by Falon Gold
He shrugged. “It’s fine. I didn’t have manners when I lived here. Nobody expected it of me. I’ve changed.” Right then, he became a kindred spirit—nobody saw the good in us because there wasn’t any. Didn’t mean a tiny seed of decency wasn’t there to promote to grow, which no one did. His head cocked. “That’s the second time I’ve said that to someone today.” Lucky Duchess was the first no doubt.
“I haven’t been the nicest person myself,” I understated, which Bradley endorsed by craning his neck back patronizingly. Okay, he didn’t have the highest opinion of me, but hell, who did? “I’m a working progress, okay? And getting rid of those who won’t support that. I’m sick of being unhappy and inflicting that on others to feel better. It doesn’t really help, like using drugs. You have to keep using, to keep getting high.”
And my mouth kept spewing words. “During the lows, the bill for treating people like dirt comes due; I lose those who truly have my best interests at heart. Almost lost the few real people I have left just this morning. The women I walk to the school with every day got tired of my shit and told me where to shove it. Duchess was leading the charge. I did the same thing to Rafe. He didn’t like it either, which is why you have him by the neck.”
After my word-vomit, a long exhale discharged from me as if I released an excess of weight. Bradley’s eyes bucked so hard their sockets had to stretch to dangerous limits to keep them in his head. That look was code for ‘why the hell did you tell me all that’ and that it was possibly amazing for him to hear me speak of my failings. I did that nowhere near as much as I judged others. Okay, I didn’t admit my faults at all, and why the hell did I tell him all that like an idiot?
Well, it was easy to talk to him who’d walked a mile in my shoes, could relate, give me some pointers maybe, and there was this urgency building for him to know me. And just like that, I had something to prove to a stranger.
Just ignore the urgency, Delilah, it’ll go away. If I thought that enough, maybe I’d start to believe it.
Rafe scowled at me for jawing about personal growth as he labored to breathe. A rational reaction in his predicament. I still preferred him detained and slightly suffocating until the cops arrived. Meantime, I marveled at finding common ground with Bradley of all people. It was clear we both had gone through a lot.
Nobody sane traded their hand for state-of-the-art upgrades willingly. Even I knew the military didn’t issue those out unless traumatic loss of a body part was involved. The powerful aura he exuded wouldn’t have come without a heavy price too. How did he get through the loss, I wondered, wanting to know every fine detail about him. No man had pulled me in so fast, so deep.
Bradley wasn’t skipping the opportunity to rake his potent gaze over me, his stare weighing like an ocean’s worth of bricks. Most likely, he thought I was ape-shit crazy. I’d take that if he decided I had filled out in the best and sexiest of ways like he had.
He certainly hadn’t been the type to save a woman from spousal abuse before now. Graduating up to being guilty of it himself before leaving Laramie, angry as hell while living here and like me, lashing out at everyone but the source of his misery. That was on his father, blessed the ex-cop’s wicked soul. The man had no scruples period, beat Bradley’s mother for years then kicked her out. It was rumored that she hindered him from bringing up his son in his image.
What was it with the men in Laramie and their images?
Olivia shivered then asked, “He’s Aiden’s daddy, mommy?”
Maybe, she was telling me who was too caught in Bradley’s stare to discern the difference. Unzipping my coat to wrap her in it, I should’ve sent her to bed, but I felt more at peace with her in my arms after Rafe wanted to turn her into a pawn.
“Yep, Aiden’s my son, Olivia.” Bradley grinned proudly, and he should’ve—Aiden was a good kid courtesy of Duchess and her mother gone too soon.
Olivia wasted no time taking over the conversation, updating Bradley of every single thing she and Aiden had done together and wanted for Christmas. Bradley responded in the appropriate places. Rafe grunted multiple times. We ignored him. I let my mind wander, not my eyes. They had found their preference; Bradley’s face.
It occurred to me that seeing his son was why he was on Brighton Street at this time of night, stalking Duchess’ house not mine. In the right place at the right time to put an end to my shitshow. He may have a shitshow of his own to contend with—Duchess didn’t have the warm and fuzzies for Bradley at all. I hoped she didn’t feel anything for him with the likes of Kincaid Newman, who was almost as gorgeous as Bradley, warming her bed.
