A Little Harmless Addiction: Harmless, Book 5

by Melissa Schroeder

  He pushed aside his irritation that they had lost their day together.

  “But I should be done by ten in the morning. Then we have the whole day together.”

  “Am I that transparent?”

  She shook her head, a smile curving her lips. “Naw. I was irritated too, but she paid Cynthia more for it, and I do enjoy doing the cakes.”

  “So nothing tonight.”

  She scooted closer. “Uh uh. I just like the idea of sitting here with you.”

  The small admission was an arrow straight to his heart. And so he smiled and enjoyed the feeling.

  The knock at his office door pulled Kai away from his paperwork, but he wanted to curse when he saw Chris’s face through the window. He motioned him in. He wasn’t in the mood for another talk with Jocelyn’s brother. But if there was one thing an Aiona understood, it was family.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked Chris.

  “When did it happen?” Every word came from behind clenched teeth.

  Kai frowned. “What?”

  “I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t seen it online. Dammit, I can’t believe she kept it from me, but I thought you would let me know.”

  He shook his head, still trying to figure out if he’d missed part of the conversation. “I have no freaking idea what you’re talking about.”

  Chris stopped his pacing and stared at him. “He’s getting out with time served.”

  For a second, he still had no idea about what Chris was referring to. Then it hit him like a punch to his throat. “Are you talking about Greg?”

  He nodded.

  “Can’t be. Jocelyn didn’t say a word.”

  “I read it online. He pleaded to attempted sexual assault, and because the judge knew him and knew it had been a horrible mistake on Greg’s part, he is letting him off. Fucker.” Sarcasm and anger dripped from every word. But Kai ignored it. His own anger was building, but not only against the system that needed to be fixed. No, there was a healthy dose for the woman who hadn’t told him the news.

  “When?”

  Chris looked at him then. “What?”

  “When the fuck did it happen?”

  Chris must have realized she had kept it from him then. His face lost some of the anger. “From the date, early yesterday morning.”

  “Do you think she knows?”

  Chris hesitated.

  His anger swelled and normally he wouldn’t let it bother him. Now though, he could barely control his need to hurt someone. “Don’t treat me with fucking kid gloves. Tell me.”

  Chris nodded. “Yeah. Detective Morrison wouldn’t have let her find out from another source. He would have called her yesterday.”

  She had been acting a little weird the night before. She had been tired, or so he had thought. Maybe it had been her worry over this. He stood up and walked out the office. Chris followed.

  “Now don’t get pissed at her for not telling you.”

  Kia stopped and turned to face him. He had always admired Chris, for what he was, for the way he treated Cynthia.

  “What would you do if Cynthia did the same thing?” he asked.

  Understanding moved over his features. “Okay, yeah, I would be pissed.”

  He turned around and started toward the front door again. “I’ll have her call you after I yell at her.”

  “Dammit.”

  “Problem?” Cynthia asked.

  Jocelyn shook her head and took off the decorative edge for the second time. “No. Just can’t seem to get this right.”

  “You seem out of sorts.”

  Jocelyn jerked a shoulder, trying to hide the panic that was clawing at her stomach. She had been so close to taking her pills last night before Kai had gotten home. Once he’d arrived, she had felt his calming presence down to her toes. And he didn’t even know it. She wasn’t sure what scared her more. The fact that she might have needed her meds last night, or that Kai seemed to be her substitute.

  “Hey, are you there?” Cynthia asked.

  “Yeah. Just a little off today.”

  Cynthia frowned. “I knew I shouldn’t have taken that order. This is your seventh day in a row working. You need to take tomorrow off.”

  Jocelyn shook her head. “No.”

  “Yes. No arguments. You’re tired. I can see it. Of course, if I didn’t know what was keeping you up at night, I’d worry.”

  Jocelyn felt her shoulders slump.

  “What?”

  “I had a bad night last night.”

