28. Edu
28
EDU
“Whoa,” Red laughed. “He’s come up for air!”
I shot him a sarcastic smile and flipped him off as I took my place at the table. It had been weeks since I’d been back to work. Those three days off turned into an insatiable need to be around Harper every chance I got, but those days were over.
“Harper was cleared to go back to work.”
“Her arm’s healed?” Brock asked.
“Not completely, but she can do light work.”
“I can’t believe you agreed to let her go back,” Lock smirked at me.
“Hey, it’s not like I had a choice in the matter. She has to work. Besides, I’m not her boyfriend.”
“Are you sure about that?” Red asked, quirking an eyebrow at me. “You sure are devoted for a guy who’s just fucking her.”
My fist clenched at his words. Just fucking her. That’s what we were doing and had been every chance we got. As she healed, our fucking became more consistent until the point that I had to take her back to my house so Oliver could get some fucking sleep at night.
I was getting way too comfortable with her in my house and my bed, and that was something that struck me hard when she left for work this morning. I was begging her to take another day off, and she was insisting that she had to get to work. When had I become the man desperate for a woman?
I cleared my throat and shifted into work mode. “Any news on The Syndicate?”
And just like that, all talk of my private life slipped away.
“The last raid was a bust,” Red said. “Michael is working his contacts with government agencies and Cash is…” His eyes flicked to Kavanaugh. “Cash is working contacts through a few select senators.”
From the look on Kavanaugh’s face, I got the feeling that it was putting him in a difficult position with his father. While Kavanaugh didn’t talk much about his family life, we all knew that he distanced himself from his father as much as possible after his brother died unexpectedly before he came to work with us.
“And where does that leave us?”
He tossed a folder across the table. “This is what we’re working on.”
I flipped it open and stared in disbelief at the contents. “You’re fucking kidding me.”
I stared at the picture of the farmers and looked back around the table. “Where is he?”
Lock smirked at me. “Where do you think he is?”
I rolled my eyes, slamming the folder down on the table. “You know, it’s Harper’s first fucking day back at work.”
“Then maybe you should take over this particular aspect of the job,” Red grinned.
Sighing, I shoved back from the table and glared at all the fuckers laughing at me. “And what are we doing about this?” I asked, tapping the folder.
“That’s what we need Fox for,” Lock said. “I’m sure he already has a plan in place.”
“Perfect,” I grumbled, heading for the door. “You know, if this wasn’t affecting Harper, I’d tell you all to go fuck yourselves.”
“Watch it, Edu,” Lock chuckled. “You’re starting to sound like a boyfriend.”
I flipped him off and headed for the door. The last fucking thing I needed was to be seen as the boyfriend or even husband. But I also couldn’t let Harper deal with Fox when he was like this. Fuck, I really hated that I cared so much about how Harper’s first day back went. I shouldn’t care.
I stabbed the elevator button and waited as the numbers slowly came to this floor. Scottie stepped up beside me, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“What are you doing?”
“I’ve been assigned to help you,” he sighed. “Apparently, it takes more than one person to get Fox under control.”
“Should have sent Rae,” I grumbled.
“I heard Harper went back to work today. How are you dealing with that?”
“What are you talking about?” I frowned, not understanding his meaning.
“Well, just that it has to be hard. Her accident probably freaked you out. I mean, you really haven’t been around for weeks. And now she’s going back to work. She could get hurt or overdo it.” He shrugged. “I’m just saying, it’s gotta be freaking you out.”
It was. I really didn’t want her going back at all, but it wasn’t my decision. “Nope,” I answered, shoving all that crap down.
“Man, you don’t have to hide it from me. It’s not like I’m gonna run out and tell everyone you’ve developed feelings for her.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What?”
“I get it. You don’t want to feel this way, but it’s not like you can help it.”
“It’s just fucking,” I reminded him, stepping onto the elevator as the doors opened.
“Sure, I know you tell yourself that.”
I punched the button and turned to him, crossing my arms over my chest. “No, I’m not telling myself that. That’s the way it really is.”
“Edu, you haven’t been to work in weeks. Are you really trying to tell me that she means nothing to you?”
“She does. She’s a fucking fantastic lay. I like having her in my bed.”
“But it goes no further,” he chuckled. “Sure.”
“Believe what you want. I don’t give a fuck. ”
As the doors opened, I stepped out, my skin prickling with irritation at the way he laughed at me. He thought he knew what was going on in my head, but he didn’t have a fucking clue. I wasn’t falling for her and I could kick her out of my bed whenever I wanted.
