Chapter Thirty-Eight

T OSSING MY STRESS ball from where I lay on my bed, with every catch, I begin to tick off the reasons for letting her go as my limbs grow heavy, no doubt due to my long shift at the garage.

Toss.

Brother.

Catch.

Club.

Toss.

Hindrance to progress.

Catch.

Liability.

Toss.

Fucking her the first time was fucking up .

Catch.

Allowing her into my space, my bed...all of it was senseless, pointless, and unnecessary.

Thunder rumbles as the storm continues to rage outside, and concern spikes that she drove home in this weather. Resisting the urge to ask Sean if he’s heard from her or tune into the mics in her room, I slap off my bedroom light and resume my place on my mattress.

I gave up my right to know.

Facts.

Ended it.

Point blank.

Had to.

Watching my bedside clock, a low spike of adrenaline starts to zing through me as the minutes tick closer to midnight.

Putting my earbuds in, I press play on one of my go-to lists. When “Three Little Birds” rings out, I rip them out like they’re on fire.

Nope.

Eleven-fifty-four.

The day is almost over.

I shrug against my pillow.

Swallowing against the increasing tightness beneath my rib cage, I turn on my stomach to get some shut eye.

Facing her pillow, I run my eyes down the vacant space beside me.

Normally, she’d be lying there, talking randomly, animatedly, droning on about something while running her fingers along my skin, laughter filling my room when she finally drew the reaction she wanted from me.

Even if I’m grounded in the club capacity, I have plenty to do. A thousand books to read, minimum. Bird business to conduct, which means we probably won’t run into each other. Then again, we likely will. It’s inevitable. I’ll have to get Sean to give me the heads-up when she’s around to make things easier for her. Not that it will be hard for her since I just ensured she’ll hate me.

Toss.

She’s got the plant and Sean.

Catch.

She’s got Sean .

Squeeze.

Discarding the ball, I move to sit at the edge of the bed, ears perking up for any sign she’s with him.

Is she with him?

That thought begins to gnaw at me as a rare, raw type of jealousy threatens at the idea that he’s stealing my fucking time with her.

She wouldn’t do that.

It’s not his day.

But as of a few hours ago, the time is no longer mine.

I did this.

Made it this way.

No choice.

Craning my neck toward the wall that separates our rooms, I glare at it.

If she is with him...

Fuck that noise.

Denial is ripped from me completely when a foreign type of possessiveness overtakes me, and my heart starts to thrash in confirmation. Jerking on some sweats, I walk over to the wall and cup my ear, straining for any sound.

Nothing.

Fuck this.

Stalking down the hall, I slap open Sean’s bedroom door with my palm to see him alone, flipping channels, boots crossed on his bed, a beer in hand. He flashes me his signature smirk. “Sup man?”

Relief skitters through me as I jerk my chin. His lips quirk further as his eyes drift back to the TV. “I’m thinking maybe someone doesn’t want to say he’s sorry.”

“Fuck you.”

I turn to leave, and he calls to my retreating back. “She’s worth a lot more than an apology.”

I turn on a dime. “Yeah, what’s she worth to you?”

He uses my own tactic against me with silence—stupid question.

I glare over at him as he sips his beer. “What the fuck are we doing?”

“You know what you’re doing, same as me. We’re crossing an uncrossable line.” His shoulders roll forward with the weight of the admission. “But the difference between us is that I’ve already made peace with it,” he states in a tone that contradicts that declaration. “It’s harder for you, Dom, and no big mystery why.” His expression hardens into a look reserved only for those he’s about to pull the trigger on. “So, I’ll give you a fucking pass, brother, just this once, for thinking you’ll ever be able to rip that woman from my arms—especially if you so recklessly ever push her into them.”

“Oh, it’s like that?” I ask, tilting my head as if I didn’t hear him right.

“She’s my fucking girlfriend, asshole, and she’s destroyed right now because of you. She wouldn’t let me console her, so what the fuck kind of reception did you expect?”

He pulls on his beer as if he didn’t just threaten me for the first time in our lives, and I let that shit resonate before realizing I’m in his room for the exact same reason.