  And now she had wished she had told Kai. She would have slept better if she had talked it over with him.

  “No matter—”

  “I need to talk with you, Jocelyn.” Kai’s quietly angry voice cut Cynthia’s comment. She turned and found him glowering at her. Cynthia looked from one to the other and opened her mouth but Chris stepped in behind Kai.

  “Let them have a moment.”

  He grabbed Cynthia and led her out of the room. When they were alone, Jocelyn waited. The silence grew, the only noise coming from the front of the shop.

  “What did you want?” she asked.

  “Did they let the bastard off?”

  Dammit, he knows. “Yeah. Or they will. I’m not sure.”

  “When did you find out?”

  “Yesterday.”

  She couldn’t tell what he was thinking by looking at his face. It unnerved her.

  “That’s why you were so upset last night.”

  “I wasn’t upset last night.”

  “Yes, you were. There was something a little off, but then, how would I know. I apparently don’t know you at all.”

  Agitation filled her. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “The woman I thought I knew would have told me if something like this happened. Or I thought she would.”

  He said nothing else, but now she finally saw what he was feeling. Anger bled out of his eyes as he watched her as if waiting for her to lie.

  “I’m used to dealing with things on my own.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not going to fly. I thought we had something here. I thought we were building.”

  “I told you I was a mess. You apparently ignored that part of the conversation.”

  His upper lip curled in disgust. “Don’t even try that shit with me. You kept it from me on purpose.”

  He thought she’d done it to hurt him. The accusation went unsaid. And, God help her, maybe she had. She had kept it from him on purpose, but she still wasn’t sure why.

  “Funny coming from a man who isn’t ready to open up.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Want to tell me what went on with Keisha?”

  His expression blanked and his eyes turned colder. “That’s in the past.”

  “Oh, Jesus, do you hear yourself?” Resentment she didn’t know she had boiled up and spilled over into her panic. It made her voice harsher than she expected. “You, who wanted me to open up, tell you everything, doesn’t want to tell me a thing about the one woman who broke his heart.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “Really? Oh, that is rich.” She barked out a laugh that sounded desperate and painful even to her own ears.

  He clenched his jaw. “I said it was in the past. It has no effect on me now.”

  “If it didn’t, you would have told me about it. At least I have been honest with you. You hold things back from me. Don’t you think I know that Keisha stomped on your heart, used you and tossed you away? But for some reason, my pain is okay to go over, to share. Maybe this has more to do with the fact that you can’t deal being with a woman who doesn’t need you to save her.”

  The moment she said the words, she wanted to pull them back. But it was too late.

  Pain shifted over his face first, then it dissolved into a remote expression she had never seen on him before.

  “Well, don’t worry. I’m out of the business of saving women.”

  And with that, he turned and stal
ked out of the kitchen. Cynthia returned a second later.

  “Jocelyn?”

  She was numb. Afraid to think, to feel. At the moment, she just didn’t know what the hell to do. She concentrated on taking one breath, then another. He had left her. She knew she had used Keisha as an excuse to explain why she hadn’t told him about the news of Greg’s deal. But if there had been some truth to it, he wouldn’t have gotten so angry.

  “Chris.” Cynthia’s voice had turned panicky.

  Chris came back in and Jocelyn felt warm arms surround her. “Come on, Jocey.”

  She almost allowed him to bundle her out of the kitchen, but she stopped at the door.

  “No.”

  “What?” he asked.

  She stepped away, straightened her shoulders and then looked from Cynthia to Chris. “No. I have a cake to do.”

  “Oh, Jocelyn, I can call the woman and tell her you couldn’t do it,” Cynthia said.

  She shook her head. “No. I don’t need to be taken care of.”

  “I think we need to call Dr. Sawyer.”

  She stepped away from her brother and raised her hand to his cheek. “I love you, but if you don’t back off, I’ll have to stab you with a fork.”

  His eyes widened. In the next instant, he stepped back.

