“But with your combined income, surely you’d be able to find something suitable,” Millie’s dad said, but the question hung in the air—when would he be marrying his daughter and starting a life with her, instead of just living together?
Fucking sandbagging motherfucker.
“Well, that’s certainly something Millie and I will discuss when the time’s right,” he answered without looking at Millie.
Although Millie’s mother was still on shift at the hospital, her stepmother dropped them off at her mother’s house. Millie had made it clear she wasn’t staying with her father, against his requests. Patrick thought it was so they could sleep in the same room, which was totally fine with him. Both of them were full of food, alcohol, and questions after their dinner with Millie’s dad. Patrick just wanted to crawl in bed and leave this day behind. He kissed Millie as she sat on the couch with the remote and her Kindle.
“I’m going to bed,” he said.
“Okay,” she answered to his back and he walked to the room she’d led him to earlier.
Hours later, a light woke him up. Millie was walking around the room with her cell phone lit so she could make her way to the bed. She eased in and sighed. He rolled over and pulled her into his arms, nuzzling his face in her hair.
“Patrick?” Millie turned over and faced him, the dark cloaking them so they could only see the outline of each other’s bodies.
“Yeah, babe,” he whispered back.
“You’re not going to marry me, are you.” It was a statement, not a question, and it hung in the air while he tried to wake up enough to give her an answer that would calm her fears, which were coming from somewhere he wasn’t comfortable with.
“Mil…” he pulled her closer, “I love you. We’re getting a little ahead of ourselves, you know?”
“Patrick, I want things for myself. I want to get married and have a family. If you don’t want that, then I need to look for someone who does.”
Her sentences were direct and sounded rehearsed; like she’d been practicing this conversation for a while. He was floored; he didn’t realize she wanted all of these things already. He was meeting her family for the first time and she was throwing this shit on him? He didn’t know what to say.
“Babe, where is this coming from?” He leaned in and kissed her, but she pulled away from him. “We’re happy. Why are you pushing things?”
“We’re happy, but I think we need to think about getting our own place. Don’t you feel too old to live with other people?”
“I guess I hadn’t thought about it.” He sighed and rolled over to face the ceiling. “I thought we were happy.”
Silence.
“Millie?”
“I want more, Patrick.”
Patrick was balls deep in Millie, she was screaming his name, and all he thought about was El. He’d gotten back from his second trip to Montana to see El in the hospital; this one had hurt him more than the trip before. She was awake and had come at him swinging. When he walked into her room, she pretended to sleep.
“Look, El,” he started, but he didn’t know what to say. The entire flight he’d imagined what he’d say, how he’d tell her he loved her and was glad she was alive, how he never meant for any of this to happen, how he thought he would die without her in his life, but nothing came out. He examined his hands. “I’m so sorry…about everything. I’ll keep apologizing to you until I die. I swear...I’d do anything if I could make this all go away.”
He took a chance and looked into her eyes and saw only a shell of her former self. It killed him to see her like this, so fucking broken. El met his gaze and they stared silently at each other for at least a minute. She refused to talk to him, but he needed to talk to her, to know what happened.
“I need to know,” he implored, his eyes never leaving hers.
“You need what?” she spat at him. “What is it that you think YOU need that I can give you, Patrick? Forgiveness? Acceptance? Answers? I can’t give you any of that. YOU lied to me. YOU LIED TO ME! FOR FOUR FUCKING YEARS YOU LIED!”
She was killing him. His heart felt like it was wrapped in barbed wire. Everywhere he turned it hurt. El was dead, it hurt. El lived and hated him, it hurt. He just wanted to go back and do it all over and tell her immediately, to explain that her piece of shit fiancé lied to her, but tell her everything. Everything.
“I know.” He wanted her to listen to his explanation, but he didn’t think the excuse that he was following orders would work. He had no words and laid his head on the edge of her bed. “I just...”
“You held me while I cried, while I had nonstop nightmares and stayed drunk, mourning all over my ‘dead fiancé.’ You let me lie on his grave and cry. You let me get a tattoo that’s a huge joke. YOU DID THAT TO ME!” Her voice choked with emotion.
All of a sudden Stella’s mother rushed in, startled by the commotion. “What’s wrong, Stella?” She stopped abruptly. “Oh, Patrick. I didn’t know you were coming today.”
“Hi, Miranda, could you give us a minute?” Patrick implored.
“No,” El demanded.
“Please, El,” Patrick pleaded.
“I... I’ll just be right outside, Stella.” Miranda backed out of the room, allowing Patrick to finish.
“Mom, no—” Stella protested.
“El, please. Just listen,” he said, speaking calmly. Truth, he told himself. Tell her the truth. “You know I love you and I didn’t mean to hurt you. I thought I was doing the best thing for you. I couldn’t figure out what to do. What would be better for you—the reality of what he did or that he passed away? I honestly thought it would be easier for you to think he was dead and for you to start over. Nobody knew when he was coming back or anything…” Patrick stumbled over his words. “He called me every week to see how you were doing. After a while, I thought I should just tell you, but then I knew I’d lose you. I was selfish, Stella. I love you, too. You’re my best friend and he put me in the worst possible position.” Patrick pulled her right hand in his and held it fiercely. He needed to know if Jamie had anything to do with the bombing, with her being injured. He didn’t think he could live with himself if Jamie had done this to the woman Patrick now admitted (to himself) he loved. “El, please tell me he didn’t have anything to do with this.”
