Chapter 3 #2
Joey and Gemma weren’t around when I’d shared.
In other words, the majority weren’t fired up about my mission, and I figured Gemma would be in Harlow’s (and my) camp, and Joey would be wondering, like Shanti, if I needed my head examined.
But now, I had two hours.
Two hours I knew what I was going to do with.
And it wasn’t killing time.
It was verbally slaying a wounded badass.
I stowed my server apron, got my bag, said goodbye to the chicks and headed to my Prius.
And although one part of my brain was stating plain this was not a sterling idea, the other part heard Knox’s voice in that hospital bed, all fragile, his real family in the waiting room, worried like hell about him, and he may have made the decision about us…
But that didn’t mean there wasn’t an us that if he wasn’t a stubborn, chauvinistic ass, right now, he’d be relationship-bound to listen to me ream him.
I decided I was going to live in that alternate universe for a while, so he was too.
I drove home first so I could take Jacques on a quick walk. I then contemplated taking Jacques with me because Jacques was almost always with Knox and me when we were together. He adored Knox, Knox adored him. It would be a treat for both of them.
But I decided I needed focus, therefore, that meant no Jacques (my poor boy).
So next, I drove to Knox’s condo, which was a non-descript two-story townhouse in a small development that had decent security (in other words, it was gated) and no personality.
I used to tease him about this.
Another thing about Knox that I’d fallen in love with.
He was Teflon when it came to someone giving him shit.
Perhaps it was his rough upbringing. Perhaps it was razzing in the military.
But he was not only good at taking teasing, he was good at dishing it out.
Our banter was plentiful, playful and fun as fuck.
God.
In the end, though, when we were air frying some chicken breasts, he told me his house was about getting on the property ladder and that unit was eventually going to be a good rental or a decent Airbnb.
Another thing to fall in love with, he was forward-thinking.
Due to the fact my space was smack dab in the middle of Angels Ground Zero, nearly the entirety of our secret liaison was conducted at his place, in his kitchen, his living room…his bed.
So I was very familiar with it.
I just hoped they hadn’t changed the gate code.
They hadn’t.
I parked in the short drive in front of his closed garage door, got out and refused to think about the fact his bedroom was on the second floor, along with refusing to hope that someone figured out a way to make him comfortable on the ground floor until he could navigate stairs.
(FYI: I failed at refusing to think about these things, and instead worried that no one took care of him.)
I laid on the doorbell and didn’t lay off until the door swung open and I was face-to-face with an irate Knox, who had one arm in a sling and a crutch under the other one.
(Bad luck for him, he was shot in the right shoulder and the left thigh.)
I knew he was irate not only because every gorgeous feature on his insanely gorgeous face screamed it.
But also because he bit out, “Christ almighty, Luna. What the fuck?”
“Step back or I’ll bowl you over,” I warned.
“Woman, whatever this is, I don’t have the energy for it,” he shot back.
“Then it’s your lucky day because I only have about an hour to verbally kick your ass before I have to go over to Dream’s to babysit, so step aside so I can come in.”
He didn’t step aside.
I thinned my eyes at him. “Your alternative is for me to scream at you like a fishwife on your front stoop, and trust me, you’ll hear it even if you shut the door in my face. So will all your neighbors.”
He scowled at me a very long moment before, with good leg and crutch, he awkwardly moved back.
I stormed in.
He shut the door and equally awkwardly turned to face me.
I refused to allow that to make my heart bleed.
(FYI: I failed at that too.)
I was about ready to launch in, but Knox beat me to it.
“Thanks for the flowers.”
My head ticked in confusion. “What?”
“And your bedside vigil.”
Was he…?
“I was there with everyone else in the waiting room while you were in surgery,” I informed him.
“Yeah, and I was laid up in that bed for two fucking days, and you weren’t there.”
“I visited you after your surgery.”
“Seeing as I was doped out of my brain, that didn’t register. When I wasn’t, though, you were nowhere near me.”
Oh my God!
“That was”—I jabbed a finger at him—“your choice, Knox Chambers.”
“We agreed to be friends,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Yeah, that was why I was biting my nails in the waiting room like everyone else.”
“Jess came by. Harlow came by. Raye, obviously. Shanti. Willow. Joey. Gemma. Even fuckin’ Otis showed.”
Otis worked the coffee cubby with Tex, our premier barista, part owner of The Surf Club and all around lovable, yet annoying, crazy man.
