Chapter Eleven
Oakley
D id Waylon…just call me baby?
“I’m going to keep you safe, Oakley. And I’m going to find out who did this. I promise.”
What do I even say after that?
“She can’t stay with you, Waylon.”
Yeah, what Terry said. Why though?
“She can and she will. I might be the reason she’s in danger.”
I frown at him for even suggesting something like that. Why would he think he’s the cause of any of this? It just…makes me mad that he would think that. “What? Why? How?”
“Yeah, why would you be the reason she’s in danger, Waylon?” Terry backs me up on what a ridiculous notion it is to even think he might be the reason someone broke into my house and…did what they did.
“Everyone in town thinks we’re together.
” I can’t tell which one of us he’s answering because he keeps looking at me, but it seems like it might be aimed at Terry.
“Nan has a bet going on when she’s going to pop my kid out, Terry.
We’re looking through all my arrests to make sure nothing is turning up there. ”
Terry’s mouth falls into a surprised circle, and all I can do is gasp…which, by the way, the last time I did that, things didn’t turn out like I expected them to. He…kissed me.
“Oh shit, you don’t think...someone could be out to get Oakley because they think she’s…with you?”
“I can’t be certain, but until I'm sure, Oakley is staying with me.”
“I can’t stay with you. You…you’re…you.” His eyebrows rise high on his forehead, and I realize how what I said might sound. “No, that’s not…”
“She can’t stay with you twenty-four/seven, Waylon. She can’t go to work with you for crying out loud. She can’t…”
“You and Mom can help keep her safe during the day, but at night she needs to be with me.”
I take him by the face and turn him so he’s looking at me again. “But what about…girlfriends or…?”
“Booty calls?”
“Yes, thank you, Terry. Booty calls. What about those? I can’t stay with you while you have booty calls come over?”
His eyes drill into me, causing me to squirm in his lap. “How many ‘booty calls’ do you think I participate in?”
“I don’t know. I…you’re hot. You know you are. I’m sure you have women who…why can’t I just stay with Terry?”
“Because if this is someone I’ve arrested or pissed off somehow, they need to think we are together to catch them, sweetheart.”
“Why?” I would have eventually gotten around to asking that, but Terry beats me to it.
“Because if they are doing this because they think me and Oakley are together,” he jostles me in his lap and I become very aware of the fact his hands are cupping my ass, “I want them to know she is protected, and I have no problem using my gun to keep her that way. And if it’s not about me and for some reason someone has fabricated a reason to harm her…
well, the ending is the same, isn’t it, beautiful? ”
He winks at me, and a blush creeps up my neck and spreads across my cheeks. He winked at me AND kissed me. And called me baby. What the hell is going on?
“And she has to come home with me so we can sell the story that we’re together.”
“Sell the story?” Wait. Is he…did he do all of these things, the kiss, the cutesy nicknames, having me on his lap just so he can ‘sell the story’? “You want people to think we are together?”
“Is that such a hardship for you?”
“Are you using her as bait? Are you using my best friend like a fucking cheap piece of bait?”
I pull back -or try to, since the island kind of has me pinned in between him and it- and brace myself. I’m telling him no. He could very well toss me on the floor.
“Abso-fucking-lutely not!”
“Why are we raising our voices? And cussing?” Their mom comes in and looks over at Waylon. “And mauling Oakley?”
“Mom, Waylon is trying to use Oakley as bait like she isn’t even someone we care about! Like she’s some stranger he doesn’t even know, so it’s alright for him to use!”
I try to jump up off his lap, but yet again, he holds me to him.
“Waylon!”
“Mom, I’m not treating Oakley like fucking bait. I’m trying to keep her safe, damn it.”
“Stop cussing, Waylon.”
“Waylon, I’m not going home with you just so we can ‘sell’ some story about how we’re together.”
“Then where are you going to go, because you can’t go home.” His words hit me hard, and I blink fast to try to keep the tears back. “Damn it, Oakley. I didn’t mean…,”
“She can stay with me! She’s spent days over here anyway. What’s a week or two until we can figure out her apartment situation?”
“Or I could go stay with my mom in…”
“No! The safest place for you to be is with me, Oakley. And that’s exactly where you are going to be!
End of discussion!” His fingers sink into my hips, letting me know he’s there but not hurting me.
“I don’t have hook-ups, I don’t have women over every night.
There’s no reason you can’t come home with me until we figure this shit out.
And I most definitely will not be using you as fucking bait. ”
He sends a glare his sister’s way at the end, but for the most part, he keeps eye contact with me like each sentence, each word, is a promise.
“Maybe the girls just don’t want to invade your privacy, Waylon.”
“It’s only an invasion if I didn’t invite her, which I did, so…no invasion. No bait. Just me and you.”