Chapter 17 #3
“Expected, no?” Joey asked.
“Yes. But I still hoped.”
“Sorry, babe,” Jessie said.
I was too.
Not for me.
For Knox.
But at least he did what he felt he had to do.
And we were moving forward.
* * *
With no missions, we probably should have broken up, but Gemma mentioned the dill pickle pizza from Starving Artist.
As the cupboards got more and more bare, Knox and I had had crackers lashed with the last of my homemade pimento cheese (mental note since I always had some on hand and Knox loved it: buy the ingredients when we went to the store), so I was peckish and therefore stayed while they ordered that and some loaded baked potato dip.
We gossed. We noshed. I reveled in being back in the bosom of my besties. I texted Knox I was on my way home. I left.
When I made it up to my apartment and let myself in, I found my guy, ass to the couch, legs stretched in front of him, stocking feet on the coffee table, beer in hand, a tub of ranch dip on the table by his feet, a bag of Ruffles sitting next to it, some game on TV.
The beer, Ruffles and dip meant Knox and Cap did a run to a store, which was disappointing since I was looking forward to doing that with him.
“Hey,” I greeted.
“Hey,” he grunted.
Oh dear.
I went to one of my chairs and sat on the arm. “Wanna talk about it?”
He did because he replied immediately.
“To say she’s furious you and me are back together is an understatement.”
Oh dear again.
“She screamed, at least I didn’t fuck her, so I didn’t walk all over her pussy like I walked all over her heart.”
I flinched.
“The manager kicked us out.”
God.
“It’s good I get my coffee from Tex at SC, because I’m pretty sure the entire Starbucks corporation has a picture of her and me by now and we’re banned from all five million shops worldwide.”
“Shanti asked Jayden to come talk to us,” I informed him. “He says we need to log all of this stuff.”
He nodded and threw back a pull of beer.
“Do you think she’s so mad, she’ll move on?” I asked hopefully.
“I think she’s right now Googling how to build a bomb,” he answered disturbingly.
Not good.
“We’re not supposed to engage her, Knox.”
“Trust me, gorgeous, that will be the last time I speak to her.”
“This means the Angels can’t do anything either.”
He had no reply to that.
Instead, he announced, “Cap told me about the homicide in Tucson.”
I stretched out my mouth and turned it down.
He watched me do that and frowned.
“Have anything to share about that?” I asked.
“It was Rocco, because of Gypsy.”
“Would your sister—?”
“Fuck no,” he said forcefully. “But I’ve no doubt she was beyond upset one of their boys drilled holes into me. And Rocco is all in with her. As sick as it makes me to say this, she’s to him what Alexis is to Jacob, what you are to me. She hurts, he hurts who made her hurt.”
“Well, at least she has someone who gives a shit.”
“Reaching,” he muttered.
I knew I was.
“But appreciated, baby,” he kept muttering.
I tried to cheer him up. “My mom always says, ‘this too will pass.’”
I didn’t know if I succeeded, considering his response was, “I moved in.”
I tipped my head to the side. “Sorry?”
“I moved in.”
“I knew you were bringing stuff over,” I pointed out.
“Yeah. And I shifted your stuff so I could put my stuff away and not live out of a suitcase.”
My skin started crawling at this information, and I realized, too late, I should have told him it would be me wedging his stuff with my stuff.
“What did you shift?” I asked cautiously.
“Clothes in the closet.” He was watching me closely. “And the drawers. Shit in the bathroom.”
Was I feeling pressure in my head?
Yes.
Yes, I was.
“I wish you’d have waited for me,” I pushed out.
“I figured that when I saw your closet was organized by color, season and occasion. Short sleeves. Long sleeves. Fancy or casual. And the state of your drawers made me understand we need to have a conversation about seeing someone to discuss symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder.”
“It’s just my clothes,” I assured him. “And my makeup,” I added. “And anything to do with body and skincare,” I finished, deciding not to tell him (now) how I felt about my spice drawer in the kitchen.
“I don’t give a shit where my stuff is, just that it’s put away.
Growing up, after Mom left, our house was always a mess.
Gypsy and I would try, but Dad, Crew and Poe cottoned on we liked order, and just to fuck with us, they did everything in their power to give us anything but.
Since they had a posse who were as big of assholes as they are, it was easy for them to do it, and for the most part, the place was a filthy pit. So we eventually gave up.”
