14. Chapter 14
Chapter 14
The Hound
I was drunk. And I fucked up.
I follow Cher in silence, rubbing my aching eyes as we reach her apartment. She types in the code, and then opens the door. I don’t know what I was thinking when I tried to kiss her. She looked like she wanted me to.
And now I’m the asshole for it.
“What the hell are you two doing?” Henry’s sharp voice cuts through the quiet like a fucking sword to flesh.
“He walked me home from work.” Cher’s tone is painfully light and sweet—and I’m once again reminded of the fucking fa?ade she puts on for her brother.
“Why is there blood on his face?” Henry snaps, his eyes boring into my skull.
“I drank a little too much and got a little hotheaded.” I don’t offer the reason why. I still haven’t processed whatever the fuck that guy said about Cher. Henry told me she lost her job because of some higher up corruption...
Not because she assaulted someone with a paperweight.
“Since when do you throw a punch?” Henry laughs, shaking his head as he peers at my busted lip. “Must’ve been short-lived.”
“He can throw a good punch,” Cher says, not looking at me as I stand beside her. “The other guy was in way worse shape.”
Henry grins at me. “Good for you. You need to ice that though.” He nods to my swelling bottom lip.
I glance over to Cher as she lifts her fingers to her own—and then looks irrevocably mortified few seconds.
Great, I fucking grossed her out.
I feel like dog shit on the bottom of a shoe as she wraps her arms around her torso, like she needs to protect herself from the advance I made on her. I squeeze my eyes closed, wishing I’d have done anything but try to kiss Henry’s sister.
“I think I’m going to go to bed,” Cher’s voice is quiet.
“I don’t blame you,” Henry says to her. “And thanks for getting Jude home safe.” He chuckles as the words come out, and Cher smiles.
“Of course.” She eyes me as she passes by, her arm brushing mine. I let the moment go, even though my pride takes a hit. I know Henry doesn’t know about the guy we encountered tonight, and I’ll do my own investigating before I even think about mentioning it to him.
“Here,” Henry hands me an ice pack wrapped in a hand towel. “Maybe it’d be better not getting into any more tiffs. We don’t need to draw attention to ourselves here.”
I press the ice to my mouth and roll my eyes. “Like drunken brawls don’t happen every fucking night in Vegas.”
“Yeah, but we aren’t everyday people,” he chides me.
“I’ll cover the footage up.” I spin on my heels and start to leave, stopping at the threshold of the hallway to glance back at my best friend. “You should probably get some sleep, too. It’s past your bedtime.”
He glares at me. “Don’t stay out with my sister and I won’t have to stay up late.”
I tense my jaw, sending a shooting pain through my busted lip. You don’t even know her. But I keep my mouth shut, ducking out and heading to my room. I don’t want to pick a fight—even if I could.
As I reach my bedroom, I pause, dropping my arm as I see the light glowing underneath Cher’s door. The events of tonight run rampantly through my unsettled mind. What happened to you, Cher? What made you so damn skittish? I take a deep breath and enter my own room, leaving the temptation at the door. I’m sober now, and so I slide into my desk chair. I need to know what happened to her at the law firm.
But the doorknob turning causes me to pause my investigation.
“Dude, go to bed—” I stop as I see my visitor. I expected to see Henry, but instead, Cher steps in. Wearing a loose T-shirt and shorts, her face is devoid of all the cover-up, bruises lining her jaw and dark circles beneath her eyes. I clench the computer mouse, fighting the murderous urge the sight gives me as I wait for her to say something. Her lips part slightly, and I’m on the edge of my seat, apprehension humming in my ears.
“Um,” Cher finally murmurs. “Can you not tell Henry about the guy we saw tonight?”
Of course, more secrets for me to keep.
But I nod. “Sure. I wasn’t going to.”
She bites down on her lower lip, wringing her hands in front of her body. “Can I... Can I tell you something?”
She’s trusting you. Take the bait.
“Of course.” I lean away from the computer and rest against the back of the chair, placing my elbows on the armrests.
“That guy that we ran into today...I used to work with him at the law firm in Washington.” Her tone is difficult to read, and while this is knowledge I already put together, I bob my head in understanding. “I got a job at that firm as soon as I passed my bar exam—and he did, too. We were in the same graduating class.”
“And so you were friends?” I throw the question out there, mostly because jealousy is rearing its ugly head inside me right now.
“I guess ...” Cher frowns, and then shakes her head. “No, we weren’t friends. We weren’t anything. I stay away from, um—we just didn’t get along.” She teeters back on her heels, her body wracked with visible nerves.
“You don’t have to worry about me telling anyone about whatever is said in this room,” I reassure her as emotions shift in my chest. There’s a heaviness in the way that her eyes are darkening, and I’ve seen it before in the faces of the battered...But Cher’s face lightens suddenly.
