SweetHarts (5 Book Box Set)

by Kira Graham

  “What?” I ask, slowly and softly, in a voice that Cleo knows isn’t good.

  I feel like I’ve been slapped, and as shocked as I am, some kernel of hurt bubbles up inside me at the thought that Ares is hanging around with this doctor. For the last week or so, he hasn’t been dropping around every night, and if he does, he only crawls into my bed after two or three in the morning. At first, I told myself that I didn’t care, that he could kiss my ass if he thought that he had something better to do than be with me, but now…

  Look. It’s not like we love each other or anything. We’re just…I don’t know what we are, but as the weeks have passed, and he’s been there with me, a steady, solid presence to drown out the dread and the fear and the nightmares, I’ve started to think that maybe, there’s a possibility that we could be more.

  And okay, if I was going to be honest, I’d probably have to admit that I could possibly be falling for the guy, a state that I never thought I would find myself in. That’s the problem, though. He’s good and oh so bad at the same time, and he makes me feel things that are so foreign to me. I find myself waiting up for him and looking forward to seeing him, and on those occasions when he hasn’t shown up, I have to admit that I’ve been disappointed.

  What I should do with all that, I don’t know. I feel as if I’m being squeezed from all sides. I’m lying to everyone I know except Nate, who seems to be keeping away from me so that he doesn’t get sucked into my lie, too. I appreciate that he hasn’t blabbed and ratted me out, but I have to admit that when Ares isn’t around to make me feel secure and wanted, I’m often freaking out and feeling all kinds of alone.

  “Listen, Tee—I, uh, don’t want to get in the middle of whatever you and Ares seem to be doing, but…shit. Uh, sorry, God! Shoot. Adonis, that big gossiping dummy, said that I should stay out of this, but I—I don’t want to see you get hurt,” she says softly, both of us buttoning our lips and adopting innocent expressions when Honey snaps her head around with a glare.

  By the time that she’s turned back around and a few people have started to trickle in to fill the pews, I’m tense and struggling not to curse out loud while I wait for the chatter to cover my next words.

  “Why would I get hurt?” I ask, my nails digging into Cleo’s palm when she tries to scoot away and get up. “Cleo, sit your ass down right now and spill it. I swear to God that if you don’t tell me what the heck is going on, I’m going to stand up in front of everyone in this place and shout to the heavens that you’re carrying your fiancé’s bastard baby,” I warn, hissing my words through clenched teeth.

  Cleo sighs, and I see her wince before she scrubs a hand through her golden hair and worries her lip.

  “Ares. He used to…date that Taylor chick. Like for real dating, not just sex and hookups,” she hisses, glaring at an old lady who scoots in behind us and mutters for us to hush.

  Not like him and me, I think, hearing the unspoken words even if Cleo’s being too much of a chickenshit to say them. Ares and I are only hooking up, which I know because he’s mentioned before just how relaxed he feels not having to answer to me just so that we can have sex. At the time, I laughed it off and told him to get lost, but if I’m honest, it kind of hurt. Here I am, a secret good girl who kept her hymen intact until I saw a man that I wanted to give it up to, and yet he seems to think that I’m some sort of street-smart, loose woman who’s hip to the latest trends of casual sex.

  I want to be. I think that in the beginning, I had every intention of being that girl and maintaining my cool vibe. That all went out the window after Peter almost killed me, though, and I’m going to be one hundred percent honest here and admit that I’ve changed a lot since then. I’m no longer quick to react like I always used to be, something that I mourn as much as I mourn the freedom that I lost when Mindy stepped into our lives. I liked being brazen and in-your-face scary, and I loved that people couldn’t help but like me, even as they ran or hid.

  Now, I no longer lose my temper; I try to listen to people, even if their disgusting feelings revolt me; and even at work, I’ve taken on the role of sedate professional, something that my partners are still struggling to become accustomed to. Ever since I went back to work, I’ve tried to find a balance, and, while it’s hard, I’m getting there.