Regardless, the resentment that he did threaten me kicks in just as he speaks up. “I love you, brother,” he sighs, “more than any other, that’s the truth, but it’s not me you’re fighting. So, please don’t twist me into the enemy to justify the turmoil going on in that brilliant fucking brain of yours. It’s the decision that’s killing you softly, so make it and make your own peace with it, for all our sakes.” The warning returns in his eyes. “But know this. Your decision no longer has any bearing on mine. The time for that has fucking passed.”

I linger in his doorway for a beat, seeing the toll the decision is taking on him before turning, gut lurching as I recall the damning words I hurt her with.

Do I even have a decision to make peace with anymore?

The realization that that choice is no longer mine takes hold as the ache I’ve been dismissing slams into me.

By the time I reach my room, I’m on fucking fire with regret. Shedding my sweats, I pull on some jeans as perspiration dots my hairline. Shoving into my boots, wallet tucked in my back pocket, keys in hand, anxiety propels me down the stairs as a nauseating unease sets in.

If I have to break into Roman Horner’s fucking house to take those words back, I will.

Reaching the foot of the stairs, I’m freed of that burden when I see her on the couch stroking Brandy with absent fingers as she stares up at the ceiling. The sight of her tear-streaked face and blotched cheeks has remorse doing its thing.

Fuck this.

I open my mouth to speak, and she beats me to it. “I’m going to have a dog of my own one day,” she utters faintly as if talking to an empty room. “They’re so much nicer than people.” She leans down so she’s nose to snout with Brandy. “Definitely nicer than criminals who like convenient fucks.” She laughs, but it’s lifeless. I’ve hurt her, knowing her heart, gutted her, and I wouldn’t blame her if she wrote me off for good.

You don’t deserve the decision and never have.

“But I guess things would be easier if I were more like you, Brandy, huh?” she coos to the dog. “ Silent , obedient , just waiting idly by for someone to order me around and tell me when and where to lick .” She lifts to sit without a glance my way, and it’s then I see her resignation. “I was going to leave, but it was raining too hard.” She slides into the flip-flops on the floor in front of her. “Looks like this rainy day is over.”

She stands and folds the blanket we’ve huddled under a handful of times—a blanket she brought from home—deeming it our movie night cover. A blanket we’ve wrapped up in after doing a lot more than watching movies. That’s our shit she’s holding for ransom and threatening to take out of this house along with her and away from me.

I stand there, like a fucking idiot, mad that I want her, boiling because I can’t fucking have her—not the way I want to...and pulsing to the brim with whatever the fuck is refusing to let me watch her walk out.

But I do know...I know exactly what it is.

I’ve been struck fucking stupid by the four-letter curse.

I’m. So. Completely. Fucked.

She grabs her purse and stops in front of where I’m standing. “I’ll see you around, Do—”

Snatching the blanket from her and tossing it on the couch, I ram into her like a linebacker and lift her, catching her harsh exhale as I whisk her up the stairs like a mindless fucking idiot before dumping her on her side of the bed. She bounces on the mattress, eyes wide, lips parted, gaping at me incredulously before her face twists with fury. “It’s not raining anymore.”

“I don’t give a fuck,” I say, damn near pointing to her side of the bed in instruction.

“Well, I do!”

“You’re not a dog,” I offer.

“Thanks, I guess that’s a step up from convenient whore! ”

She rattles with fury where she stands, and it’s all I can do to keep from pushing her back down on her side of my bed, where she belongs.

Who the fuck am I right now?

She glares at me, her hostility visceral. “If I ever gave you the impression that I’m fucking desperate , you got the wrong one, Dominic. Because, trust me, you are no woman’s first choice.” She surprises herself with her venom, and I can practically see the hand she denies cupping over her mouth in horror as her eyes flit with regret. As the pain of that statement singes me, I feel sorry for the bastard that will deserve and eventually claim her for good. She’s going to give him hell. In the next second, I fucking hate him because it’s not me, and maybe I’ll never be worthy of being in the running with the way I’ve deceived her. “You didn’t go to him. Why?”

