by Eden Rose
Recovering from surgery and being shot is not an easy task. I have people barging in and out of Wyatt’s home and asking me questions about what had happened. I tell them all exactly what I know and that’s nothing. I have no idea why those men were at my house or why they targeted me.
What I do know is, Ruth and I are about to kill each other.
Luke is being his normal cute self and is all excited about my being here. I love the little guy even though he is a product of the betrayal from my husband. Or soon to be ex.
“Cupcakes, let’s get cold cold!” Luke calls out to me as I stretch out from my nap.
The pain and swelling from my muscles make the task more work than it needs to be and I lightly howl from it.
“Lucas! You need to leave Keeley alone. She has an owie,” Ruth says as she glares at me and then at her son.
I want to be able to tell her to not do that. That Luke is just being a kid and is excited that he has someone here to play with, but I don’t. I’m picking my battles with Ruth and it’s about to happen soon.
We have been tip-toeing around each other and I feel the tension getting stronger and stronger. Especially after she caught Wyatt and I having sex in his bed. In our defense, it doesn’t really matter what she has to say because she’s fucking my husband.
“And for god sakes, quit calling her Cupcakes!” she scolds and then grabs him by his elbow.
Knowing that it’s my time to finally talk to her, I straighten my back and hiss at the pain in my chest. Agh! Sometimes it hurts to breathe, I hate it. When I laugh, I get the feeling of being stabbed in the side and it sucks because Luke is a funny kid.
“What is your problem?” I ask her in my “attorney” voice which is also my “no nonsense” voice. “I’m getting so sick and tired of you walking around like you’re mad at me. I didn’t do anything to you. You are the one that had a baby with my husband!” I spit out and then immediately regret it.
“Want to know what my problem is?” She asks me and advances forward to where I’m lying down. “My problem is the fact that you are a user. Don’t act like I don’t know about all of the drugs that you are taking. You think it’s cool bringing that around my brother and kid? It’s not. You’re only fucking here because you think you can fuck over my brother.”
I can feel my face turning red as I try to calm down enough to not stab her. “I’m using your brother? For what? His money? His fame? Get real and get over yourself.”
The fact that she tried to kill herself months ago and the fact that I want to bring it up, bubble on my tongue. I want to throw it in her face that she’s not perfectly innocent here.
Her face is floating above mine and I want to punch her in her teeth for the smug smile on her face. Ruth knows that she can get me big time because of the vulnerability that I have. However, I’m not going to let her do this to me.
“Get over myself? Huh, that’s great. Maybe you would like to know that Jerry came and begged for me. Maybe you would like to know that he said that you were so lame in bed that he hadn’t come in months. Or maybe you would like to know the fact that he has been giving me money for the past few years. What do you think about that?”
“What money?” I whisper and then feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up straight. She knows she has me now and I hate myself for showing her that I don’t have everything under control. “You’ve been taking money from Jerry?” It’s a rhetorical question, but I needed verbal confirmation.
Suddenly, all of the money that he has been taking from me makes sense. He needed the cash to pay off Ruth so she wouldn’t tell me what a dick Jerry was. She needed the money for something or another, but she’s extorted it.
The smile that spreads across her face makes my blood boil. She’s enjoying this way too much. “Don’t act like you didn’t know. Since you wouldn’t give him the baby he wanted, he’s been playing daddy to his son.”
Before I can stop myself, I fly out of bed and punch her in the jaw. My hand hurts and my side hurts from the exertion. “Fuck you.”
“I have something else that you might want to know. Did you know that Wyatt was in a gang in LA and that’s why we left? He killed someone and ran like a little bitch. If he wouldn’t have gotten off the charges, you wouldn’t have met him.”
My fist flies out again and it smashes her in the nose this time. Blood sprays out her nose and onto my clothes and I cringe. This is the part that i hate about fighting. “How dare you make up lies! You are pathetic!”
There is no validity in what she’s saying. There is absolutely no way that Wyatt would do any of that. My sweet boyfriend? In a gang? Hell no! He wouldn’t know how to handle it much less kiss someone.
“I’m pathetic? Okay, that’s great coming from a money grubbing whore!” She yells back at me.
I pull my right arm back and then swing forward hitting her in the face. The movement of it caused me to fall over and land on my arm. The pain that is shooting up through my body is too much to bare and I feel tears leaking through my eyes.
Through the pain of my lung and arm burning, I still get up on my feet and face her again.
My hand tightens again to punch her in the face again but someone has my hand tucked in their bear-sized paw of their hand. “What the hell is going on?”
Chapter 33
Wyatt
Getting back into shape after having the past month off of the strenuous workouts, is a nightmare. Why I thought it was okay to not workout as much as I should have, I will never know.
My abs are burning from the amount of sit ups I did, they are screaming at me as I slide out of my car to get inside the house.
Keeley and I have settled into a nice routine since she has officially moved in with me. Like changed her address on her driver’s license, moved in with me. I fucking love it.
With that being said, imagine my surprise when I hear yelling through the house and then crashing. Something just broke in my house and I’m beginning to panic.
“You money grubbing whore!” My sister yells.
