“That’s sweet of you to offer but I have it under control.”
Sweet?
Hell, no. I’d show Addy sweet and it wasn’t some dude’s offer to help her.
I moved around the island, made my way to her, and bent to kiss her neck.
“Morning, baby.”
My greeting wasn’t quiet—the guy on the phone was meant to hear it and Addy caught on immediately. Her head swiveled to the side, her eyes narrowed, and she gave me an adorable annoyed scowl.
“Adalynn?”
“Sorry, Bass. I’m here. Again, I’m really sorry I have to cancel today. Hopefully, by next week I’ll have everything sorted and I’ll be in class.”
“Who was that?”
The adorable went out of Addy’s scowl and her lips pinched. So when she answered this Bass guy, her tone was clearly miffed.
“Trey,” she answered.
“Trey?” Gone was Bass’s cooing and his tone had slid straight to unhappy.
Addy’s shoulders jerked and her gaze sliced to the phone. She hadn’t missed it either.
“Yeah. You might’ve heard me talk about him, he works at—”
“I know who he is,” Bass cut her off then followed up with a question. One he could disguise—total fishing expedition. “Are you working at TC today?”
“Eggs are burning, baby, you want me to turn them off?”
Even though that was the God’s honest truth, Addy snatched her phone off the counter and pushed me back so she could escape.
“That’d be helpful,” she snapped before she walked out of the kitchen.
I turned off the burner, salvaged the eggs she’d made, and felt zero guilt for making it crystal clear we were getting ready to enjoy breakfast—together.
I had the eggs plated and a mug of coffee halfway to my lips when Addy returned. It didn’t take a genius to see she was seriously pissed. Still, I smiled.
There hadn’t been a time when I’d looked at Addy and didn’t think she was sweet, shy, and beguilingly beautiful. But pissed, she was smoking hot.
“What was that?” she asked and marched her fine ass straight to me. Shoulders square, back straight, eyes flashing a new kind of fire—that was extremely sexy—and lastly, her face was set to granite.
Oh, yeah, my little devil was out and she was pissed as fuck.
Totally cute.
Addy wasn’t stupid, nor was I. She’d caught on to my play the second I’d said good morning. There was no reason to deny it, so I didn’t.
“That was me making it clear whose kitchen you’re in.”
“And why would you do that?”
“Because that dude has the hots for my woman. Not only that, but he’s got it bad. Figured it was best to kill any hopes he has that he’s gonna get in there. The sooner the better. So I killed the dream he’s been conjuring up in his asshole brain that he’s gonna get you into his bed.”
“Bass is not an asshole and he does not have the hots for me.”
“No? So you’re telling me he doesn’t like women?”
“What?”
“Women, Addy. Are you telling me that Bass doesn’t like women?”
“I assume so, considering I’ve seen him with a variety of girlfriends in the years I’ve known him.”
She was no less pissed, but some of the venom had left her tone.
“Is there a reason you don’t want him knowing you’re in my kitchen making breakfast?”
“Of course not. I just don’t like you pissing on my leg.”
That made me smile. Which was the wrong thing to do if her downturned lips were anything to go by.
I couldn’t resist. “Baby, as kinky as that sounds, I’m not into golden showers. You wanna give that a go, we can—”
“You’re gross. I don’t—”
She let out a squeak of surprise when I tagged her around the waist and jerked her forward. Her hands hit my chest to brace her fall.
“Adalynn, straight up, that guy’s into you. Heard it the second he said your fuckin’ name. What I don’t know is, are you into him?”
Her hands spasmed and her body locked tight. Seeing her reaction sent tiny, sharp spikes into my heart.
What the fuck?
“No, I’m not into him,” she spat. “He’s my kickboxing instructor. He’s also a friend and his grandmother owns the condo I live in. Sometimes we have lunch after class.”
I believed that they were friends, but there was something more there.
“Addy,” I pushed.
“What?”
“Sometimes you have lunch after class?” I prompted.
The change in Addy was immediate. It was also violent and way over the top. Her hands left my chest, then they were back and she shoved me hard enough I had no choice but to let her go so I could keep my balance. Her hip hit the corner of the island, her face registered pain, and the audible groan that followed had me reaching out to stop her retreat but my arms arrested when she flinched away from me.
What in the actual mother fuck was that?
“Addy, baby, what’s going on?” I gently asked.
Her answer was to retreat further, not physically, but emotionally. She closed down and locked herself away from me.
She looked like a doe caught in the sights of a crossbow—certain death imminent with nowhere to run.
Again, what in the actual mother fuck?
“Adalynn, what’s wrong?”
“You don’t get to tell me who my friends are,” she rasped.
Her voice was not her own—none of the shy, sweet Addy could be heard. None of the pissed, cute, devilish Addy present. No, this was new, it was hurt-filled and ugly. And my gut roiled at the reason why she’d respond the way she did. It wasn’t a kneejerk reaction, it wasn’t her being pissed Bass knew she was cooking breakfast in my kitchen.
It was the reaction of a woman who had experience with a man telling her who she could be friends with—the severity of that experience was what had me on edge.
“Baby, I need you to explain why you’re telling me that.”