“To Sean?” She shakes her head. “Because this is our fucking rela—” she stops herself from saying the word she thinks scares me. That’s not the word that scares me. Not anymore.

It’s another word, a decision-making word that worries me.

“Let me clarify this for you,” she asserts furiously. “I’m not desperate, but I’m becoming jaded because I’m the girl who really wants to fucking be with you, and you’re the busy criminal that’s fucking me because I’m convenient.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“Maybe you didn’t, but because it’s so easy for you to demean me that way, I don’t want you anymore.”

It’s another knife to the chest, and fuck me, I deserve it. When she steps toward the door, I block her. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “That’s not who I am.”

She snaps her head up, her eyes searching. “I thought I knew that, but you told me differently.” There’s truth to that, a whole wealth of shit she’s clueless to, and I can’t even fault her for that because we’re too good at what we do. She’s already so tangled in our web that I don’t know if she can get out. But all I want to do is sink my fangs in deeper, keep her tangled—with me.

“What, Dom...what is it that’s holding you back? I mean, if it’s Sean, I understand...I guess—”

I jerk my chin. “It’s not Sean.”

“Then what?”

That decision-making word.

Brother.

And it’s too fucking late because I want her on her side of my bed no matter the weather.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Goddammit.

“I won’t ever mistreat you like that again.”

“That was too easy for you.” Her voice rattles with hurt.

I jerk my chin. “No. It fucking wasn’t.”

Her eyes mist, but she lifts her chin defiantly. She’s not going to give me any tears. Good. I don’t deserve them. The need to bridge this, to make her believe me, to touch her and ease the roiling in my gut, intensifies as my palms start to sweat. She couldn’t have meant it. With the way I feel—if she’s feeling it too—it hurts too fucking much. Why can’t I say it?

Why can’t I just admit that?

Because I can’t tell her shit without backing it up, and I’m already too far into a corner that won’t allow it.

“Tell me what to say.”

She jerks her chin. “No.”

“Tell me what to do.”

“No,” she scoffs, “You’re a genius who was also blessed with common sense, and you damn sure know how to treat a woman a lot better than this—shitty temper or not. There’s nothing to say. You ended us.”

“No, I didn’t, or you would have already left,” I point out, which I note wasn’t the best idea as her nostrils flare.

“And you want this, or you would have let me. That was me you were coming after, right?” she spouts smugly.

This. Fucking. Girl.

“Fine. I want this. You.”

“Nope,” another jerk of her chin.

I grip the back of my neck. “You want what? A declaration or something?”

“No. I just wanted you, and you’ve made it a lot less appealing now.”

Fuck me.

“I told you that I would take whatever you could give me, and I meant it, so give me something , Dom.”

I search myself frantically because I know she means it.

“French bulldog,” I blurt, and she jerks back in confusion.

“What?”

“That’s the dog you should get,” I say.

She crosses her arms. “I’m listening.”

“They’re companion dogs with good temperament—easy going, alert, sociable, patient, smart. They’re so ugly that they’re cute. It’s the dog Sean should have gotten, but he got an idiot instead.”

She bites her top lip to stifle a smile.

“I won’t ever talk to you like that again, Cecelia. I mean it.”

“Yes, you will,” she counters. “You can’t promise that. So, don’t. Being with you is like being in a constant state between venom bite and cure. But with you, it’s just another weekday, and I can handle that as long as you’re honest with me...at least about us.” She steps toward me and delivers her next words point-blank. “But I wouldn’t suggest ever talking to me like that again.”

“Did you just threaten me?” I can’t help my smile.

“Yes.” She deadpans.

Lifting a hand, I run my thumb along her jaw before brushing the divot in her chin. Her eyes penetrate, and her words soothe the ache. “But you are worth it for me, Dom.”

My shoulders relax slightly as I circle her waist, my heart still pounding with the truth—there was never really a fucking decision. There was only giving into the one I’d already made. “I plan to make this apology much better.”

“Well, you haven’t set a high bar for yourself,” she harrumphs.

“That changes the minute you get back on your side of the bed.”