Don’t mean she doesn’t harbor feelings for her ex, and she still might not want you drooling on him if she don’t.
Right. Women could be so unreasonably territorial at times. If I wasn’t careful, I’d be the talk of the town instead of spreading it. Laidback Duchess got feisty with the best of them and threw a mean tray of dishes when ticked off, but I didn’t have one ounce of resistance with the adult edition of Bradley. What red-blooded woman would?
The man was a 2.0 version of himself, grown into a fine specimen with manners and principles finally. It didn’t get no damn better than that, but I was going have to find or steal some repellant for myself because he was a flame, I the moth. Indulging that force of nature could burn right through my friendship with his ex, and it almost seemed worth it just to get to know Bradley better.
Dammit, why was I even considering the unthinkable? Yet, I knew why and could suddenly look objectively at Rafe’s indulgence in affairs despite the hurt they caused; temptation was a bitch. So was being the running joke of the town. I bet I was already that secretly amongst our associates anyway.
The finale to my marriage was about to blow the gossip mill to smithereens if the blue lights illuminating the street and police cruiser coming our way at full throttle were anything to go by. Worse, if Rafe’s reaction to the divorce was this severe, the expected backlash from all directions for all my transgressions in the name of personal growth were going to be brutal. Not only was Rafe going to make my world nightmarish, so were my parents. His parents. Our social circle. All against little ole me.
Things were going to go beyond sideways and hit a wall before they got better. Fuck my life, but there would be no backtracking on my decisions.
Chapter Four
~Bradley~
Flushed from her impromptu track meet, Delilah’s delicate porcelain skin paled as if she saw a ghost. It was alarming. I didn’t like surprises. If she realized something major or minor, I needed to know too. Once a squad leader, always a squad leader evidently. Civilian life was going to be the pits since I couldn’t command her to tell me anything.
There was no time to ask if she was okay or knew something vital when she entered the house at a frantic clip to take Olivia back to bed. Officer Brian Davis, who’d been on the force before my father joined and I was born, eased his long limbs out his patrol car parked at the curb. Grey-haired with receding hairline and skinnier than I recalled, he extracted a small notepad from his breast pocket on his stroll to the porch via sidewalk.
“You can release Mr. Claiborne now, Mr. White.”
I should’ve known he’d recognize me.
Everybody still knew everybody in this damn town.
Letting a livid Rafe down, I jammed both hands into my coat pockets, stepping back into the shadows of the porch. It was ingrained to put my back against the wall and both eyes on anyone who might attack, retaliate. Turned out Rafe was more interested in wiping non-existent wrinkles from his clothing and lording over the officer from the top step while spitting out his side of the story first, fast, and furiously.
Delilah flew to his side, interrupting him. Make that correcting him as to why the cops were called. And then the ‘he said, she said, and then I said’ dance began.
“That man attacked me!” Rafe shouted as a last ditch effort to make himself the victim, body contorting to point behind him at me. “Are you
going to say I’m lying about that too, Delilah?”
“You are!” she refuted, turning her head to Davis.
Rafe started to object.
She raised a hand between them, cutting him off. “He didn’t attack him, Officer. Rafe chased me around the house, trying to catch me so he could remind me who was the boss after I asked for a divorce and told him to leave. Bradley got here mid-chase and pinned Rafe to the wall with one hand!”
Rafe turned beet-red. “He didn’t need to know any of that, Delilah.” Oh, now he was embarrassed after chasing her like an infantile who couldn’t handle ‘no’.
“If it’s part of tonight’s altercation or the reason it took place, I need to know about it. Now, one hand you say, Mrs. Claiborne?” Officer Davis questioned nonchalantly.
I knew he was poking subtle fun at Rafe. She nodded. The officer’s lips twitched while jotting down more notes. Rafe glowered at her for daring to dispute him and make him look weak, which he was. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to speak unless spoken to in his eyes too. This guy was everything I wasn’t anymore, and I hoped I didn’t look as bad as he did when I acted asshole-y. It wasn’t a good look.