And now I knew why he always went to bed with a sparkling-clean kitchen.
At that, I moved to him and curled up next to him, pressing my hand into his abs.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
He curved an arm around my shoulders. “Just an added layer of their shit. Heads up, there are a fuck ton of them.”
“I’ll have a look at what you’ve done later. We need to go to the grocery store. Do you still want to go? Or did you and Cap take care of it?”
At that, his eyes lit. “Fuck yeah. Cap and I just swung through a Walgreens. I haven’t been to the store since before I got shot.”
He seriously got off on grocery shopping, and now I worried that was some residual damage from his growing-up years too.
“Yes,” Knox said.
I focused on him to see him focused on me. “Yes, what?”
“Mom always used to take Gypsy and me to the store with her. It probably won’t surprise you, Dad wasn’t real hip on keeping food in the house for his kids.
It was mostly pizza deliveries, or Chinese or Mexican takeout.
Cereal for breakfast and sometimes lunch too.
When I could drive, I took Gypsy to the store.
We’d cook together and pretend we were an actual family, not a fucked-up disaster. ”
I wondered if this shit would keep gutting me as bad as I was bleeding for him right then.
It probably would.
“Baby,” I said softly.
“Always liked the store. The endless possibilities. What you could cook. What you could eat. What to always have around because it made home feel like home.”
“Apple butter,” I deduced.
“Yeah,” he replied then dipped his head to the coffee table. “And ranch dip and Ruffles.”
I emblazoned this on my brain so I’d never forget, and our house would never be without any of those things.
“You ready to go or are you in the middle of something?” I asked with a glance to the TV.
“Let’s go,” he replied, pushing up to his feet and taking me with him.
He switched off the TV.
Jacques trotted in from his mysterious sojourn in the bedroom (okay, it wasn’t that mysterious considering I knew he liked to snooze on my pillow, or Knox’s), his doggie senses alerting him to his people’s activity.
“We’re going to the store,” I told him. “Hold down the fort.”
He barked.
Since I hadn’t gotten a hello, I went to him, picked him up, gave him a cuddle then set him down.
During this, Knox put on his boots and grabbed our grocery list.
Knox and I headed out to the Prius.
We went to Fry’s.
We loaded up with food, including a backup jar of apple butter, bag of Ruffles and tub of dip.
We headed back to the house and dragged it up.
We put it away.
We went together to take Jacques on a Sunday afternoon walk.
When we returned, Knox wandered back to a football game (or whatever).
Jacques and I wandered back to my bedroom.
I took issue with how crunched my tees were in their single drawer (when they used to have two), so I set about concocting the perfect fold so they all fit and I could see them (I licked it).
I then checked his drawer and saw he’d formed it in three sections: boxer briefs, shorts, and tees.
But they were all scrunched up and you had to shove them down to push the drawer in.
Therefore, I took everything out, refolded, put it back, and he had enough room to add a couple more tees, pairs of socks and undies.
Onward to the closet, and since Knox had noticed my system, he hadn’t fucked it up, it was doable.
That said, the hems of his jeans didn’t line up with the waistbands, so I adjusted those. And he just tossed his button downs on a hanger without buttoning the top button to make them hang right, so I dealt with those too.
When I went to the bathroom though, I had to back out immediately, wipe it from my brain and take it on another day (I already knew Knox wasn’t a primper, as such, but he did shave, have product for his hair, was into cologne, and he was the only man I’d ever known (and I approved of this) who took as good care of his skin as I did—we weren’t talking serums or anything, but he didn’t wash his face with a bar of soap and go out to take on the day; facewash and moisturizer were involved).
Knox made a mustard-honey-rosemary marinade for the pork tenderloin and set it in the fridge. When the time came, we paired it with leftover hash brown casserole, sautéed green beans and Pilsbury crescent rolls and ate in front of the TV.
I did this thinking it was a mixed bag day.
The Angels were officially out on the Chambers Family Drama, which was good.
We couldn’t do anything about Cheyenne, which was bad.
She’d lost it on Knox, and that was worse.
But there might be an enemies to lovers sitch we could watch happening between Jayden and Clarice, which was awesome.
And it was undoubtedly someone in Knox’s family who ordered a man’s death, and that was hideous.
But we started the day together.
And we were ending it together.
So bottom line, it was perfect.