“He was a creep, and he was constantly trying to come onto me,” Cher says, her tone losing some of the softness it had before. “He was flirting with me one morning, and that’s when he went to touch me. I just reacted and I grabbed the glass paperweight on my desk. I hit him.”
I don’t react with anything other than a slight nod. Something is missing from what she’s saying. “So he startled you?”
Cher hesitates. “Um, yeah. I tried to explain to my boss at the time that it could’ve been sexual harassment, but Ben kept saying otherwise. He fired us both and said we didn’t belong in law. He wouldn’t recommend us due to us both deserving charges—and my career was ruined. So was Ben’s. That’s why he hates me.”
“That’s rough for a small altercation.”
“Well,” Cher diverts her eyes. “He needed eight stitches... and I broke his nose.”
So much context is missing from this story—or Cher really flew off the handle. But it’s something from her, and anything that’s even remotely close to the truth is a fucking miracle. “Why didn’t you tell Henry about it?”
Her mouth tightens. “Can you imagine what he would’ve done?”
I shrug. “I don’t know what he would’ve done. It seems like this Ben guy lost his shot at a decent career, too.”
“Yeah, but he deserved it.”
“For flirting with you?” I blurt it out before I can stop myself, and she shoots me a glare with the kind of heat that could light a wet match.
“It was more than that,” she snaps at me, folding her arms across her chest. “He was trying to touch me. You weren’t there.”
“No, I wasn’t. Maybe I would’ve hit him with the paperweight instead.”
An annoyed expression crosses her face, but her body relaxes. “I just...I keep things from my brother because he’s worked so hard to give me a certain type of life, and I don’t want to disappoint him.” The way the volume of her voice drops causes my heart to follow. I know what it’s like to be living under familial pressure.
“I don’t think you could disappoint Henry, even if you hit someone with a paperweight.” I chuckle. “He probably would’ve laughed, and then hired someone to help you fight the allegations or whatever.”
“Right, coming to my rescue as per usual.”
“He’s never had to come to your rescue, Cher.”
“Well, there was my...um, stepdad.” Her eyes drop to the floor. “I’m sure you know that story though.”
“I’ve never heard your story,” I tell her softly, my hands sweating with an eagerness to reach out and touch her. “I’d like to.”
She drags her black nails down her biceps and blows out a light breath. “I don’t really remember, to be honest. I remember thinking that he was scary, and that he’d try to come in my room at night—but Henry was there. He always kept him away.” Cher pauses, and then walks over to the bed, taking a seat on the edge of it. Her knees rest inches from mine as I turn to face her.
“The night everything happened is a blur for me. I didn’t see anything. I know our stepdad was cruel to our mom, but that’s not how I remember her. I never knew she was broken. She was kind and sweet and she read to me every night...” Her voice trails off as her eyes drop to her hands. “But I don’t remember much other than that, so maybe that’s why I have a different image of her—or maybe Henry just shielded me from all of it.”
“Our mind sometimes shields us from the pain of the past,” I reason. I have no idea why Cher is sitting in my room spilling this after I crossed a line and tried to kiss her, but...I don’t want her to leave.
“Maybe,” she says as she meets my gaze. “I think mine tortures me.” A stilted laugh follows her words, and she shakes her head. “Anyway, I just didn’t tell Henry about what happened at work, because he worked so hard to get me where I was—and then I let him down. One stupid day ruined my career.”
“I don’t think you could let Henry down. You could do anything, and he’d still think you were God’s gift to the earth.”
“Yeah...” She bites down on her lip, hesitating and shifting on the bed. “But sometimes, I wish I would’ve seen what happened that night—when he killed my stepdad. All I knew was him scooping me up, the smell of the gasoline and fire, and then just running right into the dark. I don’t have an excuse to be a fuck-up.”
“I don’t think seeing something that violent at your age would’ve been a good thing...” My words fail me past that, even as Cher nods. I don’t know what to say to her, but I wish like hell I did.
“I had a normal childhood.” She nearly whispers it, and I can’t decide who in the room she’s trying to convince. “But anyway,” Cher clears her throat and stands to her feet. “I just thought I’d clarify what happened with Ben.”
“You don’t have to justify anything to me.”
She pauses, her brow furrowing. “You were clearly disgusted when Ben mentioned what happened.”
“No,” I shoot back at her. “It was just at that moment I knew I’d probably have to beat his ass—and that’s not something I do often.”
Cher studies me for a few beats, her eyes covering every feature of my face. “You know, my brother always made you out to be something entirely different than what you are.”
I shrug. “I’ve done a lot of changing.”
She stands to her feet and then moves toward the door. “Why?”
My gaze doesn’t falter. “Because I was sick of myself.”
“Me, too.” Cher mumbles, and then disappears. I stare after her as the door closes. I have no idea what to think about her, but I do think from now on, I’ll leave the ball in her court.
And only follow in the shadows.
Otherwise, I might fall too hard to stop myself.