  Or I was, with Ares there to shield me from the memories. Now…

  “So?” I ask, forcing myself to sound casual even as I resist the urge to bolt and find that rat bastard immediately.

  “Soooo, uh…I was under the impression that the two of you…” she whispers, her eyes questioning. “You sleep together all the time, and he’s at your place more often than not. Adonis and I just assumed that you’re an item.”

  Yeah. Well. That’s the problem with assumptions, I think. They’re not facts. Not even if you’re the asshole who started to make those very same assumptions.

  “Apparently not,” I muse, forcing a hard grin onto my face. “So, what happened? Did he show up somewhere with her on his arm?” I ask, cursing my hormones when I feel my eyes sting and tingle.

  Cleo looks super uncomfortable, and I can clearly see that she’d rather be anywhere but here. I wait her out, knowing that she’s searching for the right words to use while still being honest, but by the time she’s ready to say something, the stupid priest has joined us and is launching into a speech about how happy he is and how honored he feels to be shepherding this flock.

  “She came to dinner at Honey’s,” Cleo whispers guiltily, her eyes flicking to the moms before she leans closer and speaks as softly as she can. “They left pretty early, only stayed for dinner, and then…well, according to Grange, he only showed up at your place after four this morning?” she asks, driving a spike of pure pain and rage through me.

  “Yep,” I tell her, my voice airy and casual, while inside, I’m reverting to plotting his death. Slowly. So slowly.

  How dare he pick up with some other chick and then crawl his skanky ass into my bed looking for some second helpings? I think, only half-hearing what the preacher is saying because I’m too busy trying to act like none of this matters. Oh, but it does. It matters so much that I’m already thinking of ways to get back at him so thoroughly that his dick will shrivel up and fall off.

  “Uhhh, so you two aren’t a thing?” Cleo asks, her relief so visible that I don’t have the heart to disagree.

  “Nah.”

  What else can I say? We aren’t a thing, and we clearly never will be if Ares is hanging out with some other vagina on the side. I don’t play that way—never have and never will. So I guess whatever little pipe dreams I had in my head of telling him my secret and hoping he’d be there for me are officially dead.

  And just like that, once again, I’m all alone in this, and dealing with the cleanup, as usual.

  “God, I’m so relieved. I’ve been feeling like hell ever since that woman blew into town and they started hanging together. Adonis swears that there’s nothing between them anymore, but I don’t know. They’re awfully buddy-buddy.”

  And just like that, I’m done.

  I need a freaking break from this family. I need time to think about myself, and to figure out what I’m going to do. I still have a full month left before I have to decide whether or not to do that test or come clean, and I cannot do that here.

  Chapter Ten

  Ares

  I’m tired, beat to shit, and aching in so many places that it’s hard to put one foot in front of the other to get to the door. I spent all day at the gym with Heath and Grange, getting the hell beat out of me, and after that, I dropped by the hospital to check on Brent and Beau, hoping against hope that she’d found some answers for me.

  She’s been running test after test, and then rerunning them for days now, and she’s so dead on her feet that when I came up beside her next to Brent’s bed, she sagged into me and didn’t, for once, threaten to rip my nuts off. To say that Beau and I have a contentious relationship is such an understatement that it’s laughable. We
were always friends, but we just rub each other the wrong way. She can’t forget that I broke up with her, and I can’t forget that she’s clingy and a little nuts when it comes to love.

  We finally decided to call a truce, though, at least in front of Ma and Dad, who seem to be fonder of Beau than I’d thought. In fact, at one point during last night’s family dinner, I thought that Ma was going to propose to Beau herself. That is, until Creed Hart got a bug up his ass, pulled a jealous fit, and grabbed Ma up to storm home.

  I shudder to think about his parting shot, but I grin, too, because I love that my dad is still so into Ma that he’ll bark the words, “Gonna show your sweet ass who it belongs to.” Honey and Jack, on the other hand, practically cackled all through dinner, while I showed Beau how to secretly avoid eating anything that Honey had cooked. I need her alive to fix Brent, after all.

