Worth It

by Linda Kage

  Her eyes searched mine for a good ten seconds before she nodded and offered me a tremulous smile. “Okay, then,” she said. “It’s worth it to me too.”

  It was barely light out the next morning as I hammered my fist against Pick’s front door.

  Full of nothing but memories and questions, I hadn’t slept much the night before. I just tossed and turned on my borrowed bed. Around four in the morning, ten-year-old Colton joined me, crawling under the covers and trembling as he curled against me.

  When I asked him what was wrong, all he mumbled was, “nightmare,” so I let it be and tucked him in tighter.

  He dropped off again almost immediately, but I was left wide awake. About an hour or so later, I rose for the day, left a note so as not to alarm anyone, and snuck from the Gambles’ house before they stirred. Since we’d abandoned my car at Forbidden, I walked there to pick it up, thinking the fresh morning air would help me think, but it so didn’t. When I reached my car, the tire was freaking flat. Figured. So I kept walking to Pick’s place.

  I’m not even sure what thoughts rattled through my brain. I felt like a numb piece of brittle wood that could shatter at any moment.

  Movement from the inside of Pick’s apartment had me straightening my back and wiping at my face as I drew in a deep breath. Then the door came open.

  Pick’s hair was a mess. He rubbed at his bleary eyes and added a yawn to it as he stretched. The sleepy, just crawled out of bed look kicked ass on him, but I couldn’t even appreciate the splendid male scenery.

  Yeah, that’s how rattled and messed up my brain was.

  When he saw me, he dropped his hand. “Felicity. Christ, woman, I have been trying to reach you for days.” He grabbed my elbow and tugged me inside the apartment. “I called your phone but it was dead. Went by your apartment, but—”

  “Yeah, I don’t live there anymore.”

  He blew out a tired breath. “So I learned. When Noel mentioned you were staying with them, I stopped by the Gamble house last night, but the boys said Aspen had taken you out.”

  “She took me to Forbidden,” I said in a wooden voice. “Hoping to help me drink my worries away.”

  “Shit,” he breathed, his gaze searching my face. “You know, then.”

  “Know what?” I threw up my hands as my voice went high. “That some guy who everyone is calling Knox Parker was just released from prison, only to save Zoey and her new baby’s life and then became the newest bartender at the club where I just happen to work?”

  “I tried to tell you. I swear to God, the very day I came across him, you were the first person I tried to contact. Goddamn, you know you’re supposed to notify your boss when you have a change of address, right?”

  I scowled. “Well, when I actually get a new address, you’ll be the first person I tell. Okay, boss?”

  He sighed and scrubbed his face again. Then he crossed his arms over his chest and inspected my face. “How’re you dealing with all this? You okay?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t—” My voice cracked and then wavered and I had to hug myself. “I have no idea what to feel or think, or do. I don’t understand anything. All I know is that stranger last night was not Knox.”

  Sympathy filled Pick’s gaze. “Changed a lot, hasn’t he?”

  “Changed?” I snorted. “The two aren’t even the same person. They can’t be. How is he even out so soon?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t tell me.”

  “Did you ask?”

  “No. I didn’t want to push. I was hoping he’d come to trust me enough to tell me himself.”

  “Except Knox doesn’t work like that. You have to coax his problems out of him.”

  “Honey, I don’t think the Jaws of Life could crack that man open right now.”

  My shoulders slumped. “What happened to him, Pick?”

  Pulling me to him, he hugged me and sighed into my hair. “My guess is nothing good.”

  Tears filled my eyes and I clung to his shirt. “I didn’t even know who he was. The entire night passed, and he didn’t once tell me or do anything to help me remember. When they finally told me his name after he’d left, I tried to follow him, but I swear to God, he hid from me. Why would he hide from me?”

  “He’s dealing with a lot of demons right now, and I think you’re the last person he wants to see him fighting them.”

  “That’s bullshit.” Gritting my teeth, I jerked out of Pick’s arms to scowl. “I’ve seen him at his worst before, and I was the one to help him work through it. Why doesn’t he know I would help him again?”

