Chapter 15
Just because I choose not to drink doesn’t make me no fun. Being no fun is a separate choice, which I’ve also made.
— Maven to Auden
MAVEN
My mind was spinning.
My heart was aching.
And again, I was terrified out of my mind.
“ What the absolute hell am I going to do?” I muttered, what I thought was to myself.
“ You’re going to get in the car and drive home with Auden ,” Ellodie answered.
I looked up to find her still quietly standing inside my room.
I’d finally gained enough courage to let Auden’s hand go and let him go out of the room to talk to a few officers who’d been at the scene of the accident.
They hadn’t gone far.
In fact, they were outside the little curtained off area talking, and Auden’s back could be seen from the crack between the curtain and the wall.
He kept glancing over his shoulder, making sure that I was still okay.
It was on the third look over his shoulder that I decided to stop being scared.
Auden wouldn’t let my dad anywhere near me without being there to make sure that nothing happened.
“ I didn’t mean to say that out loud,” I admitted.
She smiled sadly at me, then said, “ Want to tell me anything about your dad?”
“ What do you want to know?” Athena asked as she barged into the room. “ Do you want to know how he controlled every aspect of her life until she moved out? Do you want to know about the guilt trips that forced her to stay a whole lot longer than she ever wanted to? Do you want to know about how every time she found someone who meant something to her, he would run that person off? How about when she was twelve, and she started her period, he slut shamed her for doing something that every girl in the world did? There are hundreds of little instances she’s told me about. And then there are the things that I’ve witnessed with my own eyes. You know, if he wasn’t who he is, Maven could’ve gotten a restraining order on him a long time ago. In all honestly, she should’ve left the damn state and went to hide, but again, her father knows everyone. There’s no way he would let her leave without following her and bringing her back. His leash on her only extends so far.”
I dropped my head to my chest, the glued laceration on my face smarting with the move.
They’d numbed it but told me the numbness would only last about thirty minutes or so.
Here I was fifteen minutes in, and I’d yet to be discharged.
I had a feeling my staying in place had more to do with the fact I could still hear my dad raising hell in the hallways and not because it was necessary for me to stay.
“ Auden won’t let him in,” Ellodie whispered.
I looked at her.
Her eyes were filled with worry. However , I could also see a promise there, like she’d been in my boat once, and knew firsthand that Auden would fix everything.
Maybe not necessarily with Auden , but with her own man, Quaid .
“ My daughter is here?”
I stiffened fully and reached for the clothes that the nurse had brought in earlier.
My pants and shirt were stained with blood, some mine, from my head wound, and some from my stepmom.
Turning my back to the room, uncaring that Ellodie was there to see my near nakedness, I dropped the gown they’d dressed me in and pulled the pants on over my underwear.
I’d just started on my shirt, trying to be careful of the cut on my forehead, when I felt a presence behind me.
I didn’t stop Auden from helping me, in fact, I gave him complete control.
He carefully threaded the head of the shirt over my head.
“ Arms ,” he instructed.
I put my arms into the holes, very aware of my swaying breasts and the way one of his hands brushed against the tops of my ribs. So close, yet so far away at the same time.
He pulled the scrub top into place, then pulled me into his arms, very carefully hugging me and letting me know he was there, and whatever happened next, he was going to be there every step of the way.
“ We couldn’t find any shoes, but I’ll give you a piggyback ride to Quaid’s truck. He’s gonna give us a ride home,” he said.
I swallowed hard.
“ Hey , before you leave,” Athena said. “ Give me the address. I want to ask you a few questions, so I’ll follow. Maybe distract as you slip out.”
Auden gave her the address without thought, then said, “ Ready ?”
I nodded.
He presented his back to me and said, “ Hop up.”
He crouched down slightly, and I jumped up, threading my arms around his neck loosely.
He hitched me higher with two hands on my ass—two very large hands that splayed the entirety of each ass cheek—and said, “ Ready , ladies?”
Ellodie went first, Athena fell into step at my back, and together we walked out of the small side room that was allotted to me when I’d arrived in the ambulance.