  After dinner, I took her out for something decent to eat, and then we spent hours in her temporary office combing through Brent’s old medical records and everything she’s found so far. Not that I knew what I was doing, but I felt almost sorry for her when she admitted that she was a little freaked out at the thought of spending all night alone.

  Beau is alone here, save for me, and I owe it to her to at least be there for her. So I stayed, at least for a while. Then I crawled back to Tee’s place in the wee hours of the morning and fell asleep beside her as soon as my head hit the pillow and her ass snuggled into my groin.

  I have to admit that I’m more than a little attached to that infuriating woman. So much so that instead of going home to my apartment, which is a five-minute drive from the hospital, I’ve driven the ten extra minutes to Tee’s.

  When I reach the door and slide my key in, I feel a sense of calm settle over me, and when I push the door open and walk in, it’s as if the pain of the day fades away. That is, until something comes flying at my face, and pain explodes through my nose, causing blood to start gushing out as I stagger back and grab my face.

  It takes a second to clear my eyes of tears, but when I do, I’m left facing four women who are glaring at me so harshly that for a second, I think about running out.

  “You stupid asshole!” Sin hisses, pulling her arm back to punch me again, before Rosetta grabs her arm and pulls her back.

  “Don’t hit him again. Grange says that he’s got a glass jaw, and I want him awake to talk!” she barks, her narrow stare settling on me with enough disdain that, for the second time, I give serious thought to just leaving.

  I love these women to death, and, as my sisters, they’re people that I would do anything for, but there is no way in hell that I’m standing here while Sinai beats on me and Cleo circles in front of me, fiddling with a knife while sucking on her teeth and glaring at my nuts.

  “What the hell is going on here? Tee!” I yell, needing her out here, because while I wouldn’t hit a woman, she would. Easily. Gleefully.

  “She’s not here, dickhead! She left. Thanks to you and your ho-bag,” Cleo mutters, her tone an angry hiss.

  I go still, not liking what I’ve just heard. Nefertiti doesn’t leave the apartment after five in the afternoon, and in fact has changed her schedule so that she can leave work by four-thirty and be home before the sun goes down. Since it’s summer, I find her paranoia funny, but we all indulge her recent moods and changes, and try to ensure that she’s comfortable.

  Which is not, however, the subject at hand.

  “What?” I bark, annoyance threatening to consume me when my nose throbs and blood trickles over my lip. “What the hell are you people talking about now?” I ask, too tired to even attempt to be civil and calm.

  All I want to do is shower, crawl into bed with Tee, and sleep.

  “Your hussy,” Rosetta chirps brightly, her happy smile so sinister that I take a step back and reach into my sweats for my phone.

  Zeus is on speed dial. I need him here. So I calmly feel around and try to press number one on the screen without tipping them off. If anyone can calm Rosetta down, it’s my brother. He’s her rock. He keeps her centered, and in her condition, I really don’t think that she needs to be stressed right now.

  “I don’t have a hussy! Christ. Look, I don’t know what is going on here, but I’m not in the mood. I don’t like arguing with people, I won’t argue with you ladies, and all I want to do is shower, kiss Tee hello, and make sure she’s eaten before I pass out,” I say as calmly as I can, ignoring their narrowed stares to stalk to the kitchen and grab a wet towel for my nose.

  “What do you mean, you don’t have a hussy? We saw you with that doctor bitch that you used to date, and then you stayed out with her until four in the morning,” Cleo accuses me, her body vibrating with indignation in an oversized purple sweater and lime green leggings.

  Jesus. No wonder Adonis is still having a fit about his wedding. God alone knows what she plans to wear for her walk down the aisle.

  “No, what you saw was me trying to help Beau, because despite what you think, she’s working her ass off looking for answers to help Brent. She’s put her entire life on hold to come out here and take on this case. The least we can do for her is not leave her all alone, in a strange city with no friends. I spent hours sitting in her office last night, trying to read through medical records, because I knew that she was going to keep working, and I didn’t want her to be alone,” I say, keeping the anger I feel towards them out of my voice. “Please don’t tell me that Tee somehow got it into her head that I’m sleeping with Beau.”