  “I’ll have the damn cake done on time.”

  Then she would go home and fall apart.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I think you need to call Evan,” Dee said as she walked into Micah’s office. He smiled at his wife. She looked particularly interesting in her uniform tonight. Of course, he didn’t know when she didn’t look interesting in it. Or out of it for that matter.

  “Stop looking at me like that, Micah. We don’t have time. You need to call Evan.”

  “Why should I call my partner?” he asked.

  She motioned toward the monitors. They showed his club Rough ’n Ready was starting to hop, but it also showed his business partner’s brother-in-law drinking alone.

  “It’s his fifth whiskey in thirty minutes. I was about to cut him off. I know we have the one-drink max for the players, but we both know he isn’t going into the rooms. And he’s in one pissy mood, so I figured you might want to deal with him—or get Evan to. I’m assuming he had a fight with Jocelyn.”

  He was already dialing the number when Evan stepped into the office.

  “Well, this is good timing,” he said, rising from behind his desk.

  “What?” Evan asked.

  “You showing up. I was just calling you.”

  “Why?”

  He nodded toward the monitors and Evan’s expression relaxed. “I’ve been looking for him. He turned off his cell phone a while ago. May’s been frantic.”

  Evan turned to go. “Need help?”

  “Might. Boy grew up on the docks, and while I’m bigger, he’s sneakier.”

  Micah followed him out the door. “I got your back.”

  Kai felt them walking up behind him before he turned to look at them. He should have gone somewhere else, but he knew he’d picked Rough ’n Ready because he wouldn’t pick a woman up here. How pathetic was he that he picked a place he could get drunk and not be tempted to cheat on the woman who had just shattered his heart.

  “Hey there, son,” Evan said, clamping a hand on Kai’s shoulder. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  He cut him a look out of the corner of his eye and said nothing. He didn’t care if it was sullen and immature, but he didn’t feel the need to be particularly nice to anyone at the moment. Especially his brother-in-law who was seriously happy in love with May. Granted, most days he was happy for them, but tonight it was salt to his wounded pride.

  “Sent out by my sister?” he asked with a snarl.

  Evan smiled, but Kai could sense the brittleness to it. He squeezed Kai’s shoulder as another hand came down on the other. He didn’t need to look to know it was Micah.

  “Why don’t you come with us?” Micah asked, but he understood it wasn’t a question. They would pick him up bodily to get him out of there.

  “Fine.”

  He stopped by Dee. “Tattler.”

  Her eyes were soft. “I couldn’t let you get that drunk. I could see that you would end up sick.”

  He smiled at her. “I should have stolen you from Micah.”

  “That I would have paid to see,” Evan said as he urged him up the stairs. It took a while because Kai’s feet didn’t seem to want to work. By the time they dropped him on the couch, his head was spinning.

  He closed his eyes to make sure he didn’t barf. His stomach felt like a thousand mongooses were running around in it.

  “Yeah, I found him. You were right. Well, he’s lying on Micah’s couch trying not to barf up the whiskey he drank.”

  “I am not.” He cracked an eye open and saw Evan talking on the phone. “Who are you talking to?”

  “Your sister.”

  He frowned. “No women.”

  Evan’s lips twitched. “No problem. I’ll take care of him.”

  “I’m not in the mood to deal with my sister.”

  “You and me both, but I held her off. I explained this is man stuff.”

  “Fucking A.” He closed his eyes again. “Women aren’t worth the problems they cause.”

  “Yeah, they are. It’s a lot of shit, but they are definitely worth it.”

  He snorted and then had to fight another wave of nausea. “Fuck.”

  “You have such a way with words,” Micah said.

  He wanted to laugh, needed it, but it wouldn’t come. Pain and anger still ebbed too close the surface. He wanted to hurt something, someone. He should have picked a fight so he didn’t have to deal with it.

  “Do you know what she did? Got the call, didn’t call me. Dammit. Another woman, holding things back.”

