, and that knowledge eases my body in a way I wouldn’t have believed possible. Not that my injuries suddenly disappear, but now I feel more capable of handling them.
Because I have Iris.
Suddenly, I’m starving as my body flickers back online. “I need some food.” My brothers follow me to the kitchen like I’m the fucking Pied Piper. I rip open a banana and inhale the damn thing while looking around for something else to eat. “Any of you know why she’s asleep on the floor?”
Switch tips some cereal into a bowl and adds milk. It’s the healthy shit Track eats, with bran and raisins and shit in it. Not my favorite, but I eat it anyway.
“She told Gwen it was because you guys had argued. We wouldn’t have called her if we’d known. She said you hadn’t consented. I told her you were too fucking out of it to care, but she wasn’t having it.”
“I don’t fucking deserve her,” I say, then realize I said it out loud.
King shrugs. “I disagree. But if I were you, I’d wonder if whatever that shit you argued about was bigger than what just happened. Because she loved you this hard, even though she thought you didn’t love her anymore.” He slaps his hand on my shoulder and leaves the kitchen.
“Never thought I’d see the day King was giving out relationship advice, but I agree with him,” Switch says. “Little chick has the heart of a fucking lion.”
I stand there as Switch’s footsteps disappear down the hallway. She’s a lion, and I’m a coward whose reaction to her snooping through my shit was triggered by embarrassment and fear.
We need to talk.
Four words that don’t sit easy.
Stalling, I make her a hot chocolate. I don’t even know if she likes it, but it strikes me she’s probably a whipped-cream-and-marshmallows kind of girl. If we had some, I’d add them.
I carry the mug back to my room, place it on the bedside table, then gingerly crouch next to her. “Iris. Wake up, little chick.”
With a start, she wakes up and backs away from the sound of my voice. Then she blinks those long lashes of hers a couple of times and looks around the room, as if trying to figure out where the hell she is.
“You okay?” I ask.
She pushes her hair back from her face. “Fine. Yes. Sorry. Was dreaming.”
“Come sit on the bed with me. We need to talk.”
“Give me a minute,” she says, climbing from beneath the blanket and walking into my bathroom. She’s wearing a pair of my shorts. They’re cinched at the waist but hang well below her knees. It’s adorably fucking cute.
When she returns, she obviously splashed water on her face; the baby hairs that frame her face are wet. While I sit at the top of the bed, resting on the pillows, pillows I stacked so she could join me, she climbs onto the bottom of the bed and sits cross-legged. Too far away from me to reach her properly.
I offer her the hot chocolate, and she sighs when she takes the first sip. She asks, “How are you feeling?”
“I’d feel better if you weren’t sitting so goddamn far away.”
“Your eye looks better,” she says without responding to my comment.
“Yeah. There’s only two of you this morning instead of the five I was seeing originally.”
“That’s good.” She sips some more of her chocolate, and an awkward silence settles between us.
“I fucking hate this,” I mutter.
Iris climbs off the bed and places her cup on the side table. “I’m sorry, I should go.”
But I reach for her arm and tug her close, even though it makes the stitches on my chest pull something fierce. She falls next to me. “You aren’t going anywhere, little chick.”
“You’re clearly feeling better. I need to get out of here.” Her eyes shimmer with tears, and I fucking hate myself for putting her through this.
“I’m sorry. Really fucking sorry. I’m sorry I got beat up and you had to deal with this. I’m sorry I lost my shit with you at the house. I have PTSD. I know to fix it means I need to unpack it, but I’ve worked hard to bury it and don’t want to open it all again outside of my dreams. Seeing you handle those reminders from the VA about my missed appointments made me . . . fuck, I was embarrassed. I didn’t want you to know how bad it was. Because if you did, I was worried you might have second thoughts about us. And I know something was going on with you that night, and I should have helped you through it differently.”
Her body relaxes, and her shoulders drop. But her eyes still don’t meet mine.
“Look at me, little chick.” Even when she wants to fight me, she still submits to what I ask of her. My dick stirs for the first time in days. Glad to see it’s not broken. “I need you to forgive me.”
Instead, she bursts into tears and curls up next to me. I wrap my arms around her while she cries. “It’s not what you think,” she mumbles through the sobs.
Rubbing what I hope are soothing circles over her back, I wait until the sobs have quieted before I respond. “What do you mean, it’s not what I think?”
When she finally sits up, her eyes are red. “I’m sorry. It was never about your mental health, because I respect you immensely. I don’t want you to ever worry I think less of you because of it. It was Cillian.”
My heart thuds low in my chest. “Cillian.”
“He threatened me. He’s using Michael. He told me if I didn’t find out information about the club and pass it to him, he’d stop paying for all the support Michael gets. But I can’t do what he asked. I’m the shittiest spy, and I don’t want to give him anything. Then, when I went to see him, Cillian threatened to keep Michael away from me. He had photographs of you and me fighting that he’d use against me if he had to. And I know it doesn’t make sense because of the crash thing. None of it makes sense anymore.” I look at the bruises blooming over his body and a wave of dread fills me. “Please tell me this wasn’t Cillian, because if he did this to you because of me, I won’t be able to deal with it.”
The tears start again, and even though she just told me everything she did wrong, I tug her to me.
“Fuck, Iris. This wasn’t Cillian. It was those guys we think are trafficking women. But—”
“I’m sorry. It’s not because of your PTSD. I wasn’t snooping because of that, and I’d rather you hate me than think the letters were what I was looking for. I love you too much to let you think that.”