  “I don’t know, Felicity. It’s been a long time. Maybe he thinks...” Letting me fill in that blank for myself, he shrugged and sent me a helpless look.

  But I had no idea what he was suggesting, so I growled. “He thinks what?”

  “The first thing he heard about you was that you’d been living with some other guy. After that, why would he assume you two would just pick up where you’d left off?”

  I hiccupped out a strange sounding sob, hating that Knox knew I’d moved on...tried to move on...whatever. If he knew I’d lived with someone else, then he surely knew I’d had sex—

  Nausea rolled through me.

  “He wouldn’t even talk to me,” I choked out. And no wonder. I’d had sex with other men. I hadn’t recognized him when I’d seen him. I’d made fun of his T-shirt, and he’d heard me.

  I had to be the worst girlfriend ever.

  Wait. Gasping as that word ran through my brain, I realized we’d technically never broken up. He’d been ripped away from me and thrown in jail, and I thought I’d never see him again. But if we’d never really broken up...did that mean we were still together? Was I a cheater?

  God, I was worse than Cam.

  “What am I going to do, Pick?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, sweetheart.”

  When he opened his mouth as if to offer the best advice in the world, one of his kids toddled into the room.

  Julian lit up when he saw me. “Buh buh.” Opening his arms, he hurried forward.

  My heart melted at his greeting, so I swept him up and hugged him to me, rubbing my nose against his hair. “Hey, there, handsome man. You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

  “Buh buh,” he repeated, pressing his chubby palms against my cheeks. “Buh buh.”

  “Okay, okay,” I caved. “You want bubbles, I got it. You know, you’re lucky I remembered to bring some this time.”

  I fished a piece of gum from my pocket, and Julian babbled eagerly as I unwrapped it and stuck it in my mouth.

  “Buh buh. Buh buh.”

  “Give me a second to chew, kid.” I chomped as fast as I could to soften the gum. “I’ll get you a bubble.”

  Pick leaned his back against the wall and stuck his hands in his pockets as he watched us, smiling and shaking his head. “You’re just as bad as everyone else with spoiling my kids.”

  “Whatever. There’s no such thing as spoiling a baby this cute. Isn’t that right, handsome?” Layering the gum over my tongue, I blew a bubble, and Julian squealed with glee as he slapped his hand over my mouth, popping it.

  We went through the whole chewing, blowing, popping thing again a few times before Pick pushed away from the wall and yawned, rubbing his chest through his shirt. “I’m going to make some coffee. Want some?”

  “Uh...okay.” Carrying Julian, I followed Pick into his kitchen, and it finally hit me how quiet the place was. Yeesh, I must’ve been a bit too preoccupied with Knox to even think of anything else. “Is Eva not home?”

  “She took Skylar with her to the store to get some clothes for Parker.”

  I paused, still unsettled to hear that name so much for the first time in years.

  “The girls have always been early risers; they like to get all the shopping done before we guys even roll out of bed,” he was saying as he pulled down coffee filters and a can of ground beans.

  “Clothes?” was all I could think to
utter.

  He glanced back and lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah. Clothes. He had nothing when I found him at the hospital on Wednesday. He’d only just then gotten free maybe an hour before. He wasn’t even aware his old house had burned down or, you know, anything about his family.”

  I gasped and sank into the nearest chair I found. Julian patted my cheeks again, demanding another bubble, so I blew one without thinking. “He really didn’t know? About anyone? No one notified him at all when practically his entire family died?”

  “Nope. And it really sucked being the bearer of bad news.”

  “Oh God. That’s where he met Zoey, wasn’t it? At the convenience store where his house used to be?”

  Pick nodded. “Yep.”

  I hugged Julian close to me. “Poor Knox.”

  “That’s basically how I felt. The guy had just done a good deed for our Zoey, all the while he was homeless, broke, and had no family left to go to.” He shrugged. “I brought him back here, and we stuffed him in one of my shirts to work at the bar last night, but it didn’t fit him well, so Tink’s taken it upon herself to make sure he’s properly clothed.”

