Chapter 12 #2
He sounded like this question was important to him. That he wanted to know my answer because it was integral to his happiness.
So I shrugged and told him my life story.
I walked to the fridge, because it was always a necessity to drink beer when talking about the shit show that was my life.
I caught up a beer for myself and one for Hux—my brother’s contribution to my fridge—and handed him both.
He lifted his brow. “I can’t twist it off.”
He set one beer down on the counter and twisted the top off the other.
He handed me the beer and gestured at me to start talking.
“Do you want me to start at the beginning, when I first knew that my mother was a drug addict and that she was willing to sell the use of my body for drugs?” I asked.
“Or do you want me to tell you about my shit show of a love life, and how I was stupidly the one to choose every single one of them?”
Hux became still.
So incredibly still.
I’d never seen anything like it before in my life.
“We’ll start with the men that broke your heart,” he ordered. “Then we’ll backtrack, and you’ll tell me about this mother of yours.”
“Hopefully dead mother,” I corrected. “She went missing three weeks ago.”
His eyes grew curious. “Did she?”
I nodded. “I only know because I like to read the online obituaries in our old hometown.”
He jerked his head toward my couch. “Let’s sit.”
I trailed along behind him, trying not to stare too hard at his ass encased in those sexy pants, and all but fell into my couch.
It was very comfortable, and after the day I’d had at work, I was ready to fall asleep.
But the intensity in Hux’s eyes kept me captivated as I started, “Long story short…”
He took another sip, and a drop of beer landed on his bottom lip.
I watched, fascinated, as he licked that drop off and leaned forward, his elbows planted on his knees.
My mouth went dry, but somehow I managed to tell him what had happened to me after my brother had been sent to prison.
“I’ve had all of three boyfriends,” I said.
“The first one cheated on me in high school. He asked me to prom. Started dating me. Then he never showed up to pick me up.” I grimaced.
“I was the wrong side of the tracks for him, plus, my brother was in prison and there was this stigma against me…so I understood. Went to prom alone to meet up with my friends, then found my would-be date with someone else. They were fucking underneath the bleachers. She got really angry at him when he called my name as he came.”
“Jesus.”
“The second boyfriend cheated on me as well. It was after Creed went to prison, and I was so adamant that I wouldn’t give up on him.
He thought that I was doing too much. That I should just leave well enough alone.
When I found out he was cheating, he said that I’d been cheating first. Not physically, but emotionally. With my own brother.”
Hux leaned back in his seat, shaking his head.
“The third and final one, I was out of town for a work conference. I had to get some continuing education done, and Sarasota was putting on a huge nurse practitioner conference. I went to get some hours, and around three that morning, I got a message from my smart scale telling me that someone had just weighed themselves at three in the morning. Someone weighing a hundred and twenty pounds.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Hux chuckled. “You were living with him?”
“Just moved in, actually,” I explained. “That was right after Necro—short for Necrophiliac—started to send me gifts. I thought it’d be better to be seen living with a man.
But it just made me realize that the man I had moved in with was a little bitch.
And would probably never help me if it came down to it anyway.
Our breakup was ugly, and I ended up getting to keep his apartment.
The landlady felt sorry for me. The landlady just so happened to be his aunt, too. His aunt that doesn’t like cheaters.”
“Good for her.” Hux leaned back in the couch and threw his arm over the back of it, his fingers a few inches away from my hair.
If I shifted to the side, my hair would fall over his fingers.
Why did the idea of his fingers in my hair make me squeeze my legs together in excitement?
“As for my childhood, Creed got me out of there pretty darn quick. When he realized that my mother didn’t care about her children, especially her youngest ‘pretty’ daughter, Creed and I left. Never looked back until Mom found us again.”
“She sounds like a real peach.” Hux took another swig of his beer.
I leaned forward and snatched mine off the coffee table before leaning back. When I did, I made sure to move my head in a way that my hair fell over his hand.
He didn’t move away.
Taking a swig of my beer, because all of a sudden I was really nervous and excited, I leaned my head to the side, causing even more of my hair to spill across his hand.
His fingers twitched, and I saw his shoulder jump as he did something with his hand.
I felt a slight tug at my scalp and wondered if he was playing his fingers through my locks. Or maybe he was just trying to get it off of him.
I was too nervous to look toward him, my fear that I was making the movement up in my head.
“Your hair is really long,” he mused, coming up with a strand of my hair and twirling it between his fingers for a few seconds before he dropped it.
“It was the one thing that my mother gave me that was any good,” I said. “Her hair color. I hate it, but I’m too asthmatic to tolerate the smells from highlights or color change. Plus, I don’t want to have to maintain it, and people give me a hard time every time I mention coloring it.”
“One day you’ll have to stop living your life pleasing everyone else and instead live your life the way that makes you the most happy. Fuck anyone else that says differently.” He finished the rest of his beer. “Bring me a pillow and a blanket, I’m sleeping on your couch tonight.”
I blinked. “I’m sorry, you’re what?”
“You heard me.” He stood up. “I’m going to go home to get some clothes and a toothbrush. Cue up a movie. We can watch TV until you’re not so wound up.”
How would he know if I was wound up or not?
But as he got up and headed to his place, leaving me alone, I realized that my anxiety was through the roof.
Just the thought of him leaving made me panic.
“Wait, I’ll go with you,” I blurted.
He held the screen door open. “Let’s go.”