My eyes were everywhere as we left, but I was warm and safe on Auden’s back— Auden’s very muscular back.
I was terrified. But with that terror was giddiness. I was on Auden Carter’s back.
I was going home with him.
He was going to make sure that my dad didn’t come anywhere near me.
He didn’t care about his job, or what my dad could do to him.
He wasn’t like any of the other men I’d been with.
It was… liberating.
To find someone who would stand up to my dad, the chief of the police, and his boss? It was so exciting.
I squeezed his neck a little tighter and laid the uninjured side of my face against his shoulder, burying my face against his skin.
He squeezed my thighs, and we walked.
“ Let me talk to her,” I heard ordered.
It was down the hall, quite a bit away from us, but I knew that wouldn’t stop my father.
“ A whole army couldn’t stop him when he wants to be somewhere,” I grumbled to Auden .
He patted my thigh and said, “ He’s not coming anywhere near you.”
And he was right.
The Carters —all of them but the one holding me—stood like a wall, barring my father from getting to me.
“ This way,” the doctor said, appearing out of nowhere to lead us toward a non-descript door. “ It’s the doctors’ entrance. It’ll lead you to the parking lot.”
“ You will let me talk to her!” my dad bellowed.
Auden didn’t hurry his steps. Didn’t break. Didn’t weaken.
He just strolled out of the hallway where we could hear my dad losing his shit with his brothers and dad and let the door close behind him.
Hell , he’d even stopped to hold the door for Athena , as if he could care less about his career, his reputation, or anything else.
Once the door shut on my dad’s bellowing, Ellodie said, “ He’s fantastic.”
I pulled my face off of Auden’s shoulder, placed a kiss on his neck to tell him thank you, then said, “ You have no idea. That was pretty tame in comparison to when he found out that I had a social media account.”
“ That’s so weird,” Ellodie said. “ I had all of that when I was like ten.”
“ Same ,” Athena concurred. “ But then you have to admit that social media is a bad thing for young children who don’t know right from wrong. The way Maven explains it, she was almost an adult and he still didn’t want her to have it. I think he’s reported Pie Hard’s Facebook and Instagram account a hundred times.”
“ I stopped trying to fight for the Facebook page,” I admitted. “ Instagram only has photos of my cupcakes and pastries. There’s nothing that Instagram can find an issue with, and always reinstates my page after review.”
“ Sounds like a quality guy,” Auden grumbled.
Ellodie pushed through the door of the hospital, and it spilled us into the parking lot that the doctors used.
“ Main parking area is over there, but I had Quaid move our truck closer,” she instructed.
He let me slip from his back next to Quaid’s pretty red truck and then said, “ We have to remove a few car seats and boosters, though.”
I waited, fascinated, as I watched Auden expertly remove a car seat like he’d done it a hundred times.
The booster seat came next, then he said, “ Get in there with all of those crumbs and stray M & Ms .”
I snickered as I did just that, sitting right on top of what looked to be a chicken nugget.
“ Sorry , my kids are lunatics,” Ellodie apologized.
I waved her off. “ Are you riding back here with me?”
“ Yes ,” she answered.
“ Then it’s even,” I said. “ Athena , you’ll be able to get to your car okay?”
“ Absolutely . Your father doesn’t scare me.” She crossed her cute little arms over her chest.
Geez , I loved my friend.
Her bravery was part of what had drawn me in when we’d first met.
“ We’ll drive her over.” Auden looked at Athena . “ You can fit in the booster I didn’t take out.”
I burst out laughing, which caused Athena to look both offended and exasperated at the same time.
“ This is not to leave this truck,” she grumbled as she climbed into the booster.
Quaid appeared not long after, gave Athena a look at how well she fit into the booster made for his child, and then started the truck up.
“ Everyone is heading to your place,” he said.
It took us forty-five minutes to drop Athena off at her car, for her to immediately fall into line behind Quaid’s truck
We had a convoy as we made our way into Sunnyvale .
I kept my eyes peeled for the place that was for rent and pointed it out when I finally found it.
“ That !” I pointed excitedly. “ That’s the place that I’m thinking about renting.”