  A little swirl of jealousy curled through me, hating that Eva was taking care of him, and I wasn’t. Then I winced and bit my lip, feeling more terrible than I had last night about the tight T-shirt comment I’d made. Crap, forget worst girlfriend, I had to be the worst person ever. But then something else Pick had said flittered to the surface.

  “Wait. You brought him here? As in here?” I pointed to the floor and sat up straighter, glancing around. “He’s staying here, with you guys?”

  “Except he didn’t come home last night after work,” he answered me before I could ask. “So... I don’t know where he is at the moment.”

  When a soft tap came to the apartment door, I gasped. I don’t know how I knew, but I knew. It was Knox. I lurched to my feet and glanced around wildly, thinking there had to be a way to prepare. I probably looked like shit with my hair uncombed and the first clothes I’d snagged in the dark to change into. I hadn’t even had my first cup of coffee for the day.

  But everything was happening regardless.

  Pick was leaving the kitchen to answer the knock, so I rushed after him. His body blocked my view as he opened the door, but I could tell from the set of his shoulders and how he let out a relieved breath who he was greeting.

  “So you decided to come back.”

  “I guess I really don’t have anywhere else to go.” The low, gravelly voice I’d heard the night before filled the apartment and made me shiver.

  “Well, come on in.”

  Pick stepped back and opened the door wider. Still wearing the same tight black T-shirt from the night before, Knox kept his face lowered and took a step forward, until he looked up and saw me.

  He jerked back into the hallway, and seared Pick with an accusing glance. “What—?”

  Pick lifted his hands, claiming innocence. “She just showed up. I had no idea she was coming by.”

  I gaped at Pick for taking Knox’s side, as if he wouldn’t have let me in if he’d known I was coming over, or if Knox had been here. And why the hell did Knox not want to see me?

  Clenching my teeth as hurt anger filled my veins, I narrowed my eyes.

  How dare he? How dare he run from me after six years, after I waited for him for most of that time, and missed him, and kept loving him? How dare he not even want to see me?

  I marched forward, thrusting Julian at his father as I kept my gaze fixed on Knox. “Excuse us a minute.” Grabbing the door, I pulled it shut behind me and closed it in Pick’s face as he scrambled to catch his kid.

  But once I was alone in the hallway with the stranger claiming to be Knox, my anger died.

  The uncertainty grew.

  He’d changed so much. His hair was shaved close; it made his head appear to be shaped different. The beard scruff he sported hid a lot, but I could still tell he’d grown some harder angles to his jaw and cheekbones.

  Though his face had lost some baby fat and grown lean, his body mass had practically doubled. And it was all muscle, pure, steel bulging muscle. They were so freaking big, they seemed to obstruct his mobility until he didn’t move quite as smoothly as he used to.

  Nothing, absolutely nothing looked the same, except maybe the eyes. I hadn’t gotten a very good look at them in the darkness of the bar last night, but what I’d seen of them then had made them appear black.

  Now, in the full light, they were brown again and I could finally recognize some of my Knox, except only the color and shape were the same. They kind of had a dead expression to them now, or maybe severely broken, like something in him was damaged beyond repair.

  Pain deep in my stomach knotted my guts into tight bundles.

  What the hell had he been through?

  My gaze moved back up to his face. “I didn’t recognize you last night,” was all I could think to say.

  It felt like the stupidest comment in the world, but what else was I supposed to say? Hey, long time no see? I missed you like crazy? I still think about you every day? I can’t seem to stop loving you, no matter how hard I try?

  Yeah, so not going to happen.

  “I noticed,” he said, and God, even his voice was all wrong. There were little hoarse gaps, making it gravelly and deep.

  I swallowed, unable to read him at all. He didn’t sound rude...or sweet, for that matter. He was just...indifferent.

  Which killed me.

  There was nothing inside me indifferent about seeing him. I was a disaster. My heart thumped with all kinds of crazy, my palms sweated with nerves, and my arms ached to reach for him, to just...hug him.

