Page 55 of Breaking Point (IceHawks #1)

Grayson

GRAYSON

missing you extra today, Drew

wish you were here annoying me

and I wish I wasn’t texting someone that will never respond to me

guess you finally pulled the ultimate ghost move, huh?

too soon?

I might have texted Bella saying I wasn’t stalking her, but by the way I can’t stop checking the dog camera, that’s just an outright lie.

At first, I was just checking on Bambi, my heart aching at her sorrowful howls.

Even knowing that we have to get through this tricky stage for her to be all right by herself in the future, it didn’t ease the guilt.

But then Bella came home and the slump of her shoulders, the drag of her feet, and the utterly grim expression on her face made me stay and watch.

She looked broken. Tired beyond repair.

And in that moment, with her walls down, when I saw just how much she’s been putting on a brave face, I knew I did the right thing buying the art supplies .

Even if my thoughts have since spiraled because I haven’t seen her or Bambi on the camera in a little over two hours.

Did she steal my dog and write Fuck You on the whiteboard for overstepping?

I mean, I wouldn’t blame her. We’ve crossed a lot of lines recently, but pushing her to draw might have pushed her too far.

I’m white-knuckling my steering wheel as I finally turn into my driveway, the gate sliding behind me. I hold my breath the entire ride up the driveway.

And I don’t release it until I see her car is still here.

So she didn’t steal my dog and run.

She could have gone on foot.

Now I’m just letting my anxious thoughts run rampant. Steeling myself, I take a deep breath before unlocking my front door and stepping inside.

As I close the door behind me, I note how Bambi doesn’t come running. She’s gotten used to the vibration of the front door, and if she isn’t running to greet me with her little happy face, she must be outside.

I round the corner, and when the back deck comes into view, I stop. Because sitting there with a sketch pad in front of her, her fingers dirty with lead, is Bella.

With her back to me, she doesn’t notice my arrival. Neither does Bambi, who sits beside her on the deck.

The pair face the mountains, the sun beginning to set and casting a warm orange hue across the land. I don’t think my chest has ever felt this way before. My heart practically melts into a puddle at just the simple act of coming home to find Bella drawing with Bambi beside her.

The sight of it has my stomach flipping.

I never want to come home to an empty house again.

I don’t want to come home to anyone but them .

Because this feeling is everything.

A small voice tells me I don’t deserve it, that after what I did to Drew I shouldn’t be lucky enough, and yet here she is.

My blazing girl who came into my life like a wildfire.

Moving slowly to not spook either of them, I position myself so I can see what she’s drawing. Bella didn’t give herself credit. I don’t know why the fuck she was working a corporate designer job when she can draw like that .

Her bottom lip is caught between her teeth, her brows lowered, eyes narrowed as her hand flies across the sketchpad. She’s drawn the mountains, along with Bambi lying in the grass and looking at the view.

The accuracy of it is uncanny.

Realism doesn’t cover it. It doesn’t look like she’s created it with the talent of her hands and a pencil. It looks like she’s taken a photo.

I slide my gaze to Bambi. Her tongue is hanging out, with her head tipped back and her eyes closed as she soaks up the golden rays of the setting sun. I’ve never seen what contentment looks like on a dog, but if I had to guess, it would be this.

She’s a far cry from the anxious dog she was just a few hours earlier.

I couldn’t let her go to another family even if I tried.

Before I can change my mind or tell myself I’m a creep, I pull out my phone and take a picture of a moment I want to cherish for as long as I live.

Staring at them, the two girls that have made my heart beat with something other than misery, I decide it’s now my turn to hold up my end of the bargain.

It’s been thirty minutes since my mental declaration, and I still haven’t been able to step inside the shed.

The last time I went inside, Drew was beside me. It was a Sunday and like all Sundays, he’d come over to cook my meals for the week. He would be inside cooking and I’d be outside gardening .

He’d come out every now and then when he was waiting on something and we’d banter back and forth. Kieran is my best friend, but like most siblings close in age, Drew was my first best friend.

I keep trying to tell myself it’s just a shed. That Drew didn’t even like gardening, and yet for some reason my mind has correlated the two together. Every time I lift my hand to open the shed it shakes and I find I can’t even touch the door.

A wet slobbery lick runs up the back of my calf.

Spinning, I find Bambi staring up at me, wagging her tail. Bending, I begin to ruffle her fur but she’s suddenly bounding past me and before I can stop her, she’s got her nose shoved in a gap in the shed’s door I didn’t realize was there and pushing her head through.