I run through the halls until I reach the office where they are having a face off and see them toe to toe. My beautiful and curvy woman is about to fight my sister and I can’t allow that to happen.
Mixing family with relationships is bad news and I’m not interested in having to pick sides.
“What the fuck is going on here?” I demand as I grab ahold of Keeley’s fist. She winces as I squeeze it and then shove it down to her side. My insides swirl as I see the skin around her eyes tighten from the pain that she’s in.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Keeley yells and looks at me with anger flaring through her eyes.
Only briefly, I realized the error from what I had done. Probably to Keeley, she thought that I was taking Ruth’s side.
Ruth rolls her shoulder back and then glares at me harder than she ever has. When I look at her to ask her what is happening, she gives me satisfactory nod. “What did you do?” I ask her and drop Keeley’s hand.
“I told her the truth. I told her how you were in a gang and how you killed people before. Your little tart didn’t even know about it. How much does she know about you?” Each word she says is like a knife going through my chest.
I know how Keeley feels about the truth being told and how she doesn’t want to be lied to again. I don’t want to be the person to tell Keeley that what she’s saying is true.
Keeley places her hands on my forearms and she squeezes. “She’s lying, right? You couldn’t have done anything like that. Right?”
I shrug my shoulders at Ruth in order to tell her to get the fuck out and she doesn’t. “Ask your whore why my face is puffy.”
“I punched her and I would do it again if I wanted to. Ruth is being a complete bitch and came in here spouting off at the mouth that you are all of things,” Keeley says as a way of confirming Ruth’s statement.
I place my hands on Keeley’s shoulders and it pushes her hands off my forearms. The a
dorable pout on her face makes me want to kiss the shit out of her. Since I know what happened in California, I know that I might not get a kiss from her again. So I take it. I swoop in and yank her body close to mine so I can kiss her lips. She murmurs and then kisses me back. I feel her place her hands on my waist and she squeezes me tighter to her body as well.
“Gross!”
We break out of our kiss to see the disgusting look on Ruth’s face. I would chuckle if the look didn’t clarify the fact that I need to answer some questions. “Get out of here. I need to talk to my girl alone.” My words are clear and concise, while they are gentle, I’m hoping she realizes that it’s not a request to get out.
Ruth tosses her chin in the air and then leaves with more attitude than is warranted. Alone with Keeley, I grip her waist in my hands and pull her closer to me so I can kiss her lips. Our lips only meet briefly before she’s pushing me away.
The look on her face is enough to break my heart. “Cupcake, I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry for what, exactly? What is going on here? I told you before that I cannot deal with the secrets and you seemed to agree. I want to know exactly what is going on here. Not as your lawyer, either. I want to know as your girlfriend.”
I need to be close to her, so I pull her along with me to go towards the couch. “No, I think I will stand,” she says defiantly and with more attitude that I ever thought she could have.
“Fine,” I murmur and then take a seat on the couch that she was laying on when I left her this morning. It’s still warm from when she was on it, and I find pleasure from the heat. I don’t know what’s going to happen after I tell her the truth.
The pain that Keeley is feeling from being shot is evident in her facial expressions that she’s giving me. Her eyes are wider than they normally are and her skin is more flushed. Yes, I’m that far gone that I know how my lady is feeling by the skin tone of her.
“I didn’t have an easy life. I grew up in a rough neighborhood with a mom that worked too much to take care of Ruth and I. I didn’t know what else to do, so I did the best that I could,” I start and shake off all of the bad memories. I don’t want to remember the taste of blood in my mouth or the smell of garbage as I dug through it to find some food. No one should live like that… Like an animal.
When she doesn’t look at me and looks at every place but me, I demand: “Please sit next to me. It will make it easier for me to tell you and you need to be resting.”
Her pained eyes told me what I needed to know, she’s in pain. Not only physically, but emotionally.
Keeley lowers her body next to me and leans her back to the couch so she’s slouched. I can hear the hiss of her breath as she adjusts herself to be comfortable. “Go on,” she murmurs.
I place my hand on her thigh and squeeze. Of course, my damn dick decides to get hard as I touch her juicy thigh and I can’t help but groan. “No way!” She huffs.
I close my eyes to get through the story that will probably change everything between us. “In the neighborhood that I grew up in, you either stay the victim or you become the bully. I decided that I was done getting my ass kicked for trying to panhandle getting milk on the corner store because Ruth was hungry.”
Chapter 34
Keeley
I could feel the anger that is radiated off of him as he relives what happened to him before.
“In my neighborhood, you don’t get out unless you can rap a beat or dribble a ball and luckily, I could dribble a ball. After a year of watching my back, a kid from my projects came up to me and told me about a way to gain the respect that I needed to not be the tall lanky kid that gets his ass kicked every day.”
My heart breaks a little more inside as he tells me about what happened to him. Yeah, my childhood wasn’t a walk in the park, but it was much better than his. At least I had food at home. Granted, my mother was being my mother, but at least I didn’t have to join a gang in order to by.
