Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
It was after eleven by the time they pulled back into the driveway in front of her apartment.
She shut the truck off but didn’t climb out, instead resting her forehead against the steering wheel in front of her for a long time, the darkness shrouding her.
She knew Kasey was watching her from where he sat in the passenger seat, but she was grateful that for once he remained quiet, letting her have this moment in the silence.
It had been almost eleven months since she’d seen Tommy.
Eleven months since she’d thrown her engagement ring back at him, ending a two-year relationship, and any future they would have had together.
As angry as she still was at him for what he’d done, how he’d manipulated the lives of the people he swore to love, she hated the emptiness she’d seen in him.
He looked… awful. Tired. The red, glassiness in his eyes, the dark circles under them, the way his body seemed to be shrinking, shriveling.
She knew he was still drinking heavily, but was this something heavier?
I did this to him, she thought miserably.
“You’re not to blame, Shaun.”
Raising her forehead from where it had been resting on the steering wheel, she whipped around to glare at Kasey. Had she said that outloud?
Shifting in his seat to angle his body more toward hers to look at her better through the darkness of the truck, he reached out a hand toward her, twisting one curl around his finger.
“Excuse me?” she asked, her tone acerbic.
His lips pulled into a tight line before he exhaled through his nose. “Whatever Tommy is struggling with, it’s not your fault, Shaun. His actions and whatever the consequences are, they are his own. He is a broken man—”
“And I did that,” she snapped, turning her head to stare out the windshield.
“Stop,” Kasey snapped back, the heat in his voice enough to make her look at him again.
“I can only imagine what losing a woman like you did to him—” She opened her mouth to protest, but he shushed her, continuing roughly, “—but that’s on him; not you.
Whatever mistakes he made to lose you are his own, and he has to learn to live with that.
Blaming yourself for how he’s living his life will do you absolutely no good. ”
“Zoey told me he’s still drinking. That he refused rehab a few months ago.”
“And that is in no way your fault,” Kasey insisted, cupping the side of her neck in his palm.
The heat of his hand against her skin was like an inferno in the rapidly cooling cab of the truck without the heat to battle against the January cold.
His fingers stroked the back of her neck, and she leaned into his touch, closing her eyes. “What did he do, Shaun?”
She shook her head, letting her chin drop down. “Putting it into words now makes it sound so stupid, Kasey. It makes me sound ungrateful and petty.”
“Your feelings about what happened are not invalidated now because of how your brain is telling you to feel about it through your misplaced guilt,” he said gently, and tears sprang to her eyes.
Blinking rapidly to whisk them away before they could fall, she turned to look out the windshield again.
“What happened? Please, darlin’. Talk to me. ”
Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly, squeezing her eyes shut.
“I don’t know if you know the whole story, about what happened to Zoey two years ago.
She was drugged and raped by a college kid in one of her classes, and she had her daughter Verity because of it.
She struggled with severe PTSD afterward, and then their mom died right before Verity was born.
Thom, their dad who you just met, checked out emotionally from them after her death, and taking care of Zoey and Verity fell to Tommy, who was also grieving.
He started drinking more often, drinking more heavily.
He just… changed. And I know that grief can change people, and I wanted to be there for him and for Zoey and Verity. I love them all so much.”
When she paused, he nodded for her to continue, so she took another breath in and said, “That’s when Chase moved home.
He and Tommy were best friends for as long as I can remember.
He moved home for a job at the local sheriff’s department, and needed a place to stay, so Tommy and Zoey offered him their spare bedroom.
Well, Zoey had one of her panic attacks one night, and apparently Tommy concocted this scheme, this deal with Chase.
He wanted Zoey safe, taken care of, and Chase was the ideal candidate. ”
“Candidate for what?” Kasey asked gently.
“To marry his sister. To take care of her, and Verity.”
She felt more than saw the shock as it processed through Kasey. His hand stilled in its strumming along the back of her neck, and she nodded.
“Yeah. Well, what we didn’t know was that Chase and Zoey had already started falling for each other, and the next thing we know we’re planning a whirlwind wedding.
It wasn’t until after the wedding, at the reception, that Zoey found out about the deal her brother had made with her new husband.
She didn’t know if Chase had married her because Tommy had asked him to, or if he’d done it because he wanted to, because he loved her. ”
“But they just had a baby, so things are better now?” he asked.
“Yes, things are better now. They’re honestly perfect for each other.
Chase says that even if Tommy hadn’t asked him to marry her, they would have ended up there anyway.
