Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
PATIENCE
Jett was back.
But he wasn’t truly home.
The guys at No Surrender owned two condos they kept to use if someone needed a place to stay for one reason or another. And trust me when I say, they’d been put to good use over the years.
However, I never imagined—but it hurt like hell—that Jett would choose to go there instead of the house he grew up in. The place where his family was.
Where I was.
When I heard voices in the middle of the night filtering up from downstairs, I started to go down to see what was going on, but stopped in my tracks when I overheard Lyric tell Ruby they’d dropped Jett off at the deserted condo. My heart twisted and lips trembled at the news.
Ruby didn’t take it any better than me judging by her gasp, and I thought for sure she was going to head right out the door in her pajamas so she could finally see her brother. But once again, Lyric managed to convince her to give him a day.
Not wanting to eavesdrop any longer, I made my way back to my room, but not without the floor creaking along the way. There was no doubt that they both knew I’d been there and had overheard.
Easing back under my comforter, I lay there but sleep wouldn’t come. What had, were the waterworks. I curled in a ball, my heart hurting, and I let the tears fall until I finally was so exhausted I cried myself to sleep.
I woke to a blotchy face, red nose, and tracks of sorrow down my face.
As I stood staring at my ghastly appearance in the bathroom mirror, my phone vibrated on the vanity countertop.
Looking down at the screen where my cell rested, the words I saw on the lock screen were enough to send a chill racing up my spine.
Unknown: Ignoring me was a mistake.
With a shaky hand, I reached for my phone but then yanked it back. I knew there was more, but I couldn’t bring myself to look. The text may read from unknown, but I knew exactly who it was. Chaz had sent several texts over the last few weeks, all pertaining to my son.
And I meant mine.
Griffin was not his.
He’d denied him when he had the chance to not only do the right thing but be a father to someone precious. I knew why my son called Jett “Daddy”; it was because he had been the father figure in his life. The solid one and the man to take care of him since he was born.
Jett had…
Nope. I am not going to keep thinking about either of them. Chaz or Jett.
My emotions were running high, and there was an abundance of them filtering through me. There was no telling which might win at any given time, but I had to get my son to preschool, and I needed to get to work.
Sometimes adulting sucked.
Not the mom part. Never that. That was my greatest joy, and Griffin was my world.
Nope, I meant the work part because I couldn’t just come back home, curl up in a ball, and sleep.
Or drown my worries away in a pint of Rocky Road ice cream.
I’d let emotions win and left adulting by the wayside.
The guys at work would have to deal with me being late. Two of them brought Jett to the condo, not home, so making a pit stop before going in anyway was their fault.
An irrational thought, yeah, most likely. But I wasn’t really thinking clearly at that moment.
When Ruby offered to take Griffin to preschool on the way to dropping Autumn at school—Tristan stayed with Gramps as he often did if not with one of the other ladies—I caved.
Sometimes we went our separate ways, sometimes I helped, and other times she did.
We were a great team and support system for each other, but I was sure I was the one who truly won the lottery.
Just before we got in our cars, Ruby slipped me a piece of paper. Looking down at it, I noticed there were two codes that I was sure would get me into the parking lot and doors of the condos.
Yup, she knew exactly where I was headed and what was brewing.
Anger.
It had taken center stage and festered through the night, right on into breakfast.
“Don’t be too hard on him,” she whispered.
I wasn’t even sure what I was going to say, but I knew I needed to vent. My world felt like it was unraveling, and a crazy feeling was raging through me, seeking to be released.
Jett seemed to be the outlet I was going to use.
On autopilot, I drove to my destination and before I’d fully realized it, I was pounding on the door.
My heart beat like a drum in my ears as I waited, those emotions building and on the verge of exploding.
When the door was flung open and Jett stood there wearing nothing, but a pair of grey sweats hung low on his hips, I hadn’t been prepared for the new feeling that rushed at me like a giant linebacker.
Lust.
God, he looked…
“Patience.”
My name on his lips in that deep whisper sent goosebumps racing across every inch of my skin.
