Personal Foul (Moving the Chains Book 6)

by Kata Čuić

  “That’s generally what people do when they’re expecting a child.” Dr. Waters raises a confused eyebrow at Gorge’s question.

  Gorge turns his glare on me. “How many people know about this now?”

  I wince again as the needle slides out of my joint. “Her parents don’t…yet.”

  “That’s your plan?” Gorge yells. He grabs the sides of his head like he wants to tear his hair out. The dude shaves his head. There’s nothing there.

  “No. My plan is to support her with whatever she needs.” I’m really starting to dislike Dr. Waters. “Two people don’t actually have to get married just because they’re expecting a baby. In fact, it’s a really bad idea to base a lifelong commitment off of that.”

  “Oh. She’s on the market then?” Dr. Waters smirks. “Thanks for the heads up. I was thinking of asking her to dinner sometime.”

  “Over my dead body,” I growl. Great. I’m growling. I’m one of those guys now. Might as well go all the way. “And if I ever see your hand on any part of her body ever again, I’ll rip it off.”

  Gorge and Dr. Waters exchange the kind of smarmy look that pisses me off. Mostly, because I know exactly what it means. I blew my wad, showed my cards, admitted shit out loud—whatever.

  Gorge grins. “This isn’t about Mayview at all.”

  “What’s not about Mayview?” Dr. Waters asks as he stretches a bandage across my knee.

  “Nothing.” I point at Gorge. “Shut your pie hole.”

  He mimes zipping his lips, but he’s still grinning.

  Dr. Waters pats my leg and winks at me. “You’re good to go.”

  “Thanks.” My knee doesn’t agree. “Think this’ll hold until after the game, or will I need another on Sunday morning?”

  He laughs. The rat bastard laughs at me. “You need surgery to remove that bone fragment, my man. I was talking about the lifelong commitment.”

  I shake my head. “You still don’t get the big picture. Having a baby with a woman does not mean you should marry her. Trying to keep her clear of any other losers who sniff around does not equate to being down for a lifelong commitment. I said you can’t touch her. I did not say I love her.”

  Gorge’s teeth look like they’re about to prance out of his mouth and dance on the table. He’s smiling that hard.

  “Stop it before you break something,” I tell him as I limp toward the door.

  “When a man loves a woman,” he belts into his fist.

  Shit. What am I doing?

  I have no reason to lie to these guys.

  “Yeah, I do. I’ve loved her for six long years.” I freeze in place, my heart pumping faster than after a long, drawn-out, dirty game. The kind of game I’ve been playing for too long.

  Saying that out loud is wild. I can actually hear what a dickhead I’ve been.

  Gorge cackles and rubs his hands together. “I’m gonna win so much money at the end of the season.”

  I hate to kill his hope, but… “Don’t plan that vacation to Fiji just yet. Got any great tips on how to get her to say yes?”

  Dr. Waters laughs again. “Start by making nice with her parents.”

  I don’t want to make nice. I want to hide some bodies.

  “What did you do to her?”

  Amira’s sitting at the kitchen island, cradling her head in her hands. A wad of used tissues litters the surface. She only hiccups like this when she’s trying not to cry.

  Amira’s mom turns around. Her eyes run down to my sneakers then up to the top of my head. She frowns. “We did not expect you this early.”

  Holy shit. She’s not even trying to pretend she’s not the reason for Amira’s tears. This woman doesn’t give a rat’s ass about making nice with me, so I’m not going to waste my time with that route.

  “That’s not an answer,” I say as I limp toward the woman whose black eyes are ringed in red when she glances up at me.

  “It is fine.” She waves me off. “It’s that time of the month.”

  Is that supposed to be a hint that she’s calling off the plan for telling her parents about the baby? Honestly, I don’t blame her if this is what I’ve walked into.

  I wrap my arm around her shoulders. “You’ve never been a crier, even when it is that time of the month. What’s really going on?”

  Mrs. Deep looks scary. She’s wearing black eyeliner that makes her black eyes look like black holes. The way her mouth seems to be turned down in a perpetual frown makes her seem like she kicks puppies for fun. “We have been discussing how disappointed her dear friend, Joseph, is going to be that Amira has chosen a different path for her life.”

  I don’t know who Joseph is, but I already know I don’t like him. What kind of name is Joseph anyway?

  “He’s almost forty,” Amira shouts. “It was never going to happen!”

  Oh, fucking gross. The puzzle pieces are fitting together nicely, but also badly. What kind of parents arrange a marriage for their daughter to a guy who’s practically a geezer?

  Mrs. Deep tsks. “And yet he has been wasting the prime of his life, single and without children.”

  “Maybe he likes it that way,” I offer.