Ellodie gasped. “ That would be the perfect! And the trip when you move here would be so nice!”
Quaid snorted as we pulled down a beautifully lined street that went from city to country really fast. “ I think you’re moving them through the steps kind of fast, aren’t you?”
I saw a small smile flash on Auden’s face, causing me to smile myself.
“ I also contacted a real estate agent about the possibility of selling my house. Just to get a feel,” I admitted. “ Not that I’m trying to move here because y’all are here or anything,” I hastily added.
Auden’s eyes caught mine. “ Sunnyvale is a good place, regardless of us or not.”
Something inside my belly settled.
A nervousness that I hadn’t been hiding well drifted away at his words.
I wasn’t trying to rush this relationship.
Hell , we didn’t even have a relationship yet.
What I knew, though, was that he made me feel peace I’d never felt before.
Not once in my life.
Quaid pulled up to a house that had a great yard, and I immediately knew it was Auden’s based on the landscaping.
“ Wow ,” I breathed. “ This is so beautiful.”
“ He puts our yards to shame, doesn’t he?” Ellodie scrunched up her nose.
“ All you’d have to do is put a few…” I explained in detail what she could do to her yard, and Ellodie and Quaid stared at me with surprise.
“ You’re one of those, aren’t you?” Ellodie shook her head.
“ One of those?” I asked, confused as I got out.
“ One of those people who are up at the ass crack of dawn to work in their yard, and goes to Lowe’s on Sundays for plants.” Ellodie giggled.
I snorted. “ I don’t go to Lowes . I go to a nursery. Lowe’s is like going to a Walmart for health supplements.”
Ellodie and Quaid both burst out laughing at the same time.
When I looked to Auden in question, the tops of his cheeks were rosy.
“ What ?” I asked him.
“ I said something similar when I was outfitting my own garden,” he admitted. “ They might have given me shit then, too.”
I flashed him a grin that caused the cut on my forehead to pull taught.
He watched me wince, and then reached for my hand. “ Let’s get you inside.”
My belly churned with butterflies as we walked down the path to his front door.
“ This is beautiful,” I said to him. “ The cedar beams and the cedar in the planters really complement each other.”
He flashed me a grin. “ Are you trying to get me to ask you to marry me?”
“ He’s stupidly obsessed,” Quaid admitted. “ When Mamasauce built her house, she and Auden stayed in the yard for a solid three weeks when they were both off. Just wait until you see the inside of their house. They had more money to play with.”
“ I can’t wait,” I said as we pushed through the door of Auden’s house.
We stopped in the foyer just as a car door slammed outside and Athena came barreling up the front walk, not bothering to stop and smell the roses. Literally .
She walked right into the house and stated, “ I think the disappointment has a camera set up at your place. Or , maybe, your dad does. I walked up to hear him talking to who I assumed was your brother on the phone. First , your dad said that he saw your mother pull up earlier and leave with you. Then , he was talking about how he was at the hospital, and you were there, but the doctors and nurses wouldn’t tell him anything about you. How else would he know that unless he was either there, watching, or had a way to watch you?”
I felt the man who’d been standing at my side stiffen.
I looked over to him and watched a silent communication pass between his brother and him.
A short nod from Quaid had me guessing that they’d just made some super secretive plan to have my house checked over before I went back home.
If I went back home.
Maybe I’d just rent an apartment somewhere, pay in cash, and have movers go box all my stuff up and move it for me.
I could sell my house, then put the money straight into a savings account for my next place, wherever I ended up.
What I did know was that I wanted to test the waters with the man at my side before I did anything drastic.
I looked away, once again taking in the room surrounding me.
I was so lost in thought, thinking about a few touches he could add to make this place feel like home—an ottoman next to a chair by the fireplace, and a throw that was soft as sin over the arm of the couch for impromptu naps—when the door burst open, and all kinds of Carters poured in.
Children .
Babies on hips.
Excited squeals in the wake of their entering.
Moms chattering.
Garnett and her boys. Their dad.
And food.
So . Much . Food .
“ I have cookies!” Garnett cried.
A woman after my own heart.