Page 28 of Broken Warrior
“Everything?” Dori asks, confused.
I nod even though she can’t see me. “Everything. I’m terrified to tell Spider about the appointment. I’m even more afraid to tell him I start work tonight—“
“You still haven’t told him? Damnit, Tate. We prepped for this—“
“And I’m not sure now is the time for me to move out because Spider is going to refuse to put Nadine in a home and proclaim he can care for her himself. I’m really fucking worried about Spider in general, honestly. He’s been super up and down lately and it’s making me feel things and it’s only gotten worse since he kissed me and—“
“What?!” Dori screeches. “Spider kissed you and you didn’t tell me? Tate—“
“I think I have feelings for him and it’s making it really hard to do any of the things I need to do, and I know I shouldn’t have feelings for anyone right now, but I think I do. But I also don’t know if I do because I’ve never even had a crush on someone before, I just know that I feel things for Spider that I haven’t felt for anyone else and that’s complicating everything. I feel like I’m abandoning him and Nadine, I feel like I’m taking James away from someone who loves him, and I— “
“Tate! Feelings? For Spider? We—“
My verbal diarrhea continues. “I don’t want to leave because I feel like Spider needs me but I can’t stay because I don’t think he wants me to and I have to prove to myself I can do things on my own. But I’m also super scared because what if Gino finds me when I’m living in your apartment? What if he finds me and takes James? Or what if he kills me and leaves him alone with my corpse? What if Spider doesn’t put Nadine in a home and hires a nurse that’s prettier than me and not fucked up like I am and they fall in love and have babies and I never find anyone because I don’t know how to have feelings for someone in a healthy way and what—“
“I can’t even keep up with you!” Dori yells. “Slow the fuck down!”
“I don’t know what to do, Dori. I can’t tell Spider that Nadine should go into a facility, I can’t tell him I start working tonight. I can’t tell him I’m moving into your apartment and I can’t tell him I might have— “
“What?”
I jump at the deep voice coming from the back door as I drop my beer bottle and phone, the glass shattering, its contents creating a physical mess I’m going to have to clean up in addition to the disaster my life is becoming. My eyes dart to Spider and the scowl on his gorgeous face, and the sleeping boy cradled in his arms.
Fuck my life right in the ass.
I quickly get to my knees and grab my phone, try to wipe off some of the beer from the screen, then put it up to my face as I start picking up the pieces of glass. “Dori, I gotta go.”
“Wait! Tate. We have lots of things to talk about. You can’t spew all that and just hang up. Tate!”
But I do.
I hang up the phone, set it on the counter then listen as Spider takes James upstairs. He’s pissed. I can tell by his footsteps and how heavy they are. A man his size isn’t exactly light on his feet, but when Spider is pissed he basically stomps around like he’s got lead in his boots.
There are a few beats of silence while he most likely puts down my sleeping baby, something that makes me melt every damn time, then I hear him all but run back down the stairs toward me. I shoot up from the floor, dump the glass into the trash, then grab a towel to start sopping up my mess, but as soon as Spider is in the kitchen, I forget how to function.
“Talk,” he grunts as he comes around the counter.
But I can’t because I’m freaking out.
Full blown panicked.
My heart is racing, my chest is tight. I can hardly see through the black spots and tears, and when he grunts again, another demand to explain myself, I jump and cut my finger open on a shard of glass I missed.
“Damnit!” Blood bubbles from the cut and starts running down my middle finger into my palm. I quickly turn on the sink, grip it for support because I’m swaying on my feet, then shove my hand under the water and wince. “Fuck.”
“Let me see,” Spider says as he stands next to me.
My stupid body lights up like the Fourth of July from his proximity but I shake my head. “It’s fine.”
“Let me see,m’eudail.”
And since he used that term of endearment that makes me swoon despite not knowing what it means, I hold my hand out to him and watch the way it shakes.
Spider brings it close to his face, looks over the still bleeding cut then plucks a piece of dark brown glass from the pad of my finger. His eyes find mine and oh my, the look he gives me as his lips ghost over my skin, the slight smile as goosebumps scatter along my entire arm before he closes those perfectly full lips around the tip of my finger and turns me into a limp noodle? That look is sex incarnate. Naive or not, I know that for a fact.
I am dead.
Fucking dead.