He swallows before continuing. “I told him no and explained to him how I wasn’t going join up to get out of getting my ass kicked. It was about two weeks later, we still didn’t have food in the house. Ruth and I were trying to scrounge up something to eat when we heard bullets shoot through the windows of the apartments that we lived in. Everyone knew that they needed to get on the floor so they didn’t get hit by the bullets. We crawled through the studio sized apartment until we got to the front door. Actually, the front door is a joke. It was more like a curtain in front of a gate like door. The real door got busted open by the cops raiding our apartment because my mom’s ex said we had drugs.”
“Oh my god,” I whisper to him and place my hand on his that is still on my thigh. “I’m so sorry, honey.” Even through the pain of my arm and side, I rest my head on his chest to give him the comfort that he needs to get through the statement that he’s giving me. I know that there has to be more that is happening in order to get him as torn up as he is right now. Wyatt’s body is shaking as he tells me everything. “I love you,” I whimper into his side.
“You won’t after I’m done telling you everything.”
I straighten my body and then hiss at the pain that is radiating throughout me. “Don’t tell me if I am going to love you or not. I will get pissed off.”
He kisses my forehead, “Cupcake, you don’t know what I did. Hell, I don’t want that touching you.”
“Wyatt, I know that it must have been tough, but you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I don’t want to put you through the pain of retelling me. However, I do wonder if talking to a professional would be better.”
His body slides out from underneath me and I huff out a breath as he stands up to pace. That narrow and lean body of his blowing up and down from the air that he is bringing in and out of his body. “I can’t tell a professional. Are you fucking kidding me? If I do that, then I’m going to prison. You don’t even know half of what I went through and I’m not going to tell you.”
Feeling inspired and strong, I weasel out of my spot and walk up to him. “I am not the enemy here! I’m trying to help you. I love you and I want you to be healthy. Nothing you can tell me is going to make me stop loving you. Don’t you see that? I told you everything about me and you still loved me. I told you I was married, you still loved me. I’m going to do that for you, too.”
He stops his pacing and places his long fingered hands on my waist to squeeze. “I’m not the man you thought I was. You’re a good person and I’m filth. Fucking filth. You want to know about the nasty man that you let fuck you? You want to know about the disgusting man who killed a man for no reason other than he thought he was beating his sister? You want to know about the man that you fuck and live with? I’m a bastard, Keeley. I’m that dirty asshole that you went to law school to stop. I’m that asshole who’s too selfish to let you go.”
Chapter 35
Wyatt
Why can’t Keeley see that I’m not the man she thought I was? Why can’t she see that she’s a good person and I’m not? What the hell did I do in my past life to deserve this beautiful person?
“Quit it. You’re in sports, you don’t get to have that defeated attitude.”
My hand snaps back and I look at her with a crazed look on my face. Did she just yell at me? Keeley looks as if she’s about to start crying and I feel like an even bigger asshole.
“All right, I want you to know that this is not me anymore. I don’t do this shit anymore. I promise.”
“I know.”
Keeley’s lips grow tight from the pain that she’s in and I lead her back to the couch with my hand on her back. “I want you to lay down, please. Seriously, I don’t want you to be in pain.”
“I’m in pain because I know you are in pain.”
Deciding to ignore that, I take up where I left off.
The heat from the Californian sun electrocutes me out of my bed that consists of towels on the floor of the apartment. My body is covered in sweat and I can hear Ruth digging through the c
abinets in a vain attempt at trying to find food. We both know that there is no more food in this house. We already went through it yesterday.
“Stop that noise,” I beg and place my hand on my stomach to control the vomit that is trying to come up. I’m so hungry that I feel full. How does that work?
There’s a half full water bottle to the side of the room and I stumble over to it. It’s not fresh water by any means, but it’s wet and it will give me something in my stomach. I chug the contents without even thinking about it and my stomach revolts it immediately.
Son of a bitch!
I run to the bathroom that is the size of a sardine can and heave the water into the toilet. What a waste of water.
“Wywy, I’m hungry,” Ruth says to me with a whine that is common when she’s hungry. “Mom still isn’t home.”
Our mom is at her second job as a waitress. Her first one is cleaning hotel rooms in a run down motel that is barely staying afloat. Everyone that lives on this side of town knows that is where the hookers take their johns to.
“I know,” I murmur towards her and pull my head out of the toilet. “I’m hungry too.”
“We need to find a way to get some food.”
I climb off of the floor and adjust to my full height. I’m only fifteen but I’m already over six feet four. “I’m going to go outside and see if I can find someone that will give us some money. I want you to stay inside and don’t bother coming out. I will be back soon. Do. Not. Answer. The. Door. And make sure to stay low.” I wag my finger in front of her face to signify that I mean business.
Ruth nods her head and then goes back into the kitchen area. The kitchen area is a joke of a room. It’s barely big enough for the Barbie sized refrigerator and over. The sink is the size of my two hands being held together.
Even though I’m weak with hunger, I still stroll out of the apartment and check to make sure that the gate is locked. I never can be too careful.
By the time I have hit the sun, my stomach does a revolted somersault and then I feel more water trying to make its way up. I haven’t had anything to eat in three days, I don’t understand what the problem could be here.