  It’d been six years since he’d hugged me, and no one hugged the way Knox Parker hugged.

  This was just freaking unbelievable. Knox was standing in front of me, in the flesh, and I couldn’t hug him.

  “So, I hear you’ve been out since Wednesday.”

  He glanced away, as if he were disinterested in our conversation.

  His response devastated me in multiple ways. But at least he wasn’t running off and hiding anymore. He was still here, letting me look at him, and talk to him.

  The last time I’d seen him—excluding last night, which didn’t count because I hadn’t realized who he was—he’d held me desperately close and whispered his love to me.

  I’d been fully ready to wait his four-year sentence for him. Except that sentence had been extended another thirty.

  Which led to another reason I was crushed.

  “How are you free this soon?” He wasn’t supposed to be free this soon.

  His gaze finally lifted to mine, his dark brown eyes bruised with pain. “I don’t know. They let me out on parole, I guess.”

  I laughed, but the sound morphed into a sob. But Parole? Parole was causing all this? Why hadn’t I thought of parole?

  Slapping my hand over my mouth, I bit my lip as hard as I could to quell the tears I could feel forming. When I was able to finally control some of my emotions, I dropped my hand.

  “So, I, uh...” I let out a shaky laugh and brushed the hair out of my face. “I have so many questions.” When he looked away again, my nerves went haywire. “You want to get out of here? Go somewhere to talk?”

  He took a sudden interest in his feet and mumbled something that sounded a lot like, “No.”

  My jaw dropped. “Excuse me? Did you just say no?”

  He shrugged. “I just don’t see the point.”

  I shook my head, my mind utterly blown.

  “The point in what? In talking? But...what?” Was he insane? “It’s been six years. There’s like a million things to catch up on. We need to talk.”

  A muscle in his jaw twitched, the one and only sign I’d gotten so far that this encounter might in any way be difficult for him. But then he hitched up one shoulder. “I don’t have anything to say.”

  “How could you not...but what about...oh my God! Of course we have shit to say
. We never even officially broke up.”

  “We’re broken up,” he told his feet.

  I almost clutched my heart because it felt as if he’d just stabbed it. Gaping, I shook my head. “Can you look me in the eye when you tell me that?”

  He lifted his tortured brown eyes. “I don’t want to talk,” he said softly.

  I wanted to pull my hair and scream. I wanted to hit him in the chest with both of my fists.

  No, I just wanted to grab him hard and yank him against me and kiss him, hug him, force him to admit he missed me just as hard as I’d missed him and that he was happy to see me.

  But he only looked away.

  The bastard couldn’t even watch as he broke my heart.

  My pain snapped into rage. “Well, I do! You might not have anything to say, but I have plenty. The last time I saw you, you swore you didn’t blame me for what happened.”

  He still refused to look at me, but his dark eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “I don’t.”

  “Then why are you treating me like this?”

  He squeezed his eyes closed and bowed his head as regret passed over his features. It was the most emotion he’d shown me in six years.

  Hope flared inside me. This was it. Finally, he was going to open up to me and talk about...whatever was causing this inhuman behavior of his.

  But, nope. False alarm. He turned away to head down the hall away from Pick’s apartment, saying something in his gravelly voice that sounded like, “I can’t do this.”

  “Do what?” I demanded, utterly confused and dogging his steps. “Why can’t you just talk to me? What did I do to make you hate me? Why wouldn’t you even see me when I came to visit you in prison?”

  He stopped in his tracks, and tipped his head to the side as if to put his ear toward me to hear better. “You came? To the prison?”

  “Of course.” A tear slipped down my cheek, but I didn’t care about hiding it from him this time. “The first freaking chance I had. I was there the day I turned eighteen and was a legal adult.”

  I’d finally been allowed visitation rights without parental consent. And the only thing I’d wanted for my birthday was to see his face. I would’ve been happy for only a few minutes as long as I could’ve gotten the chance to smile at him and tell him again that I still loved him. That I was still waiting for him.