  Amira’s shoulders stiffen under my arm. “It is not for any of us to say what he likes or does not like. I do not want to marry him.”

  “Right,” I nod slowly. The game plan has obviously been ripped to shreds while I was gone. “Because you want to marry me.”

  “I saw you sleeping on the couch last night. I highly doubt she wants to marry you either,” a voice murmurs from the corner of the room.

  I jump out of my skin.

  Mr. Deep is sitting at a kitchen table, his face hidden behind an actual newspaper. The real paper kind. Not a tablet.

  Fucking creeper.

  “When did you buy a table and chairs?” I mutter to Amira.

  “Last week.” She sniffles.

  No one else has anything to say apparently, but I have no problem filling the silence.

  I call to Amira’s dad. “So, you’re just—what? Sitting there and letting all this happen?”

  He bends the corner of his newspaper down to fix me with a cool glare. “This is woman talk. If you know what’s good for you, you won’t get involved either.”

  My gaze volleys between all the people in the room who don’t argue his statement. Did I trip into the eighteenth century? “Last I checked, this woman has a PsyD. She’s more educated than the majority of the global population. I’m pretty sure that qualifies her to choose who she wants to marry.”

  Amira pats my hand that’s draped over her shoulder. She glances up at me with an expression so full of misery, it nearly chokes me. “Do not bother. I have been fighting the good fight for years. I don’t have the strength to do it anymore.”

  “The hell you don’t,” I spit.

  If there’s one thing I know about Amira, it’s that she’s a fighter. Even when it makes her wildly uncomfortable. I hobble to the fridge to pull out a jar of pickles. She’s been eating them like a fiend lately.

  “Have a couple of these, and you’ll be ready to go another round.” I twist off the lid and place the open jar in front of her.

  Even in the middle of this three-ring shitshow, she can’t resist. She talks while crunching. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you limping?”

  “Steroid shot,” I mumble. “It’s gonna get worse before it gets better.”

  Mrs. Deep frowns deeper, if that’s even possible. “You are a user? Really, Amira? You want to marry an addict?”

  I gotta give Cruella de Ville props. She doesn’t pull her punches.

  Amira slaps her hand down on the island hard enough that it makes me jump in sympathy pain. “Apologize. Now.”

  “I am sorry that you are blinded by physical lust instead of thinking logically about your future.”

  I glance over at the new kitchen table, but the newspaper doesn’t move. No comments from the peanut gallery this afternoon.

  A fresh smile o
n Amira’s face spreads to evil proportions. I always knew she was a demon woman, but this is a pissing contest like I’ve never seen before. I’m tempted to make popcorn and take a seat, but I might need to intervene. For the baby’s sake.

  “You admit he is physically beautiful to look at, then. Does he hurt your eyes, Ammi? Are you having…” Amira’s gaze dips down below the island. “…unholy thoughts?”

  I choke on my tongue.

  A chuckle echoes from the far corner of the room.

  The ice cracks away in slow motion. A useless adjustment of an earring. Sliding perfect hair behind her ear. Clutching pearls that don’t exist. Sputtering. Actual sputtering. “I—I do not know what you are talking about. Really, Mahbub. If anyone needs to learn how to control their physical urges, it is you.”

  I thought the arranged marriage to an old guy was gross. I was wrong. I can only lean into this new phase of my life where I admit shit to myself so much. I grab the jar of pickles with one hand and pull Amira up from her stool with my other.

  Nope. Nope. Nope.

  Most people think I’m a manwhore, but in reality, I have some very hard limits.

  I herd the MILF who I’m actually fucking toward the stairwell in the living room. “We’re going to bed early. Good night.”

  Heated words in a foreign language float to my ears, but they’re nearly drowned out by the evil cackling of the woman beside me.

  I suddenly have a whole new appreciation for Rob taking the time to learn Greek. Evie’s family speaks it almost exclusively at home.

  “What are they saying?” I whisper as we slowly, excruciatingly climb the stairs. If Mr. Deep is worth anything at all, he’s bent that his wife basically admitted she thinks I’m hot.

  I stifle a gag.

  This is lightyears away from random women rolling their marbles over my underwear ads.

  “It is the same argument as always,” Amira responds, still chuckling.

  “And that would be?”

  “They had a traditional arranged marriage,” she explains. “They have never loved each other. It likely explains why I am an only child.”

  I stop our slow progress up the stairs from something other than pain. “What? Why the hell did you ever believe in love if you grew up this way?”

  She shrugs. “It is the whole reason I have never wanted what they’ve been through. I want more.”

  She loops her arm through mine and does her best to drag me up the stairs.

  I feel like I’m climbing through quicksand. Not because of my knee. Amira might be the best teacher I’ve ever had, and she’s not even trying.