El pulled against him, trying to get her hand away. It was like she couldn’t stand for him to touch her. It was like she lit a match and he was burning from her hatred. El pulled so hard against him, she hurt herself and let out a gasp that was gasoline to the flames that engulfed him. He was burning alive and she was watching. All he wanted to do was protect her and he continued to hurt her. Patrick immediately let go of her hand.
“Shit!” Patrick ran to get someone to help El.
Miranda was sitting in a chair next to the nurse’s station, on the phone, and didn’t see him waving at the nurse.
“Help!” Patrick called frantically to the nurse.
A large, older nurse walked past him, slower than he would’ve liked. When she entered El’s room, she asked El a few questions and looked at her chest. “Oh, Stella. You’ll be fine, just a little popped stitch. You’re tougher than that,” the nurse joked.
Tears slid down El’s face and she refused to look at Patrick. He’d only just admitted to himself that he loved this woman, so full of piss and vinegar, and he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to make things better for her. Maybe it’d just be best to stay away from her like she wanted him to. He stood at the end of the bed, his head hung in shame and in acknowledgement that they were done; whatever they were, it was over. When he looked up, they were alone in the room again and they simply looked at each other, neither saying a word. Her green eyes were full of tears, his blue eyes full of remorse and love.
This was it. Patrick turned and walked toward the door. This would be the last time he’d see her. “I’m sorry all I do is hurt you,” he’d said softly and left the woman he loved in a hospital room, crying.
That memory, in the middle of nailing his current girlfriend, had led him to blurt mid-thrust, “Move in with me.”
Millie’s eyes snapped open. “Really?”
He had to stop torturing himself. “Yes,” he answered.
“This is sort of sucky timing,” she commented as their bodies stilled and they looked at each other, naked and sweating.
“Well, I never said I had good timing.” He shrugged and leaned in to claim her mouth with his.
“All right then.” She lifted her hips to his.
“All right?”
“All right.” She tightened her muscles around him and he let go.
He sighed and said nothing. He couldn’t think. He wasn’t there yet. He still had this tug in a different direction; it was the same tug that made him run to Millie in the first place. I want more. And he did want more, but not with Millie. And that was the end of the discussion; she turned away from him and went to sleep. She had a slight purr to her breathing; it was endearing. There wasn’t anything about her that irritated him. She cooked, cleaned, and did his laundry. Millie was beautiful, funny as shit, and smart too. Maybe he could marry her; he did love her in a way. He could definitely be okay with Millie on his arm, even if he didn’t feel…he wasn’t even going to finish that thought. He loved her and he didn’t want to lose her. He slept and dreamed of wavy black hair and scars.
Chapter Five
WHITE KNIGHT
Patrick stared at the photo of El, George, and Jesse at a steakhouse in Atlanta that Millie had showed him on Twitter. The picture was months old, but El’s bruises in the picture were just healing and covered by makeup. His El looked like a deer in headlights, but Jesse and George appeared downright jovial. What did they have that he didn’t have? She was his person, his best friend, but Patrick hadn’t heard from El at all since the quick call she’d made when she was in Atlanta. The quick fluttering in his gut was stamped out as Millie put her hand on his shoulder.
“Patrick? Did you hear me?” She was standing next to him, letting him look at El’s Twitter account. The picture had about 200 favorites and tons of comments about how El was fucking both men. “This picture was taken when they were in Atlanta. I can’t believe I’m just now seeing it. That was so long ago.”
Shaken from his thoughts, he laughed. “Look at El’s face.”
“She looks like someone just flashed her,” Millie commented as she ran her hand down his arm, squeezing his biceps. “I wonder what that’s about; she’s never been able to hide her emotions very well.”
“El has no ability to hide her emotions. It’s sort of awesome.”
The front door opened and Billy burst in, face flushed and panting. Millie and Patrick both looked toward the door and Billy bent over at the waist, his hands on his knees.
“What’s wrong, Billy?”
Billy peered at them, sweat making his sandy blond hair stick to his forehead. “So…I was walking home from the metro station when a fucking pit bull started following me. I started walking faster and it grabbed my fucking pant leg. I had to sprint the entire way home in these dress shoes.”
“Oh, right. It’s the dress shoes that got you out of breath.” Patrick laughed and handed Millie back her iPad. He felt an irrational anger at El’s bruises and the fact the George and Jesse had saved her in Key West. Without him.
“Have you ever run in dress shoes?” Billy asked.
Patrick laughed. “No.”
“Well, I’d like to see you try.” Billy sat down and pulled off his shoes before his suit coat. “Fucker.”
“Billy, are you still headed to Houston next week?” Millie asked.
Billy scratched his head. “What day is it?”
“It’s fucking July 31, man.” Patrick changed the channel on the television.
“Oh, yeah. I’m going to Houston the first week of August. I need to remind Kayce about that.”