He’d hurt me, and there I was staring at his sculpted chest, broad shoulders, and practically drooling. That pissed me off even more when I realized how silly I was behaving.
And I exploded…
Uninvited, I pushed myself forward into the condo, poking him in the chest with one finger. “You left me!”
He opened his mouth but didn’t get a chance to say anything because I was too pissed to let him get a word in.
“No. You don’t get to make an excuse. I thought you were dead. That I lost you forever.” I poked him again. “Then they found you, and you’ve treated me like I had the plague ever since. I could tell you haven’t wanted to talk to me. To see me.”
Tears threatened to fall, but I swallowed them down and willed them to hold out a little longer. I dropped my hand and walked past him before whirling back in his direction. He shut the door and turned my way.
“You came here, not home.” My chest rose and fell rapidly. “You promised me that you would always be there for me, and you chose not to. Best friends don’t do that to each other!” I shouted.
The fact that he felt like so much more made it even worse, but I’d never verbally confessed that to him, and I certainly wasn’t going to now.
There was more; I wasn’t done, but when he moved closer, my breath caught, giving him an opening.
“Please forgive me, Roo.”
All the air left my lungs. I was shaking my head. No. No. No. When he called me that, my anger began to dissipate. I was always a sucker for the nickname. He’d begun calling me that early on, saying I reminded him of a small, playful, cheerful joey, like Roo from Winnie the Pooh.
He took a couple more steps closer. “I came home when I heard there was trouble.”
I looked into his eyes, and the walls I’d thrown up to shield my heart before knocking on the door came tumbling down. And then sadness swept in.
Shadows of pain lurked in his once sparkling blue eyes that were always so full of life, but were now hooded and dimmed, as if life had been sucked right out of them.
My gaze skimmed him from head to toe, and I almost crumbled to the floor.
Now that my temper had lulled, I was able to focus more on the man in front of me.
The scars that marred his upper body came into focus.
They in no means took away from how beautiful he was, but they did lay out a map of what he’d been through.
Were there more?
The evidence of the torture being real made me want to vomit.
When he caught me looking, he started to move past me, mumbling, “I’m going to grab a shirt.”
Crap, he thought…
I don’t know what he thought exactly, but I could tell it wasn’t good. Did he think that the sight of his wounds bothered me or that it made him any less desirable? The man was a work of art.
Unable to stand him thinking any less of himself, I grabbed his wrist, a jolt shooting up my arm at the contact, and he halted in his tracks, our eyes meeting once again.
“Don’t.”
Something sparked around us, like a live burst of energy, and his pupils dilated. My breath hitched, a fire blazing in his eyes, and then, as fast as it came, it was gone.
Masking his features, he said, “I know how to fix the problem you are having.”
His tone was all business now, catching me off guard. And I certainly wasn’t prepared for what came next.
“We’re getting married.” He hung his head for a second as my world stopped spinning, static filling my ears, before looking back up. “On paper, of course. We need to show them a united front and that you have a solid family unit.”
I dropped his hand like I had been burned.
Not for love.
He wanted me…
Nope, I had to get out of there. Storming toward the door, I threw it open.
“Patience, don’t leave. I’m trying to help.”
Anger was back with a vengeance. “Help?” Fire blazed through my body. “You want to help by taking something precious like marriage and just signing on the dotted line for anything but love?”
Jett threw his hands in the air.
“I can’t be more! I’m not the same person!” He stalked toward me. “I’m broken. Don’t you get it? I’m broken!”
A tear trickled down my cheek.
“Not to me you’re not.”
His sharp intake of breath echoed through the room. “Please don’t ask me to give more than I can give. Just let me help?”
More tears fell.
I moved into the hall, hoping with everything I was that he would stop and tell me what I’d always wanted to hear.
But it didn’t come.
“I can’t do this.”
He gave me a devastated look. “Not even for your son?”
The thought of losing not just one person, but two people I loved was breaking my heart wide open, and I struggled to breathe.
So I did the only thing I could think of right then.
I ran.