“So, if you don’t give a fuck, why are we going to stop Fox from doing his thing?”
“Because we need him for the job,” I retorted. “If you had been in the meeting, you would know that.”
“If you had been here at all over the last few weeks, you would know that this has been going on for at least a week now. Why the fuck are you fighting this? What the hell happened that you can’t stand to admit that you have feelings for this woman? Are you really going to just walk away after everything you’ve been through with her?”
Anger washed over me and for a moment, I thought of knocking him out. But that would only prove his point. “Yeah, I really intend on walking away.”
He didn’t say anything else as we made our way to my truck, but I felt him judging me the whole way. He had the perfect life with Quinn. Everything was just as he wanted, just like everyone else around here. And they all thought I needed to have the same thing. But what they didn’t get and never would was that I didn’t want what they had. I couldn’t care less about family and kids. I didn’t want a white picket fence. I didn’t want a family dog or a woman to come home to every night.
I wanted a woman to spread her legs for me, and that was it. And I had that with Harper. She was well aware of what our situation was, and she wasn’t trying to change that. Yeah, from time to time, I caught her daydreaming, but it was usually about something I was going to do to her in the bedroom. If it was anything more, she was keeping that to herself.
Still, as we drove into town and pulled up in front of the IGA, I couldn’t help but think that maybe it was time to end all of this. If not only for my own sanity, so the guys would stop thinking that I was going to fall in love and settle down, but I also needed to do it so Harper didn’t get too comfortable .
“Fucking hell,” I grumbled as we pulled into the IGA parking lot. “He has a following.”
Fox was marching in a line in front of the IGA with twenty other people who were all holding signs, chanting about saving the avocado farmers. “Where did he find all these people?”
“And why are they protesting in front of the store?” Scottie pondered. “It’s not like the grocery store that can help the farmers.”
I shoved my door open and got out, marching toward the crowd.
Save the farmers.
Save the fruit.
Save your sanity.
Save your loot.
“Save your loot?” I snorted. “Is he a pirate now?”
“Is that Eva?” Scottie asked, his jaw dropping.
“And Jane,” I pointed out. “Fucking hell, he recruited Bree and Tahlia.”
“And Quinn,” Scottie gritted out, his jaw clenching hard. “She told me she was in Yellowstone.”
I bit back a laugh as he marched over to the line and jerked Quinn by the arm, dragging her away, kicking and screaming.
“Hey, Edu!” Fox grinned, waving his hand like a lunatic. “Come join the march!”
“No thanks.” I jerked my head to the side, hoping to pull him away from the crowd. Thankfully, he walked over and joined me away from the chaos. “Fox, what the hell are you doing?”
“Fighting back against the tyranny of the cartels.”
“By marching for farmers outside a grocery store?”
“Grassroots campaign,” he grinned. “We’re gonna change the fucking world.”
I nodded, trying not to let it show how fucking stupid I thought his march was. “Okay, but how about instead, you come back to work and we fight this thing from the inside?”
His eyes widened. “We’re fighting for the avocado farmers?”
“We are.”
His hands clasped my arms and he leapt forward, wrapping his arms around me as he jumped up and down. “Fuck yeah! ”
“Alright, alright,” I snapped, prying his arms from around me. “Tell your merry band of protestors to go home.”
His face turned serious. “You have no fucking idea what this means to me. Finally! We’re taking on the big guys to help the little guys. Avocados will be safe once more.”
He rushed off to his group. I shook my head, walking toward the front doors. As soon as they opened, I spotted Harper at her register. A smile immediately filled my face, but as soon as I caught myself doing it, I knew it was time to slow things down. I was getting too attached. But as long as I was here, I could say hi.
“Hey!” she grinned as she saw me walking over. “Look, one arm!” she grinned, showing me how she could still work with only one arm.
It wasn’t exactly what I thought she would be doing when she said she was going back on light duty. “You’re doing too much.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “It’s not too much. Besides, I’m only working a half day today. Once I get this cast off, I can go back to full-time.”
“I don’t like it,” I grumbled.
“Well, you don’t like much of anything, so that’s not surprising.” She nodded to a customer in line. “So, should I come over later tonight?”
The excitement in her eyes nearly had me saying yes, but it was time to start distancing myself from her. “Actually, I’ll be working.”
“Oh.” She smiled, but her eyes held a level of disappointment I wasn’t comfortable with.
“I’ll call you.”
“Sure.”
“Uh…see you later.”
It was the most awkward goodbye ever, but it needed to be done. There was no way I could keep going the way I was without leading her on, and that was the last thing in the world I wanted to do.