Patrick raised his eyebrows at Billy’s mention of Kayce. “Is this becoming serious?”
“Serious enough to fuck her brains out…”
“That has nothing to do with whether it’s serious or not,” Millie piped up.
“It doesn’t?” Billy faked horror.
Millie laughed. “Asshole,” she said as she walked back to her and Patrick’s bedroom.
“So…Kayce, huh?”
“Oh, Patrick,” he moaned. “I’m talking size D boobs, size whatever everything else. Her ass is perfection.”
“I do like a perfect ass,” Patrick agreed.
“She’s also smart and funny.”
“That sounds too good to be true.”
“Well, I’m hoping that it’s not,” Billy said, his eyes animated.
“Women are…complicated.”
“We’re not that complicated!” Millie yelled from the back room.
Patrick and Billy both looked to the back room at the same time.
“We just want to be taken care of, respected, and fucked like a whore in the bedroom!”
“A whore huh?” Billy asked.
“A whore,” Millie confirmed.
“A whore,” Patrick mouthed to Billy. “Who knew?”
They both laughed.
“I do love a good whore, babe!” he called out.
It was the middle of August; George called Patrick and asked if he would watch Cooper. El had been a real jackass about him and Millie coming to the trial. He’d planned on going anyway until he realized what that would look like to Millie if he went when El had been adamant they not go. Millie didn’t even know the specific day El was testifying, but Patrick did, based on the talk at the office. She’d told George not to come either, but George was going anyway. Patrick did give him credit for that one.
Patrick was sitting in his running shorts on the couch in the den with his running shoes on the coffee table. It was Saturday and he’d just gotten back from working out and was thinking about what he would do for the rest of his day. Billy was playing a video game and they were talking about who they thought would be in the National Championship game for college football.
“I’m running over to El’s,” Millie said in a rush as she ran through the kitchen. “She’s freaking about what to wear for the trial. She’s being an asshole about not letting anyone go with her, but she asked me to help with her clothes.”
“Well, she is an asshole,” Billy confirmed from the couch.
As Millie walked past Patrick, he grabbed her arm, pulling her into his lap and kissing her. He could forget about El when he kissed her…sometimes.
Millie slapped him playfully, but then ran a hand down his chest.
“You guys are gross,” Billy commented.
“Can I wine you and dine you tonight?” Patrick murmured in her ear.
“When have I ever said no to that?” She giggled, pushed herself out of his lap and bounced out the front door.
“So every time you wine her and dine her do you end up with a 69?”
“Pretty much.”
Billy shook his head. “My God, you are a lucky fuck.”
“That I am.” Patrick gave him a shit-eating grin and leaned back in the chair.
“So any word on Jamie?” Billy asked.
“He hasn’t surfaced yet, still relying on the fact that he contacted Burns in December and told him that El blew his cover.” Patrick rubbed his head three times really quickly. “Burns is trying to cover his own ass too. I have a really bad feeling about what will go down when he surfaces. I don’t know what it will mean for El. He’s trying to say that she’s the reason why he had to run.”
“She’s not your responsibility.”
“I feel like she is,” he admitted.
“That’s…” Billy clamped his mouth shut.
“What?”
“You need to watch yourself with all that shit. Millie isn’t stupid and I don’t see her putting up with you trying to be El’s white knight.”
“But, she’s…El.” Patrick knew he was walking a fine line. He wa
s with Millie, wanted to be with Millie, but there was something between him and El. Something that he was powerless to fight. Something that was innate in him. He wanted her, wanted to protect her. He wanted her to want him. All of those feelings were buried deep somewhere within him and unwelcome, but they were there. Patrick knew if he ever allowed those feelings to bubble to the surface, he’d dive too deep, losing himself in love and lust for the woman who’d changed his entire life without even knowing she had that power.
“Yeah, yeah,” Billy dismissed. “I’m just telling you. You should listen to my ass every once in a while.”
Patrick was quiet for a minute, contemplating. “Millie wants to get married.”
“Big fucking shocker, dude. All girls want to get married.”
“El doesn’t.”
“That’s because her fiancé pretended to die instead of dumping her. You’d be a little gun shy after that too, wouldn’t you?”
“You think she’ll get married?”
“Seriously? I don’t sit around and ponder whether El will get married. When I ponder things, it’s when I’ll get laid next and if I need more beer.”
“We are getting older, should we be thinking about shit like this?”
Millie’s constant talk about moving into their own place and getting married was starting to get to him.
“I think you’d be thinking about it if you wanted to,” Billy responded.
“You’re so wise,” Patrick said sarcastically and got up, moving into the kitchen.
“You’re welcome.” Billy laughed. “Get me a beer.”
Patrick slowed a bit to let Cooper catch up with him while he was running through Del Ray, a neighborhood over from Old Town. Unfortunately, Cooper was starting to slow down. Patrick guessed he was getting older; he didn’t know what El would do when she lost him. Cooper had been with her through everything, longer than anyone. He leaned down and rubbed Cooper behind the ears.
They jogged down to the dog bakery that Cooper loved. He walked in and smiled at the cute girl behind the counter.
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