By the time I’m up, stupidly calling out her name—like that will get the attention of a deaf dog—her body is through and inside.

I don’t have a choice now.

There’s tools upon tools that are a death trap for a dog in there.

Cursing under my breath, I force myself through the shed while I hold my breath. Except, where I expect to find Bambi surrounded by knocked-over tools, she’s just sitting at the entrance, waiting for me like the good girl she is with a giant smile on her face.

I want to sign good girl , but I don’t want to encourage her to come in here alone.

Sighing deeply, I regard the shed. “Well, you got me in here,” I mutter.

My eyes track over the space, shocked to see how dirty it’s gotten. Everything is covered with a thin layer of dust. There’s cobwebs everywhere and I’m a little afraid of what I’ll find in my gardening boots and gloves.

Running my hands through my hair, I feel like pulling the strands but that will get me nowhere except with a painful headache.

Bambi shifts forward, scooting herself so she can be closer to me. My brow quirks. “You knew exactly what you were doing, didn’t you?”

Her head cocks to the side as she watches my face closely.

My phone’s burning a hole in my pocket with the photo of Bella’s drawing. If she can do it, on all days like today when her closest support network leaves, then I can do the minimum and pull some weeds and protect the soil to get the yard ready for winter… right ?

“I can do this,” I say to Bambi but more to myself.

Bambi comes with me, her head locked on my face as if she’s waiting to read my body language.

Taking a steadying breath, I regard her. “You helped Bella so now you’re helping me, is that what’s happening?”

I don’t know why I hold my breath. It’s not like she can talk, but as I move farther into the shed, picking up a black bucket to hold the weeds I plan to pull out, Bambi sticks to me like glue.

Despite my chest tightening, the sound of her heavy pants shockingly soothes me. Turning to her, I smile. “Are you my landscaping assistant?”

She sits, trying to perform her shake trick but on my leg.

My brows jump a mile high before I shake my head. “Too damn smart,” I mutter before taking the clippers, weed puller, and black bin with me out of the shed, Bambi following close on my heels.

I don’t look toward the deck, not because I don’t want to see her but right now, for the first time since I found Bella in my living room, my mind is entirely focused on the way panic is settling in my veins, spreading like a plague.

As I move to the right-side fence, that day begins to come back in clipped snapshots of images. How Drew came out, shouting about being bored and wanting to leave for the party we planned to go to that night.

The sun was setting.

My hands were covered in dirt.

Drew had finished cooking for the night and had a beer in his hand.

My vision swims .

Black spots suddenly appear.

I drop to my hands and knees, enflamed by panic. I can’t see anything. My fingers clutch the grass, my chest heaving wildly, and even I can hear the short wheezes coming from me.

A tongue darts out across my face, accompanied by a whine from Bambi.

She bops me, her nose pushing and probing my chest. I keep trying to push her away but suddenly she’s headbutting me, making me fall backward. Her paws cover my chest and then she lays her entire body on me.

Something about the pressure and the feel of her tongue licking my hand over and over has the black spots receding—the memory fading.

I can’t see Drew’s stricken, horrified face as lights backlit his head from the passenger window. Instead, I find Bambi, panting down at me with the setting sun in the background.

My hands are shaking, my chest still heaving, but the wheezing has subsided.

Wrapping my arms around Bambi, I blow out a breath. “Whoever gave you up was a jackass.”

Bambi moves off me only to lie down beside me, her eyes on me as I move to a sitting position. I gingerly wrap my hands around the weed puller, relieved that I’m not pelted with the memory of that day .

Patting Bambi behind the ear, I say, “What would I do without you, hmm?”

Trying to shake off out the rest of the jitters and buzzing nervous energy, I force myself to keep going, surprised to find that after that initial shock and surface of the memory, the pain takes a back seat to the memories from every other Sunday.

The sound of Drew’s music as it floated to me while I worked. The sound of the sliding glass door as he came out to rile me up between cooking.

It stuns me speechless. I move along the property line, pulling weeds. I don’t feel suffocated—anxious, yes—but I don’t feel buried beneath my grief.

In fact, I’ve never felt closer to Drew since he passed .

I never had those moments everyone talks about feeling close to a loved one when they pass.

I never understood the saying that they’re next to you in spirit because I just never felt it.

But today, with the setting sun behind the mountains, Bambi beside me, and my hands covered in dirt, a part of me feels like Drew is right beside me, throwing verbal jabs at me and pissed that I can’t hear him.