Grant huffed. “Yeah. Good luck getting a cab to show up at this address at this time of night.”
I chewed on my lip, realizing he was right. Cabs didn’t come here at night unless the driver was looking to score. It had been so long, I’d forgotten the rhythm of the land, the unwritten rules.
“I could ask Cruz.” My thumb went over my shoulder as I wondered what the hell I was doing trying to get out of this. I needed to talk to Grant, and the ride home would be the perfect time to do just that.
“Ryan, damn, can we not do this? I’m here. I’m not leaving you alone here, so would you just let me drive you home without having to go ten rounds? I’m beat and would like to crawl into bed sometime tonight.”
Taking another minute, I came up beside him. “Okay.”
“Thank god,” he muttered, giving me a light nudge as we started down the sidewalk.
It was the closest we’d been all night, and being close felt surprisingly easier than keeping our distance. That was probably because that was all we knew. The closer we’d kept to each other, the safer we stayed. The closer we stayed, the lesser the likelihood of us getting ripped apart.
“Thank you, Grant. For all of this. I know I’m the last person you have reason to be charitable to.”
As we passed a burnt-out streetlight, Grant slid closer. Just close enough to have me within arm’s reach, though not as close as he used to.
“Not the last.” His head shook once as he looked at me from the corner of his eyes. “Maybe the second to last though.”
When I noticed him fight a smile, I gave him a shove. It was like trying to move a concrete barricade. That hadn’t changed. “When did you develop a sense of humor?”
His shoulders lifted as he checked over his shoulder. He was the size of a tractor—no one was going to mess with him. People had stopped messing with him when he packed on twenty pounds of muscle the summer he turned fifteen. “When I realized life was too damn tragic not to laugh at it from time to time.”
A wave of sadness hit me, but I was used to them. I’d gotten lots of practice pushing them aside.
There was only one car on the street in front of us. It was a familiar one, though only faintly. It had been a shell the last time I saw it, but that wasn’t the case anymore. “You finished it.”
“Someone had to.” Grant pulled a key out of his pocket and punched a button that turned off the security system.
“It’s beautiful, Grant. Wow.” My pace picked up as we approached the old truck. “I never would have guessed that hunk of junk could become this.”
“Yeah, me either.” He unlocked the doors and swung the passenger one open. “It’s amazing what hard work and stubborn-ass determination can do.”
“It saved this piecer from getting scraped.” I admired the outside of the truck, running my hand against the gleaming black paint.
“Barely.”
“Barely?” I glanced back at Grant, who was staring at the truck like he was seeing something else.
“After my dad died, I arranged to get rid of everything of his. From his boots to his truck. I didn’t want any of it.” Grant shrugged. “Then I realized this truck was the one good memory I had of my old man. The one time he’d tried to do something constructive with me. The one time he’d been interested in bonding with his son instead of alienating him.”
My teeth sank into my lower lip. “You chose to hang on to the good.”
He considered that for a moment before nodding. “I guess I did.”
After he closed the door behind me, I wondered if he’d adopted that policy in other areas of his life. If he had, it would make everything easier.
“You don’t drive this back and forth to New York, do you?” I asked.
“I store it here so I have something to get around in whenever I come back.” As he slid into driver’s seat, he glanced at where I sat on the other end of the bench. “Buckle up.”
I pulled the belt over me and buckled it into place. “Still trying to keep me safe.”
I’d said it teasingly, but it was clear from his expression that my safety wasn’t anything he took lightly. “Old habits.”
“Die hard?” I filled in as he fired on the engine.
His hands curled around the steering wheel. “Die never.”
As Grant pulled away from the curb and set us on the road that would take us out of The Clink, I settled into the seat and took a moment to admire him while his attention was focused on the road.
He looked the same. Older, but the same. Same short brown hair, same dark eyes that could say everything or give away nothing depending on the situation. Even the way he sat stretched out behind the steering wheel was the same. Grant had always been big for his age, never quite fitting into anything, so whenever he was somewhere with space, he stretched out as wide as he could, like he was trying to make up for all of the times his knees had been crammed into the seat in front of him.
He’d gotten bigger since I’d seen him last, but I supposed that was a side effect of playing in the pros. He had a body made for work and power, a body a woman couldn’t help admiring and considering the possibilities that came with it. Grant’s body had been the talk of the female population wherever he roamed, but it was his face I’d grown to appreciate more. The face that was an afterthought to others was the highlight to me.
His face would never walk runways or drop mouths—his nose had been broken too many times, his jaw was too square, his eyes too wide-set. He was more boy-next-door than male model. But when I looked at Grant’s face, I saw beauty and happiness and safety. Looking at him had always felt like home, and this time was no different.