“And you did that because... ?” he prompted.

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now.”

Fucking shit.

More games.

“Millie, this is the fuckin’ game I been talkin’ about,” he clipped.

She flinched, not a communication of discomfort or pain, one of frustration.

But he again didn’t give a fuck.

She was frustrated?

He was too and the woman had started this bullshit.

“Christ, if you’d just spit it out, we’d be done with this,” he reminded her.

She locked eyes with him. “Release me.”

“Jesus, Millie—”

“You’re coming to me,” she pointed out. “Stop it. Release me.”

He threw an arm out to indicate the desk and the shit he swept all over the floor and asked, “Gonna be hard for you to convince me that isn’t the goal you wanna achieve, wrap me up tight in that wet pussy of yours and play with me however you want. I know that game, caught up in it before, so I also know you’re good at it.”

She attempted to instigate another score.

“It’s almost impossible to believe, looking at you, knowing who you are, knowing who you were, and listening to you speak to me like that.”

But that was taking it too far.

And High was not a man who allowed that shit.

Not anymore.

Not since Millie taught him not to do it.

“Fuck, bitch,” he snarled, “you cannot seriously be standing there tryin’ the guilt game on me when you fucked up my whole goddamned life, and like that wasn’t enough, waltzed back into it, you lookin’ for me, to try to do it again.”

And apparently, what he said took it too far for Millie.

He knew it when she leaned forward, her beautiful face twisted in pain, and hissed, “I’ve been walking through fire for you for twenty years, Logan. Do not stand in my office that you walked into without an invitation and feed me your shit. This is revenge. This is your way of hurting me after I hurt you. I’m not stupid. You want it?” She leaned back and tossed out both arms. “Take it. But I’m not gonna get on my knees and let you shove my face down so you can’t see it but you can fuck faceless pussy knowing exactly how much you’re humiliating me. You need to take from me, I’ll give it but only because I’m giving to get.”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t get when you were on your knees for me at Bill’s,” he sneered.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know exactly the insult you were delivering,” she fired back. “You knew, High. You knew. You knew you were delivering the worst insult a man could give to a woman. You knew it and do not tell me you didn’t.”

He couldn’t tell her that because she was right.

And she’d deserved it.

At least he’d thought that at the time.

Staring into her face, a face saturated with fury and hurt, he was thinking twice.

“Tell me how you walked through fire for me,” he ordered.

“No,” she whispered, the word soft but it held so much power, it left a gash in the air of the room and he felt his chest burning like he was struggling for breath. “Never,” she went on. “I was gonna give that to you but then you lost the right to it.”

“So it’s still game on,” he noted.

“Not if you release me,” she replied.

He decided to lay it out.

“Clue in, Millie. I’m comin’ to you, so who’s got a hold on who?”

“You’ve got the power to let this be over,” she told him.

“How’s that when I don’t even have to fuckin’ kiss you to make you drenched for me?” he returned.

“God!” she cried, looking to the ceiling.

He ignored that and shared, “This isn’t done, we both know it and I’m guessin’ from this irritatin’ conversation we got no choice but to ride whatever the fuck this is out, but it’s me who’s gotta do it hopin’ you don’t rip me up in the process.”

She tipped her head down and again locked eyes on him. “If you think that, then you aren’t paying attention.”

“Baby,” he drawled, “trust me, you got my complete attention.”

It was then she landed the hammer.

“No, I don’t and from the way you’re treating me, it’s clear I never did.”

With that, she ended their conversation by turning, entering the bathroom, and slamming the door and he heard the lock go.

He could bust down the door but enough was enough.

The bitch told him she walked through fire for him, insinuating that there was something he fucking didn’t catch back in the day.

Bullshit.

Total bullshit Millie games.

And High slammed out of her office thinking precisely that.

But the blow had been delivered.

And he’d walked through her house and he’d seen how she’d changed, how she lived like a ghost, how she was nothing like the woman he thought he knew her to be.

So he couldn’t stop the nagging at the edge of his mind that Millie hadn’t cut him out but instead he’d lost her and he hadn’t only done it back then but he’d done it again now.

His Millie was gone.

In every way she could be.

*  *  *

Later that night, when High had switched out his bike for his truck, he went back to Millie’s.

Not her house.

The alley.

He knew it was stupid.

He didn’t care.

He told himself he needed every bit of ammunition he could get in this war and that crate was full of ammunition.

He wouldn’t allow himself to believe he went back for a different reason.

But when he got to the Dumpster and got out of his truck, he saw the crate was gone.

He lifted the lid on the Dumpster and saw that it hadn’t been emptied nor had the crate been thrown into it.

It was a decent crate, could be used for a lot of shit.

Someone had stolen it and stolen High and Millie with it.

Likely they’d toss all the photos. Three years of living a dream, gone.

He got back into his truck, his gut roiling, his hands clenching the steering wheel with fury.

She’d dumped them.

And now they were gone.

And as he drove away, High decided the bitch would pay for that too.

Twenty-two years ago...

Logan woke to an empty bed.

He blinked away sleep, looked to Millie’s nightstand and caught the time on her alarm clock.

Then he threw back the covers, got out of bed, and walked out of their bedroom.

He didn’t find her in the second bedroom, a room she’d set up as a place she could study.

He knew why he didn’t find her there. When she did late nights like that, she did them at the dining room table downstairs so any noise she made wouldn’t disturb him.

Unsurprisingly, he found her where he knew she’d be but he found her slumped over, cheek to a notepad, books open everywhere, dead asleep.

He moved around the room, shutting off lights, before he moved to his girl.

Gently, he lifted her away from the table, then up in his arms.

As gently as he did it, she roused.

“Wha... oh man,” she muttered drowsily. “Did I crash?”

“Yeah, baby,” he replied, moving from the living room into the foyer to the stairs.

“I can walk, Snooks.”

Logan felt his lips curve up.

Snooks.

The boys called him High.

Millie didn’t call him High.

She called him Logan, Low, and Snooks when they were in company and when they weren’t.

But she called him Snook’ums when no one was around.

It was goofy and it was cute and it was all Millie.

He loved it.

Halfway up the steps, he stopped and put her to her feet but he didn’t take his arm from around her.

She slid hers around him and they walked up the rest of the stairs together.

“You get done what you needed?” he asked.

“No clue. I don’t remember when I crashed, but I’m guessing... no,” she answered.

Logan’s lips didn’t curve up at that.

They tightened.

It was finals. She was taking a heavy second semester schedule in hopes of graduating in three and a half years rather than four so they could start their life and their family and do it without delay.