  Comprehension and then pity moved over both Micah and Evan’s faces. Shit. He didn’t need this. But when he tried to pull himself off the couch, the room started spinning.

  He fell back again.

  “Okay, so she made a mistake. I have a feeling you’ve made more than one and she hasn’t called it quits. Of course, Jocelyn isn’t stupid enough to call off a relationship because of small mistakes,” Evan said.

  He closed his eyes. “Didn’t say she was. She just doesn’t want a serious relationship.”

  “Huh.” Evan said. “Really. That’s odd because Chris thought you two were getting kind of serious.”

  He cracked one eye open and realized that Micah had left them alone. Evan was now sitting in the chair next to the couch.

  “Well, he was wrong.”

  “Let me ask you a question.”

  “Can I stop you?” he asked.

  “Did you tell her about Keisha?” Evan asked quietly

  He didn’t think he needed to answer that. He slammed his eyelids shut again.

  Evan whistled and it pierced his head. “Oh, boy, you messed up.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “You like to throw around the F word when you drink, don’t ya?” Evan said, amusement threading his voice.

  He gave his brother-in-law the finger, which just made Evan laugh.

  “Let me put it to you this way, son. You accused her of not telling you something important, right?”

  “Which she did not share with me, so I’m right. She found out about Greg’s sentencing and didn’t tell me. I had to find out from Chris.”

  “Okay. But she told you other things.”

  He frowned. “Yeah.”

  “Things she hasn’t probably told anyone but her therapist. And did you open up and tell her about your mess? Of course you didn’t. You’re a man. As your sister likes to tell me, we were put on earth to mess things up. So what do you do now?”

  An ache stabbed his heart. “It’s over.”

  Evan sighed. “Come on. I’ll take you to her. You can grovel.”

  He looked at his brother-in-law. “I don’t wanna to go.”
/>
  “Well, you have no choice. I love you both and you either fight it out, or break up. I do not want to deal with your sister if I don’t try.”

  “You’re a traitor to your sex.” When that got no response, he said, “Puss.”

  “Yeah, you and me both. Come on.”

  Evan pulled him off the couch and then turned toward a back door to the office. Kai’s eyes widened as they went past a big king-sized bed in a very elaborate bedroom, then out another door into the Hawaiian night.

  “Damn, I never knew that was back there.”

  Evan shook his head and helped Kai down the stairs. “Son, I have a feeling there are a lot of things you don’t know about. And knowing Jocelyn the way I do, you’re about to learn a thing or two.”

  Jocelyn dragged herself into the kitchen and started a kettle to brew some tea. She had been a mess since she’d arrived home. She didn’t like to admit that she’d messed up, but she had, a little bit. But she knew there was part of her that understood why she had done it. Even before talking to Dr. Sawyer, she had known that Kai had held things back from her. Hadn’t she thought just that earlier that day?

  With a sigh, she opened the cupboard but paused when she heard a car door. It was too close to be a neighbor’s car.

  “I said I don’t wanna be here.”

  That was Kai. Or at least it sounded like Kai. A very drunk Kai. On the way to the door she saw Evan tugging Kai out of his truck.

  “I don’t care. I said you’re staying here.”

  With amazing ease, Evan stood Kai against the truck and then leaned down to pick him up over his shoulder. He walked with purpose to the front of her house. What the hell happened?

  She went to the door and opened it just as Evan walked up the stairs.

  “Well, there you are. Cute as a bug,” Evan said.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I said I don’t want to be here,” Kai said, then he burped.

  “Shut up,” Evan said good-naturedly as he continued toward her. She had no choice but to let him through the door.

  Kai lifted his head, his lips in a snarl. When he saw her, it dissolved into a drunken smile. “Hey, Jocelyn. Your eyes are really green tonight.”

  Evan chuckled as he continued on to her bedroom. She didn’t follow them, but heard Evan murmur something to Kai and then he came back out.