I didn’t even know Otis knew Knox, except in passing.
Man, it was super sweet of him to pop in and see him.
“Luna.” Knox biting off my name brought my attention back to him.
“Well, I’m so sorry, but considering your ex-girlfriend is stalking me, I thought it might be a good idea to give you a wide berth so she might leave me the hell alone,” I lied.
It was a mistake.
A huge one.
“Sorry?” he asked quietly.
Not like, soft-gentle-sweet quiet.
Like, soft-chilling-dangerous quiet.
Oh boy.
I ignored that and waved a hand in front of my face. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Cheyenne is stalking you?”
“Knox,” I snapped. “It doesn’t matter. What does matter, and why I’m here—”
“What shit has Cheynne pulled with you?”
“Can we get to why I came here?”
“Not until you tell me what shit Cheyenne has pulled with you.”
Okay, those two idyllic weeks when we were a thing?
I was now remembering it wasn’t all orgasms, shoveling playful shit at each other and deep, moonlit chats.
The dude being stubborn was part of what ended us.
What I forgot was, he was pathologically stubborn.
“I think you need to give her the heads-up she’s not living a Friends episode,” I advised.
“What’s that mean?”
“She thinks you’re on a break.”
His lips thinned, which made his cut cheekbones stand out, and as with everything Knox Chambers, it was a good look.
He unthinned his lips to ask in an even more chilling and dangerous tone, “And Luna, baby, how do you know she thinks we’re on a break?”
I was not going to delight in hearing him again call me baby, something he did a lot when we were together, and a whole lot when he was fucking me.
To get this over with so we could get on to what I wanted to talk about, I said, “Because, when she ambushed me at the gate into the courtyard of the Oasis Saturday morning after you got shot, she warned me to back off because I was confusing you. After I shared my confusion that she was in my space, since I thought you two had split, she shared you two had not split. You were on a break.”
Invisible hellfire broke out in his living room.
But instead of twisting in the flames, I asked, “Should you be standing up?”
“If I have to sit or lie down for another fuckin’ second, I’m gonna kill somebody.”
Totally a man in motion.
Since I was the only one around available to murder, I mumbled, “By all means, stay standing then.”
He walk-hobbled to the open-plan kitchen (a space that was pretty awesome, all black, gray and white and stainless steel, lots of room, or at least lots of room compared to the tiny kitchen in my pad—just to say, the outside of Knox’s place wasn’t much, the inside…he had a decorator’s touch).
He leaned against the counter, yanked his crutch out from under his arm, rested it against the counter too, then pulled his phone out of his back jeans pocket.
Uh-oh.
I moved his way. “Knox, maybe you should let her—”
Too late.
His phone was to his ear, and it was clear Cheyenne didn’t let it ring very long (as in, perhaps it didn’t ring at all, but his name came up on her screen, and she was all over it).
“Yeah, it’s me,” he clipped.
She might have said something, but he wasn’t listening.
“That shit you pulled with Luna, Cheyenne, not…fuckin’…cool. We’re done. She doesn’t exist for you. And if you keep pulling shit like this, I don’t either.”
There was a pause.
And then he said, “We’re over.”
Another pause.
And then, “How is this not penetrating? Done. Over. Broken up. No going back. And if there was a chance, which there fuckin’ wasn’t, you blew it with that stunt you pulled with Luna.”
A somewhat longer pause while the invisible hellfire that had banked blazed again before he went on.
“It’s no fun breaking things off with someone, so I’m not all that thrilled I have to repeat myself, but for you to get this, I will.
You tried to separate me from my friends.
I told you that was a no go. So anytime you were around my friends, you were a moody bitch and whined about leaving, which is just another play to separate me from my friends.
I talked to you about it, more than once.
There’s no fathomable reason you don’t like hanging with them.
They’re good people. Even so, it wasn’t like you had to put up with them twenty-four seven.
You just had to be a decent person and give them a shot in the times we were hanging with them.
You didn’t. Which means you don’t fit into my life.
And since that’s the case, there was no reason for either of us to waste any more time trying to make something that was never gonna work, work.
That’s why we’re done, Cheyenne. Now if you don’t get that, I don’t give a fuck.
Over means over. What it doesn’t mean is you pulling unbalanced bullshit with Luna. ”
Yet another pause where his cheekbones stood out again before he gritted…