But, she felt incredibly betrayed by the two of them.
Everything up until then had been shoved on her without her consent; she was understandably upset by the two of them choosing something for her without her fully in on the decision.
” She glanced over at him then, looking him in the eye through the dark as she said, “I was furious with Tommy. He knew how betrayed she would feel, and he did it anyway, because he felt it was his job to do whatever necessary to protect her. He told me he would do the same for me if he felt it was needed.” Kasey’s hand tightened around the back of her neck, and she saw his jaw clench.
“I told him he wouldn’t have the chance.
I refused to marry someone I couldn’t trust, and it was painfully obvious that I couldn’t trust him anymore.
So, I gave him the ring back and broke off our engagement. It killed me and destroyed him.”
“Are you still in love with him?” he asked through the darkness.
Dropping her gaze to her lap, she said quietly, “No. I realized that we can’t be what the other one needs.
He needs someone that needs him to protect her, someone that wants and needs him to take care of her.
I’m not a damsel in distress and I don’t need anyone to take care of me; that’s just how I am.
And I don’t want or need anyone that’s going to make decisions for me because they think they know better than I do. I don’t need saving.”
“Is this a newer revelation?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, I’ve always been more independent.
It drove my parents crazy as a teenager, I’m sure.
I love my family, and my parents are wonderful, but I moved out into my own apartment as soon as I turned eighteen, right after graduation.
I just knew that I wanted my own space, my freedom to be my own person.
My dad’s name is big in the area, but I didn’t want to ride on his coattails.
I applied to trade schools and have several certificates in different areas, and I busted my ass to make it all happen.
I live in a small apartment, just me and my cat, and I love it.
Tommy asked me probably a hundred times to move in with him, or to let him move in here.
I like my freedom too much, I think. I didn’t want to share my space with anyone, even my fiancé. ”
“Do you like your freedom too much, or did you just know somewhere that it wasn’t going to last?”
“I didn’t self-sabotage my relationship with Tommy, Kasey,” she snapped, attempting to pull away from his hand, but his fingers tightened just the slightest, and she stayed put.
“That wasn’t my question, and you know it,” he growled. “Stop getting prickly.”
“I’m not prickly,” she retorted sharply, and gasped when his fingers tightened again, making her belly flutter. Oh.
“I told you the first time we met that I could tell there was no chemistry between you two. Not the right kind, anyway. I think somewhere inside that pretty head of yours you knew he wasn’t right for you. You were forcing it,” he murmured low, his voice husky.
“I loved him,” she countered quietly.
He was quiet for a long moment, before whispering, “I don’t doubt that you did, Shaun.
But did you love him the way Jodi loves Free?
The way your mom loves your dad? Or did you love him because he’s your best friend’s brother, and because it was easy to pretend that was what you wanted, because it was comfortable? ”
“I swear you and Roxy are the same person,” she grumbled, turning her eyes down to her lap. “She asked the same thing. I thought you put her up to it.”
He laughed lightly and resumed strumming the back of her neck, making her shiver. “Roxy has a way of seeing past people’s bullshit. I think it’s the red hair: it’s like a superpower. But don’t change the subject.”
She huffed out a heavy sigh and shrugged her shoulders.
It was getting steadily colder in the cab of the truck, the windshield slowly beginning to frost over as they sat.
She watched as the diamond crystals formed one by one, creeping almost unnoticed up the glass.
“If you’d asked me six or eight months ago, I would have adamantly said yes, I did love him that way. Now… I’m not so sure.”
“Why’s that?” he asked, leaning closer.
She swallowed hard. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Because you give me the best orgasms I’ve ever had in my entire life?” she quipped dryly, and the glint in his eyes in the darkness made her clench her thighs together.
“Is that all?” he asked, dragging his thumb over her jaw, down and under her chin until he could grip the point of her chin between his thumb and index finger.
“Yes,” she whispered, her breathing ragged in the quiet.
Kasey was silent for a long time, their eyes searching the others, his fingers tight on her chin. He looked like he wanted to say something more, his gaze intense with something she didn’t want to name.
Finally, after what felt like a small eternity, he nodded slowly, his eyes dropping to her mouth, and he murmured, “It’s not stupid or petty, by the way.
What he did was wrong, even if his intentions came from the right place, and he got what was coming to him because of it.
” His thumb swept over her lower lip, making her tremble, and then he whispered, “Now, I want to go inside, and I want to hear my name come off these lips while I’m between those pretty thighs, darlin’. ”
Good lord. How was she supposed to say no to that?