Still rooted, body strung tight, fear in her eyes, she didn’t delay laying it out.
“I get to be friends with Bass if I want. You don’t get to tell me I can’t. If I want to go to lunch with someone, I’ll do that, too. And I’ll go to kickboxing, and I’ll teach my classes, and you can’t tell me not to do that either. Never again will you tell me I can’t have friends.”
Never again will you tell me I can’t have friends.
The bile started churning.
“Addy, that wasn’t where I was going with my question. The way you said it, the way he sounded on the phone, gave me the impression one of you was feeling the other out. Bass is interested in you for sure. So I’m thinking he was angling for an in using lunch to get it.”
“So what if he is? You still don’t have a say, Keith. I get to be friends with who I want.”
Bile turned to acid. A deadly poison polluted my blood as it pumped through my veins.
She’d called me another man’s name. And when she’d done it, she had motherfucking fear in her eyes. Fear. My Adalynn.
Now, what in the motherfucking shit was that?
“Addy, baby, need you to tell me who Keith is.”
Her torso swung back as if I’d power-punched her to the stomach. Her head also snapped back so fast I was afraid she’d given herself whiplash. However, she no longer seemed to be in her fear-addled trance when she asked, “What?”
“Who is Keith?” I repeated.
“How do you know that name?”
Is she serious?
“Addy—” The words died in my throat when her eyes lifted and locked with mine.
Sadness. Fear. Regret. Shame.
Jesus fuck.
“How?” she pressed.
I could’ve very well lied and told her I’d heard the name from a family member, then dig and figure out who this guy was on my own. And it was on the tip of my tongue to do so. I wante
d nothing more than to erase the shame. It was that emotion that gutted me. We all have regrets. Everyone felt sadness. And fear was unfortunately a part of life. But my sweet, shy, innocent Addy wearing shame—fuck no.
But in the end, I couldn’t lie. I didn’t want to dig, I wanted Addy to trust me enough to tell me. I wanted the story straight from her.
I also wanted to end this conversation for her, shelve it, and pick it back up when she wasn’t blindsided and overcome with emotion.
“You called me Keith,” I told her and watched her face register shock.
“Trey,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want you to apologize. I also don’t want to talk about it right now.”
Addy nodded once and her shoulders hunched forward.
Goddamn.
“Is it okay if I come to you?” I asked as gently as I could muster with all the nasty shit coursing through me.
“Maybe I should just get my stuff,” she mumbled.
“That’s not gonna happen.”
Addy came out of her hunch. Steel infused her spine as she stood tall.
There was my Addy.
“Few things,” I quickly said before she could say anything. “We’ll talk about Keith at a time and in a place where you feel safe to do so. You feeling trapped in my kitchen is neither. Something else—I am not him. Whatever he said and did to you was jacked. And I don’t need you to tell me a goddamn thing about him to know that. You are absolutely, unequivocally correct. I don’t have the right to tell you who you can be friends with, where you go, what classes you take or teach. More than that, I’m not a motherfucking dick, so I wouldn’t try.
“That swings us back around to Bass. I explained already, but I think it bears repeating—the guy wants in your pants. He’s obviously not getting in there. And don’t twist that into me being a motherfucking dick, that’s just straight-up the truth. If you wanted Bass in your pants, you wouldn’t be in my kitchen after the night we had. He wants it, so that means you’re the one that pumped the brakes on that.
“And lastly, you’re not going up to get your stuff so you can bolt. And you’re not gonna do that because you don’t run when times get tough. I know that, not because you’re a Walker and Walkers are not cowards, but because you’re Adalynn. And my Addy is strong.”
There was some emotion that sprinted across her face, but it was so quick I couldn’t decipher if it was good or bad or if I’d pissed her off again.
“Baby, you know what we’re starting,” I told her softly, much calmer now that she no longer looked like bones were rattling in a closet she’d dead bolted closed.
“Maybe it’s not the right time to start something,” she murmured.
“I’d believe you meant that if last night hadn’t happened.”
“People have sex all the time without being in a relationship,” she told me, only her cheeks turned pink and her eyes dropped to the floor.
It hurt, it really did, keeping my gut-busting laugh to a minimum. I tried not to roar with it but her adorably angry scowl told me I’d failed, and failed miserably.
“Addy,” I said through a chuckle. “I’ll give it to you, lots of people have sex who are not in a relationship. But you’re not lots of people, you’re not even most people. You’re my Addy. And my Addy doesn’t have sex with a man because she’s got an itch to scratch. So, yes, we are most definitely in a relationship. But I wasn’t talking about the sex and you know it.”
She had nothing to say to that because I was right, she knew it, so she didn’t bother crafting a rebuttal that would be bullshit and a straight out lie.
In her silence, I continued, “Now, the eggs that you cooked are probably cold but I’m gonna eat them anyway because I’m starving. Would you like me to make you something fresh or are you good with cold eggs?”
“Cold eggs,” she mumbled.
“Gonna come to you now,” I warned and did just that.
Once I had her in my arms, I kissed her forehead, then I told her the last thing she needed to know.