  Cleo turns bright red and looks at me guiltily, and, just like that, I have my answer. I should have known that being with Tee, even as casual as things are between us, would spark shit up within her family. I love them all, my own family and the Sweets, but they’re all so involved in each other’s lives that it makes me want to scream. That’s why Tee and I get along, I think. She keeps to herself most of the time, making it easier for me to be around her.

  “I, um…I kinda blabbed to her that you had already dated this Beau and that you left with her last night. But what else was I supposed to think, Ares? You didn’t invite Tee to dinner—”

  “Bullshit! She didn’t want to go. Nefertiti doesn’t leave this apartment after five in the afternoon, and you all know how weird she’s getting about even leaving the apartment to go to work. I left her here yesterday, happy and safe,” I say through gritted teeth. “And now she’s not here because the four of you decided to butt into my business?”

  That earns me a long moment of silence, during which the Sweet women exchange guilty looks, and Rosetta curses soundly. She curses so loudly that when the door bursts open, it takes me a second to hear it and react, my body immediately falling into a fight stance, ready to defend them against any harm. Zeus stumbles in, and when he sees Rosetta and then looks over at my nose, he scowls and grabs her into his arms.

  “What the hell is going on here?”

  “It isn’t my fault! I didn’t do anything this time,” Rosetta yells, pointing a finger at Cleo. “She told Tee that Ares is sleeping with Beau Taylor, and Tee left for ‘some alone time,’” she sneers, using her fingers in the classic way that indicates that it’s all bullshit.

  And it is, I think, feeling a sharp pain hit me. Tee and I aren’t in a relationship with one another, in any real sense of the word, and I’d mention being committed to her about as readily as I’d hand her a knife and give her free rein on my balls, but we are sort of friends. Thinking that I’d been sleeping beside her every night while boning some other woman must have hurt her.

  And that makes me angry. So angry that I forget that I love these women, that I’m a peaceful guy, and that three of them are pregnant.

  “I promise you all this, and let me make it so very clear that you can’t miss my meaning: if Nefertiti is hurt, if anything happens to her, if even one fucking hair on her head is grazed by harm, then I will come back here and make your lives a living fucking hell!”

  I guess the lid’s off the pot now, I think, storming p
ast them to get to the bedroom so that I can shower, change, and call Grange. They’d better hope that Tee’s latest fears are strong enough to have made her take security with her, because if she didn’t…

  Tee

  I’m a mess of nerves as I push the old Honda to its limit, keeping my speed high as I take the twisting mountain road up towards the cabin where I’ve decided to do some thinking. When I called one of my partners at the practice and told him that I needed some time, he offered me his new “cabin” as a getaway and promised not to tell anyone where I was going.

  Gil is a good guy, and someone I trust, so when we made arrangements for me to call him every few days to check in, and he promised to get in touch with Alex to keep her up to date, I thought…this is good. I can do this. The only problem for me is that I’m freaking sweating bullets at the thought of being all alone up here.

  As the car makes a high-pitched whine, protesting the gradient of the little road and my harsh foot on the gas, I pray that the stupid thing makes it up there at all, never mind sometime this week. I borrowed it from Berry McIntire, a waitress whose sister is a patient of mine, because unlike everything I or my family owns, this thing isn’t rigged with GPS or the million trackers that Grange and Heath sneak into our stuff.

  It was while I was sitting in church and listening to a sermon so long and dead-ass boring that I asked God to just take me, that I came up with these plans—which I know are selfish, but what the hell do I care? I need some time to think, and I can’t do that with my messed-up family crawling up into every orifice I own.

  So here I am, gunning a piece-of-crap heap of junk up a mountain at five miles an hour—if I’m lucky—and all I can think is, I should have just waited for Ares to show up and fall asleep, and then I could have hit him in the crotch with a sock filled with quarters.

  Simple. Quick. Effective.

  “Would you just go, you useless piece of garbage?” I scream at the car, hardly able to hear myself over the constant scream of the engine that’s filling my ears and setting me on edge.