Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 109843 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 439(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109843 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 439(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
“Figured you’d turn up here,” I said to Rowan without looking at him. “Your wife probably sent you to beat me up or some shit.”
I didn’t like the way I sounded. Ugly. Bitter.
But unfortunately, that’s what I fucking was. Underneath the jokes, the smiles, the mask I’d perfected over the years.
“Looks like you’re beating yourself up plenty,” Rowan replied, voice calm and collected like it always fucking was.
Well, like it was now that he was married and had a kid. I remembered when we’d walked into the bakery the day Nora had a black eye. Yeah, there had been nothing calm and collected about my best friend then.
Nor when he’d pulled up to a parking lot and seen some asshole getting in Nora’s face about to hit her.
Yeah, motherfucker was never calm and collected when it came to his wife being in danger. Which was interesting, considering he was the most stable person I’d met in combat. Something about his wife unraveled him.
Almost like how something about Fiona unraveled me.
But no.
Fuck no.
I was already unraveled, already un-fucking-hinged long before I met her.
I slammed the fresh glass of Jameson the bartender handed me.
“You can save your pep talk,” I told Rowan, still not looking at him. “About how your life is fucking aces or whatever now that you’re married and in love and have a kid. I get it. It’s great for you, and I’m happy as fuck for you, but that is not the same as this, and I won’t do well if you even try to say it is.”
I wouldn’t wish the shit I’d gone through on anyone. I was glad as all fuck that my best friend was sitting beside me completely unable to empathize with my past. But I fucking hated that he was here to try and guide me on my future or some shit.
“Unfortunately, it is the same,” Rowan said.
I looked at him then. At my friend with the even gaze, the one who got me through the darkest of nights, saved my life more times than I could count, and had seen me at my absolute worst. Right now, I wanted to kill the motherfucker.
“It is not the goddamn same,” I gritted out. “And fuck you for even saying that.”
I was still gripping my empty glass, dangerously close to smashing it on my best buddy’s head. He knew it, too, but he didn’t move.
He didn’t walk the fuck away.
“You need to tell her,” Rowan said. “About Gabbie and Evelyn.”
Their names tore through me like missiles, shattering bones, flesh, organs.
“I do not need to tell her shit,” I seethed. “She’s my wife, not fucking yours. You don’t get to dictate what I say to her.”
“Yeah, she’s your wife,” Rowan agreed. “And she’s pregnant. I cannot begin to understand what you went through before. But I’ll tell you right now that if you don’t step up for your wife and child, you’re not the man I thought you were. More importantly, you’re not the man they thought you were.”
There it was.
I had to fight him now.
Because he’d brought them up. He’d struck that low blow, and I couldn’t let that shit go.
Rowan didn’t give me a chance, though. He’d had about half a bottle of Jameson less than me—meaning none at all—therefore he could get off his stool, give me some fucking meaningful look, and walk away before I even decided to plow my fist through his face.
And the motherfucker took my keys.
eleven
The New Arrangement
fiona
Kip didn’t come home until the next day.
I hadn’t expected him to.
In fact, I hadn’t expected him to come home at all. He’d been pretty adamant about his stance on our unborn baby. Someone feeling that passionately about children did not just change their mind overnight.
I was sipping a sweet cup of tea at the breakfast bar when the front door opened and closed. I wished it was coffee since I hadn’t slept a wink last night, but the cup I’d made smelled like Satan’s asshole and made me throw up in the sink. Tea it was.
I’d attempted dry toast, but it sat on the plate in front of me with a bite taken out of it, taunting me.
Well, it had been taunting me up until the front door opened and closed.
I had the weirdest urge to jump off the barstool, gun it out the open doors, and run along the beach, away from Kip. Despite the fact that such an idea was unsustainable—where in the fuck would I run to?—I was in no state to jump off this barstool and run anyway. Even changing position made my stomach lurch.
Plus, this was my fucking house—even though he technically owned it, but I didn’t think about that. Kip was not running me out of it. He was the one who’d acted like a complete unhinged asshole, not me.