“Anything you have to say about his accusation, Mr. White?” Officer Davis droned, bored.
“What she said,” was my bland retort every time I had to weigh in, “and some of the rich people in Laramie seem slightly demented these days. Jot that down too.”
Rafe sputtered indignantly, insulted like I wanted him to be.
Davis snorted then coughed to cover his amusement. “Okay, I think I have everybody’s statement. Due to the nature of the call, you two need to separate, at least for tonight. The parent bearing most of the responsibility for the child gets to stay. That would be you, Mrs. Claiborne.”
Rafe flipped out into a tantrum worthy of a, well, his five-year-old. Arms flailing about, he bawled, “What?! Are you blind? Do you not know who I am? Who my father is?”
His bitch-fit drew the neighbors not already spectating from their lawn to the windows. He had to be ordered to leave under promise of arrest. After listening to her side of things along with his bitching, I regretted not knocking him unconscious and felt bad for him at the same time. He had lost it all damn near. Marriage. Home. Wife who still had more than her fair share of beauty and catered to him. A child who’d love him unconditionally despite him needing to grow a pair. All of it tossed away for cheap, stolen moments with other women.
Stupid bastard didn’t know how good he had it, currently stomping off like a spoiled brat to snatch up his packed bags at the door. Hauling them down the steps to the standard status symbol for his station in life—a luxury, navy blue Jaguar parked at the end of the sidewalk branching off toward the driveway—he practiced walking and talking. “You won’t get away with this, Delilah. I’m calling your parents right now. They’ll put you in your damn place. I’ll be back home by in the morning and you better be prepared to grovel. Officer Davis, my father’s the mayor and he’ll have your job by morning for not arresting that motherfucker who assaulted me.”
Rafe slung his bags over the driver’s seat into the back then slung himself down in his driver’s seat. Cranking the car, he rolled the passenger window down, lobbing a finger out of it in my direction. “As for you, motherfucker—”
“Whatever you have to say, say it to my face,” I goaded him who was an inch shorter, forty pounds lighter, and couldn’t fight gnats out of his ass.
Rafe knew that, so as per bullies, he stayed in the car where it was safer. “You’ll feel the wrath of the Claiborne’s when you least expect it. All of you will!”
Officer Davis grunted, “Uh huh.” Unconcerned, he stood at the bottom step, writing. Neither would I lose any sleep over Rafe’s threats. Those aimed at Delilah did bother me for some baffling reason. Since when did her well-being mean anything to me?
Around the time you decided to intercede in their fight, idiot. What can I say, I learned to hate bullies. Nothing respectable about them. I should know, I was one. Rafe would’ve used his size and the ties that bind to pressure her into what she so obviously didn’t want—him—and that was what worried me. And why I interfered in their fight.
Rafe backed out in a hurry. She sighed with her back to me, finding no relief in his absence. Davis twisted at the waist, offering a card to her standing on the top step with slumped shoulders. I chewed over giving her a massage she’d love, but didn’t. She wouldn’t want my inferior fingers, flesh nor cybernetic, on her. And I shouldn’t either.
“This card has your complaint’s case number on it, Mrs. Claiborne, should you need a copy of the police report. I advise you to have it handy for the divorce.”
She thanked Davis softly, taking the card. Tucking it away in a back pocket of her pants drew my eyes to the round globes of her ass small enough to fit right in the center of my palms. She was so petite a stiff breeze was a danger to her.
She’s not your type, nor your speed. You’d break her, so get your eyes off her. Tell that to the hard-on running amok in my jeans and the protective instincts out of control.
Davis tipping an imaginary hat snagged my attention, gratefully. “Call if you need us again, Mrs. Claiborne. Mr. White, thank you for your service to this country. I’m glad to see you’ve grown into a fine man. Glad to have you back with us. You folks have a good night.”
