“It’s a piece of shit,” Wilder interrupts, throwing his haul next to Griffs. “You need to move out.Immediately.”
He has no idea how accurate that statement is.
The door clicks shut behind me. I lean against it, arms crossed over my bare chest, deadpan and disoriented.
A weird wave of déjà vu rolls over me—Georgia, showing up on this exact doorstep weeks ago. Me, shirtless and wearing the same sweats, half-awake and half-functioning.
Only difference is, I’m sober as hell today.
And despite her dropping a twisted bomb directly into my lap, her visit was a fuck of a lot more interesting for my dick.
Until it wasn’t.
“So, where is it?” Wilder yells from my bathroom.
My brows snap together, stomach twisting.
“Where’s what?” I rasp, voice shredded from a week of barely sleeping. I shove off the door and head for the fridge, frowning at the lack of beer. I grab a few waters and toss them on the tinybar with a thud. “Who the fuck are you talking about, and why are you here?”
Griffin turns, a smug grin already living rent-free beneath his overgrown beard. I briefly consider waxing it like I did once in the military.
“What’s got you all puffed up, princess? Parenthood got you in a mood?”
My hand stalls, bottle halfway to my mouth. My heart skips too many beats to be considered safe, and my stomach does a slow, ominous roll. Their words finally start connecting, and dread hits me like a tank.
Wilder stumbles out of the bathroom, still zipping up his fly. The toilet flushes behind him, but I barely hear it. He shoots me a dopey smile, all charm and zero awareness, and punches me in the good shoulder.
Small mercies.
“Where the hell’s your kid?” He toes open my closet like I might’ve stashed a whole ass toddler behind my boots.
“I—”What the actual fuck?
I rake a hand through my hair, scrambling for anything to say.
To lie? To stall? To figure out how the hell they even know?
I never called them like I said I would. Meant to, but everything’s been happening so damn fast, and my mind’s been a mess since the mediation.
A week’s flown by since then—a chaotic blur of long drives to Rydell to visit Aurora, house hunting, and running into ex-social workers and ex-landladies at my local grocery store.
Haven’t been able to get that damn run-in off my mind, either.
Seeing her on the floor like that—eyes glassy, shoulders shaking—it scared the shit out of me. Took everything I had not to drop to my knees and lift her up, demand to know what the hell happened.
But then she looked up at me with that spark, that flash of wildfire that always burns just beneath her skin, and I knew she didn’t need saving.
Not by me, anyway.
She looked…beautiful.
Too beautiful for a small town like this.
Long, flowy white dress, chunky cream sweater practically swallowing her whole—but somehow it made her look even smaller, softer. Her hair was straight, and it fell in this thick red sheet down her back, nearly touching the curve of her ass.
And I couldn’t stop looking at the way it swayed.
Maybe because I’m a man with a pulse, and she looked like a goddamn fever dream standing there in the middle of a run-down store that still smells like old floor wax and expired cheese.
