4. Dallas
DALLAS
Duke steps between my spread thighs, the heat of his muscular body immediately warming me by proximity alone. My heart races inside my chest, memories flooding my mind.
His strong fingers digging into my hips, pinning me down over his erection.
The satisfied groan he released when he sucked my arousal off his fingertips.
I shake my head, trying to focus on the task at hand and ignoring the temperature rising between us.
I’m at work. He’s a customer.
“One hundred dollars,” I tell him, just to see how he’ll react to the increase.
He smirks, dipping his black Stetson in agreement. Literally everything he does makes my core pulse with desire, and I despise it. His cologne smells faintly like leather and mint, making my flashbacks to the night in his truck even more potent in my mind.
“Liquor choice?” I ask.
“Whiskey.”
Harper, my co-bartender, hands me the bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
“Four Roses,” he says.
She takes the Jack Daniel’s back and hands me the bottle of Four Roses with a new glass of cold water.
“Ready?” I ask.
His bright blue eyes are steady on mine as he nods. “Give me your best shot, darlin’.”
I try to ignore the way that nickname affects me, coming from his lips. This humming attraction between us is a recipe for disaster.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what happened between us the other night in his truck. The way I had to run home to my—thankfully—fully charged vibrator was embarrassing.
It’s been less than a week since my divorce was finalized. I’m figuring my life out—how to be a single mom, to work and support my twins and heal from the abuse I suffered after five miserable years with my ex-husband.
The real problem is that I don’t feel attracted to any other men … like, at all. It’s been years since I enjoyed sex with Matt. It became impossible when intimacy turned into a defense mechanism for me to keep myself and the boys safe, draining the enjoyment out of it.
And even after I started the job here, which has a revolving door of men of all different shapes and sizes hitting on me at all hours of the night, I simply feel indifferent. Like maybe something could blossom if I got to know them, but I have no real desire to do that either.
My insides are dead. It feels like my heart is barely pulsing with enough blood to keep me alive.
Then Duke Redford strolls in, and it suddenly wants to thud at a double-time pace.
I know he’s not what I or the boys need right now. Dawson and Dutton deserve a stable home, not some random younger guy in their mom’s bed, no matter how attractive that man is.
I lift the bottle of whiskey to my lips and fill my mouth with it. It makes my eyes burn. He’s taller than Jesse, so I can’t get as far above him as I’d like to, forcing me to press my lips closer to his than I normally would for this kind of shot. I still can’t get the right angle.
I set the bottle down on the bar, reaching out to grab his chin and pull him closer to me.
I spit the whiskey between his parted lips slowly, so I don’t spill too much down his clean-shaven jawline.
It feels more like foreplay than anything I’ve ever done with another man.
Heat spreads over the surface of my skin, making me flush from my neck all the way down to my boots.
His fingers ghost across my thigh near my knee.
I pick up the glass of water to splash his face with it before I pull my hand back and slap him—hard.
His head jerks to the side, and my heart jumps into my throat.
The roar of the crowd is deafening in my ears, and when his eyes turn back to focus on mine, my throat dries up like sandpaper.
My core pulses when all I see is pure, unfiltered desire.
I am so fucked.
“Baby, I need you to get your shoes so you can go home with Mommy. Are your shoes in the house?”
Dutton is clinging to my leg, refusing to go back into Matt’s house—the home we used to share together before the divorce. It’s nice, newly built, with black frame windows and white siding in the cookie-cutter farmhouse style.
“No, Mommy. Me go home with you!” Dutton complains.
“Yes, you are coming home with Mommy. But we need shoes.”
Matt is standing in the doorway, shaking his head. “You should just let me keep them another night.”
My ex-husband is dressed in dirty sweatpants and a dingy white T-shirt. The boys look even worse, like he hasn’t bathed them in days. My three-year-old twins are always a little grimy by the end of the day after playing outside, but this looks like more than one day of filth.
“I’m hungry! Mommy, can I have a snack?” Dawson is spinning around in circles behind me.
“Can you get their shoes, please?” I finally ask Matt.
He stretches his arm out toward the inside of the house. “Get them yourself. You know your way around.”
My chest tightens. He knows I don’t want to go inside.
I don’t want to be in an enclosed space with him ever again.