Unexpecting him to have a welcoming attitude or notice the same growth in me that Delilah was trying to acquire, I saluted him. It felt damn good that someone didn’t hate the sight of me, wasn’t holding ancient grudges. Davis, forced to earn his paycheck several times when I lived here, spun to leave. Watching him go, Delilah trembled in her thin jacket. I almost offered her mine. Her arms came up to hug herself.
Yep, nope, not offering anything. Curb your chivalry right the fuck now, Bradley.
The vibe of feeling abysmally alone in the world rippled off her. I recognized it because I lived it and breathed it for far too long a whole bundle of times. Damn if I could stomach her experiencing the same nor stand by as she descended into whatever mood sweeping through her, so I strode to her. A foot taller, I towered over her.
She turned to me. Her head, level with the bottom of my chest, dropped back on her shoulders to make visual contact. The intense indigo color of her eyes was receding behind dilated pupils. She was stressed. One adorable little crease in her forehead attested to that. My robotic hand twitched, wanting to smooth it away. I squashed that compulsion real quick-like.
“I’m so sorry that Rafe’s going to be trouble for you.” The honey texture of her voice—thick, dripping slow and sweet—dragged me out of a daze.
That I had been lost in her was a startling revelation.
Her? What the hell? Was I losing my refined tastes in women? That hard up?
“Don’t worry about it,” came out gruffer than I wanted, testosterone steadily rising in her presence. That shit had to stop.
A stray gust of wind sent a heady cloud of jasmine my way and lifted the ends of her tresses coated in a shine so bright we both should’ve been blinded by it. Who smelled this damn good? She had no idea had hard it was to keep all my fingers from combing through her hair.
“We both should worry about Rafe, Bradley. His parents have a lot of sway in this town. By the time he squeals to my parents, he’ll have a significant amount of weight to throw around. I don’t know how much good I can be to you with that since everyone is going to shun me for divorcing him. I’m sorry for pulling you into this, but I am glad you came back. I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t, so thank you.”
I had no trouble detecting her sincerity, but I did have difficulty with liking her being troubled on my behalf and the pleasure blooming in my chest. There was no love lost between us, no interaction when we were teens then adults. She was an angelic-faced demon, debutant, diva, and any other ‘d’ word that meant high maintenance and highly obnoxious. Not to mention harsh to those deemed lesser.
Maybe, I couldn’t judge her, I hadn’t been any nicer to the same people, but she gossiped about them. Still did. That was worse than anything I’d ever done, right? I shouldn’t care how she felt about me. Yet, I did and wasn’t going to let that continue, so all the sensations she invoked were promptly suppressed then crushed.
“You’re welcome, Delilah, and you didn’t pull me into anything. I came over here on my own. Not worried about anyone throwing weight around. I have a whole government behind me if the Claibornes wanna start something. It’s you that your ex can give bad days to.” Her that needed someone to have her back.
She swiped a hand across her face that never resumed its natural hue. “It’s good to hear that he can’t do anything to you. I was starting to worry about him finding a way to get you thrown out of the city. That would stunt yours and Aiden’s relationship. Your son has a good mother, but a good father’s just as needed. I know this because my kid doesn’t have one and she’s known him her entire life.”
Comprehending that she was worried for me while rooting for me to know my son rocked me to my core. Damn if that pleasure phenomenon didn’t come right back in my chest ten-fold. A lump of emotions formed in my throat. I hadn’t had someone on my side since my mother died a year ago, over twenty years before that. And I was feeling the burn of emotions triggered by the wrong woman.
I had to swallow hard to get words out. “Rafe’s going to be a really big problem for you though, isn’t he?”
She scoffed, “A big problem? Try a whole damn math book of them. That doesn’t include our mutual associates, his parents, and my parents. Them, I can live without. Olivia, not at all. I wouldn’t put it past him to try to take her from me to get back at me. We can be quite petty.”
I whistled low. “That is a lot of problems. Will your parents really turn on you for him?”
“Exactly and yes, faster than you can say your son’s name.” That had to sting like a bitch. Blowing out a big breath, she hugged herself tighter and muttered, “I can handle it, I have to because I’m not taking him back.”