Chapter 10 IDGAF
IDGAF
Thaddeus
Watching Summer get led away from the house made me chuckle.
She glared at me the whole time as the officer, who had a firm hold on her arm, walked her to his patrol car.
When she was safely in the back seat, behind the closed door, and unable to jump out of the locked vehicle, I ventured outside.
My safety was a concern. Yeah, fucking right, it was!
“Thank God you guys got here when you did.”
An officer looked at me, then at Summer. “Are you going to press charges? She’s clearly not in a good headspace.” He looked at her again and lowered his voice to me. “You know—messed up.”
The tone in his voice told me he didn’t think I should. That I was somehow in Summer’s debt after killing her father.
“Well, if I don’t press charges, the state of New York will let her keep that weapon, right, and my life would be in jeopardy?” I shrugged and gave an innocent smile.
The officer released a sigh. “It’s up to you, Mr. Fitzgerald. It’s just that she’s a lawyer, and, well, this would ruin her.”
Why didn’t she think about that before she made a feeble attempt to kill me?
“Forgiveness isn’t one of my strong suits. I’m pressing charges.” I winked at Summer, who glared at me from the back seat. This was no small victory.
“Fine, sir. Then you’ll have to come in and make a statement.”
“Of course, Officer.” I hid my smirk as best I could.
When the police car pulled away, Aston shook his head at me.
“Don’t say it.”
“I didn’t say anything. It’s not my place to say, but it’s just Ms. Summer has never been the same since that night.”
Ignoring what sounded like sympathy for Summer, I turned to a more pressing matter.
“Where’s the punch bowl?”
“Sir?” Aston blinked.
“The bowl, or cauldron we used last night.”
“Oh, it broke. We threw it out while cleaning up last night.”
I glanced around and noticed the place was spotless. No one would have guessed a party had even happened here.
“Damn, you move fast.”
Aston still looked confused.
“I heard some unpleasant information and . . . ” I hesitated. “Well, it seems someone thought it would be funny to spike the punch.”
“Oh no,” Aston said, and I walked away, anger simmering.
How dare someone come into my house and ruin my party?
As much as it pissed me off, I knew I’d probably never learn which jackass thought it was a good idea.
If I had to bet, I’d put money on a student from the nearby college pulling the prank.
I’d been that age once, and I knew how easy it was to do stupid things without thinking through the consequences.
Back upstairs, I looked at the disheveled sheets on the bed. My cock twitched as memories of last night flooded my mind.
No question, that was the best sex I’d had since my release. Maybe ever. Her kisses had been like a drug. Each one had left my body engulfed in fire. Too bad it was with Summer.
If I’d woken up this morning and found Mimi in this bed, I’d be the happiest man in the world. Sex like that for the rest of our lives? Hell yeah!
Speak of the devil. I heard the click of Mimi’s distinctive heels along the hallway. I felt a headache coming over me. We weren’t even married yet, and she came and went like she owned the place.
“Great, you’re up,” she said, coming into my bedroom.
“What are you doing here?” Really, why did I have to deal with her so early in the morning? I tried to pinpoint the exact moment she’d begun to irritate me, but couldn’t.
If I stayed on this path, the road I’d detested my whole childhood would become my reality.
Just like my parents, Melissa and I’d be married, have a child, and spend our lives avoiding each other.
At least if she’d been the one in my bed last night, I would have had that to look forward to.
Shit! All my life, I had looked down on my father; now I knew exactly how my parents had ended up in that scenario.
A man never wanting to be home, always sleeping around, and a woman embarrassed time and time again.
“Let’s put our cards on the table,” I said. It was better to hash out whatever the hell our relationship was honestly, I decided in that moment.
“Oh God, calm down. I let you have your little Halloween party fun, didn’t I? Why the attitude?”
“What do you mean, let me?” I asked, riding over that last ridiculous comment.
“Last I checked, it was my family’s money and house.
” I could feel my dick sink inside me as I talked with her.
Recently, every word out of her mouth was a turnoff.
And then there was Summer. Fucking Summer, who’d taken me for a ride last night.
A spark of satisfaction lit inside me as I remembered her expression in the police cruiser.
Melissa and I stood there, facing each other. I shook my head in disgust.