“I will never hurt you. Swear it on my life, Adalynn. I can’t promise I won’t be an ass, do shit that pisses you off, but I vow to you, I will never hurt you. Not physically, not emotionally. And I’m gonna prove that to you.”
Addy said not a word.
But the full-body shiver told me everything I needed to know.
She didn’t believe me.
And my gut told me Keith was to blame.
Motherfucker.
15
“You’re quiet,” Trey noted as the big, metal guard gate slowly swung open.
However I wasn’t watching the gate. I was quiet because my mind was back in Trey’s kitchen. He’d been cool about me calling him Keith. He’d even been cool not pressing me for an explanation. And it was especially cool because it went against his nature.
My whole life, I’d been surrounded by men like him—men who pushed, demanded, and refused to take no for an answer. They were men like my dad, uncles, cousins, and brother, who had honor and held the women in their lives in high regard so their brand of bossy, assertive, and overbearing—while annoying—came from a place of deep love.
Then there were men like Jake who pretended to have honor, showed you only what they wanted you to see, and didn’t care enough to be bossy, assertive, or overbearing in a way that protected you.
The third kind of man was like Keith.
He hadn’t pretended to have honor because he’d had none. I just didn’t know it at the time. He hadn’t shown me what he wanted me to see, he’d flat-out lied about who he was. And he didn’t hold women in high regard, therefore, every word, every touch, every demand, every accusation was done with cruelty. His intent—to cause maximum damage. But I hadn’t known any of that until it was too late, until he’d inflicted his pain both in word and deed.
And I never told a soul.
Keith Richardson was my biggest regret and my darkest secret.
My deepest shame.
“Do you have siblings?” I asked after he’d pulled through the gate.
“Yeah. A brother, CJ,” Trey answered.
“Older or younger?”
“Younger.”
“I’m the youngest by three minutes.”
Why I imparted that factoid I had no clue other than I was nervous, and with every revolution of Trey’s tires, we were getting closer to Triple Canopy—a place I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to face my cousins, and my big brother would likely be there, and maybe even my dad if Brady or Trey had called him.
“Did you already talk to my dad?”
“Yeah, texted him this morning and asked if he had time to come in.”
Son of a motherless goat.
He’d have time.
My dad always had time for the people he cared about, so I didn’t bother to inquire if he’d received a reply, I knew he had.
“Did you tell him what it was about?”
“No. Just said I needed a word.”
Maybe there was hope.
“Listen, I really don’t think we need to involve my dad. I mean, I’m staying with you. You live in a gated community and I noted the security guard last night. I’m sure I’m perfectly safe there, and really, Jake acted like a jerk but I know him. He was blowing smoke to save face.”
“He was unhinged,” Trey returned with steel in his tone.
Darn.
“I think unhinged is overstating his state of mind.”
“You don’t gauge a man’s sanity by the words he says or threats he makes. People lie. They try to hide shit they don’t want you to see. And he was trying to mask the fact he was off his leash, he just wasn’t very good at it.”
Boy did I know people lied.
“And just to point out a few things,” he continued. “Lenny, the security guard is a great guy, but he’s sixty-eight and retired from the force about twenty years ago and he did that because his eyesight is shit. Which means the unsuspecting resident
s are lucky he is unarmed. The man admits he can’t hit the broadside of a barn and never was a good shot. And that big gate you see is for appearances. It’s not meant to keep people out as much as it is to deter unsolicited visitors. Not to mention, that gate is it. The rest of the property is open—no electric fences, razor wire, or armed militia. So while you are safe in my house, you’re only as safe as my locks, my alarm, and me and my guns. The next issue for you is, I’m asking my team for help. Period. I will not waver on that. And being as most of my team are your relatives, I hate to say it, babe, but the chance of one of them not telling your dad is zero. Not to mention, as I think I explained yesterday, I respect your father and owe him honesty.”
Always comes back to my dad, doesn’t it?
God, I wanted to slap myself for even thinking that horrible thought.
“Right,” I mumbled and looked out the window.
We were almost there, and once Trey explained the situation, my life as I knew it would be over. One or all of them would move in to take over and lock me down.
“There a reason you don’t want your dad knowing what’s going on?”
There were a million. But instead of exposing my ungrateful, bratty side, I kept all my reasons to myself.
“I already told you why.”
“No one’s gonna make you do anything—”
“Yes, they will and you know it,” I cut him off. “Heck, even you got your way. And I don’t mean that in a thankless, ugly way, I’m just pointing out facts. I don’t want my family to worry. I don’t want you to worry. Even though I don’t think Jake would actually hurt me, I still agreed to move in with you until you check him out and he leaves to go back to wherever he’s stationed, or deployed to, or whatever it is that he does. But you know them. The second they catch wind there’s danger, all of them will swoop in.”
Silence fell, and when it stretched, I regretted my outburst.
Trey wouldn’t understand. Heck, it was happening to me and I couldn’t verbalize my feelings in a way that made a lick of sense. I knew down to my soul I was loved. I knew my family—all of them were protective, kind, loyal, giving people. I was blessed beyond measure to have all of them. But it was stifling, and I felt no small amount of guilt for feeling that way.
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