The state of Texas gives me that right, but they won’t give any protection to the two mini versions of my heart that have to live here with this monster thirty percent of their lives with no supervision.
I can’t let myself think about it for too long.
“All right, boys, let’s go. We can stop at the store and get new shoes! Does that sound fun?” I reach down to peel Dutton off my leg. He’s the more sensitive one.
“Mickey D’s, Mommy? Please!” Dawson begs.
“Yes, we’ll get Mickey D’s too.”
“Yay! You hear that, Dutton? Mommy is getting us nuggeys and Fwench fwies!” His voice is so cute with the mild speech impediment that makes all his T’s, R’s, and S’s difficult for him to enunciate.
The speech therapist says to give it another year, but I’m the only person who can consistently understand what he’s saying besides his twin. Matt gets unreasonably angry when he can’t figure it out and, of course, blames the three-year-old who hasn’t learned how to roll his tongue.
And me—because everything is ultimately my fault somehow.
I strap the boys into their car seats in the beat-up silver minivan with Matt looming over my shoulder.
“Okay, boys, say bye-bye to your dad.”
“Bye,” Dawson says, but Dutton ignores him.
Matt leans into the van, ruffling each of their heads of dirty-blond hair, which is usually a lighter shade when it’s clean. When they were born it was a darker brown, but it slowly lightened up.
“Bye, boys. I’m gonna miss you. I’ll see you next week, huh? We had such a fun time together.”
He lingers in the van for an irritating amount of time before realizing they are ready to go with me and don’t want to offer him any more affection to soothe his fragile ego.
They’re mama’s boys who prefer being with me, and he knows it. He’s always known it. Dutton flat out doesn’t like spending any time with his dad. He’s the more emotional twin, and Matt’s frequent outbursts—where he screams, curses, and throws things—scare him.
Dawson is a little more inclined to have fun with him when he’s paying him any attention at all. Even just Matt throwing the ball around with him for five minutes makes Dawson happy because his dad took time away from drinking and online gambling.
I walk around to the driver’s side of the van, anxious to leave the negative energy that oozes from my ex-husband’s aura.
He follows me. After I shut the door and start the van, he knocks on my window.
Dutton and Dawson are fighting in the back seat over a water bottle, and I can tell they’re both starving.
Who knows what time it was when they last ate?
I make a mental note to start bringing them snacks when I pick them up.
I crack the window. “What is it?” I attempt to control the amount of irritation in my tone.
“I could come with you, just to help with dinner and at the store.”
“No, thanks, we’ll be fine.”
“They’ve been horrible all day. You’re probably gonna realize they’re in terrible moods as soon as you get out of the car.”
Gee, I wonder why they’re in terrible moods when you’re always mean to them, they haven’t had a bath or dinner, and you probably didn’t adhere to the sleep schedule I keep them on for naps and bedtime because you think you know everything.
And you’re too fucking lazy and stubborn to listen to a goddamn word I say.
I. Fucking. Wonder. Why. They’re. Being. Horrible.
“Okay,” I grit out, hands clenched around the steering wheel. “I will do my best to cope with it. Bye.”
I roll the window up, shift into drive, and ease my foot off the brake. He stands there for a moment before finally taking a step back.
A heavy exhale escapes my lungs after we make it a few miles down the road. I pull into McDonald’s and order the boys each a Happy Meal and large fries with a Diet Coke for me. I usually don’t let them have condiments in the car because of the inevitable mess, but I make an exception today.
Watching them devour the food like they haven’t eaten anything substantial in days makes my stomach clench with a mix of anxiety and rage. Threatening tears prick the back of my eyes, but I refuse to give in to them.
I don’t have time for tears right now. The emotional reaction will have to wait. The boys need to see me being strong. They need to know Mommy is going to take care of them.
I’m their safe space. I can’t control what happens when they’re with their dad during his time. I can’t make sure they’re fed and bathed and sleeping enough.
But when they’re with Mommy, they will never have to wonder where the next hot meal is from.
They will always have snuggles and snacks.
They will always have shoes to wear, even if I have to buy them a new pair every single week with the money I get from the bartending job that emotionally drains me and wrecks my sleep schedule.
They will never ever have to be the ones who regulate my emotions, the ones I’m barely holding on to.