“Let’s call it off.” My father would have to wait for his heir. There was no way I was marrying Mimi.
Laughter filled the room. I watched her, perplexed. “Why? Because of whoever’s lipstick is all over the sheets?”
Tension locked my shoulders as I glanced at the bed.
Yeah, last night was wild. The lipstick was probably from when I had Summer face down in doggie style.
My cock hardened. “This isn’t about her.
To be honest, I don’t like you much. And, let’s be honest, children between us may never happen since my dick is losing interest in you. ”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Mimi walked over to the sheets. She peeled a long strand of blonde hair from the pillow. “You sleep with one blonde and . . . Oh my God. This is about Summer, the one who got away.”
“One that got away?” I sarcastically repeated.
Mimi sat on the bed. It smelled of the two of us. Of Summer and me.
“So, that’s why you two are always at each other’s throats all the time. Sexual frustration. It makes so much sense now! You love Summer.”
I walked around the bed, into the bathroom, and turned on the shower.
“Don’t be stupid. We’re at each other’s throats because I hate her for what she did. I don’t love her.”
“So, you’re telling me you and Summer aren’t still in love with each other?”
My jaw tightened. “That’s exactly what I’m saying! Summer left this house in handcuffs; she had one plan, and it wasn’t to love me. She wanted me dead.”
Mimi’s eyes flew open.
I slammed the bathroom door.
Shutting Mimi up was almost as satisfying as watching Summer getting dragged to the police car, yet my annoying fiancée’s words stuck with me. ‘You love Summer.’
I knew I hated her. I felt that in every bone of my body.
But was that it? I had loved her once. And she’d tried to kill me. And she was someone who I’d once built my entire world around. And that sex . . . my God, that sex! It was as if nothing had changed.
Ten years ago, I was able to differentiate between what Summer hid and what Clive did.
I’d never wanted to hurt her. It was never about her.
At some point along the way, all the hatred I’d felt for Clive, the grief of losing my mother, the betrayal of Summer for keeping Clive’s secret, it all focused on Summer, even the parts not meant for her. She was the only one left.
Summer
Daisy bailed me out two days later. My advice: don’t get arrested on a weekend.
Technically, I wouldn’t have needed bail if I’d shut my mouth or even denied some of what Thaddeus said.
It would be my word against his, and I didn’t have a prison record, but I wasn’t in my right state of mind.
In the panic of being arrested, I’d forgotten everything I knew about the law.
From the back of the police vehicle, to walking into the station, even in the interrogation room, I told everyone who would listen the same thing: “I went to kill Thaddeus and would try again.”
“Summer, maybe you should stop talking,” an officer warned. I couldn’t remember his name. It didn’t matter.
But I wouldn’t listen. I went on and on. I bought the gun, went there last night, and my plan failed.
So yeah, they charged me. I went before the judge. Thank goodness for Daisy, who’d agreed to pay my bail. I was free (for now).
“Summer, I’m worried about you,” Daisy said as we drove away from the station.
She had every right to be now, I supposed. “Daisy, you had to see the smirk on his face.”
“What?”
I faced her. “Thaddeus mocked my attempt to kill him and announced to the world his cock single-handedly foiled my plan.” His smirk flashed before my eyes.
What I’d give to slap that expression right off his face.
I could’ve, should’ve, pistol-whipped him if I’d known he was going to have the cops haul me away anyway.
Better yet, I should have completed the murder I planned before he could stick his cock inside me.
My best friend made a strange, strangled sound and pulled over on the side of the road. “His cock? What happened that night?”
Heat crawled up my neck. I didn’t want people to know about that lapse in judgment. “Forget it. Just know one thing. Thaddeus is dead. Shit, I might kill him on Halloween just like he did my dad.”
“Summer, are you hearing yourself? You need to call Marni and get a session immediately. You need to move past this. The two of you need to be able to coexist in the same place without you killing him!”
I wasted no more of my breath on her. Nobody would ever understand.
This was the reason that all those years of therapy did nothing.
What I really needed was Thaddeus’s cold, lifeless body lying in front of me.
They could keep my gun. I had a car, and gas was cheap.
I’d run that conceited bastard off the road.