  “Was that…normal?”

  Alex’s voice sounds shell shocked, and I don’t blame him. It’s one thing to hear the horror stories about my parents. It is another experience entirely to witness it. Not until I got to college and made friends outside our family’s exclusively Lebanese social circle did I realize how truly different my upbringing was from others.

  “Which part?” I sit on the edge of the bed.

  Though he is clearly in pain, Alex paces the room slowly. He gestures with his arm. “Her behavior? His? She didn’t even give a damn about speaking like that to someone she hardly knows! It was like a mask dropped. And your dad just lets her do that shit? He doesn’t even defend you?”

  “Privately, sometimes. Mostly, he goes along with whatever she wants in an effort to keep the peace.” In public, he keeps her on a very tight leash. She gets away with anything and everything under her own roof, but when other people are around, Father tolerates surprisingly little.

  “That was peaceful?” His wide eyes test the boundaries of their sockets.

  I lift my shoulders. “She has become subtler in her older years. Instead of grounding me, or screaming at me, or prohibiting me from doing anything, she now uses guilt tactics to try to coerce me into behaving the way she wants.”

  He stops pacing and stares at me. “What the hell could you possibly have to feel guilty for?”

  Oh, the irony. So much irony I’m drowning in it. I fall back onto the mattress, laughing my ass off.

  Alex climbs on top of me, straddling my waist. He hovers over me with a frown and lists to the right as he tries to keep weight off his bad knee.

  I laugh harder. “You are joking, right?”

  He furrows his brow. “Joking about what?”

  “You truly don’t believe I have anything to feel guilty for?” I stare at his deep blue eyes. My hands automatically cover my stomach without conscious thought.

  His expression softens into one of understanding. “You listen to everyone talk about their problems all day, every day. If you need someone to talk to, I’m here.”

  I tap his thigh, well above his knee. “You have your own burdens to carry. You do not need my dead weight to drag along, too.”

  He chuckles then covers me with his body, giving me just enough of his weight to feel it. His nose glides on a gentle path along my cheek as he inhales. “There’s nothing dead about a woman who’s growing a new life inside her. Justifiably terrifying in some ways? Sure. Dead? No.”

  “Perhaps you have a secret necrophilia fetish,” I suggest. I’m too close to breaking down. I need to distract myself.

  We are friends with limits. We are friends with benefits. As much as we have confessed to each other over the years, some things still remain unsaid. As they should.

  He chuckles against my ear. “You can’t distract a master distracter. If you don’t want to talk about it, I won’t push. Just know I’m here for you.”

  I hum. “And yet when I say the same to you, you always take the easy way out.”

  He brings his gaze to mine. “You always offer me the easy way out. Maybe I want you to push.”

  “Why do you hate your mother so much?” Mothers are at the forefront of my mind currently, and this is a topic he’s always skirted before.

  He never breaks our locked gaze. “I caught her having an affair when I was fifteen.”

  The air rushes out of my lungs. I thought I was leading with something small and inconsequential.

  This man has been through so much in his life, it’s a wonder he can paste on a fake celebrity smile at all. I’ve always known he hides behind his looks as much as he hides his intellect. As horrific as his experience with a close friend’s sexual assault is on the surface, his mother’s infidelity is clearly something that affects him more deeply.

  A piece of his personality clicks into place. “That’s why you don’t believe in love.”

  He nods. “She’d been diagnosed with breast cancer. Jimmy was eleven. Davey was only nine. We all pretty much knew at that point he’d never speak, never toilet train. My parents were freaking out, preparing us for the worst. Preparing themselves for the worst. I stepped up as much as I could. Mom was always Davey’s favorite person in the entire world, but I learned how to take care of his needs because she was so fucking sick all the time from the chemo. Even Jimmy tried to help.”

  He rolls off of me just as I’m tempted to pull him closer. He doesn’t retreat completely though. Simply makes himself comfortable on his side and uses my thighs as a pillow to elevate his knee just as he does when we’re sleeping.

  His eyes don’t ice over with a far-away glaze. He continues to make direct eye contact. His affect is calm and even. “I was a freshman in high school. We got let go early from football practice for some reason I don’t remember anymore. Jimmy was still in Catholic school and wouldn’t be home for another hour. Davey wouldn’t be home for another few hours because he attended a special autism school. I figured I’d get a head-start on my homework for the night, so I’d be free and clear when Davey got home. Dad wouldn’t be home from work until after six.”

  He’s setting the scene so expertly that he doesn’t have to blatantly tell me the next part. I already know how it will end.

  “There was no strange car in the driveway, so I had no reason to hesitate to go into my own damn house. I walked in on them
. They weren’t even up in one of the bedrooms. He had her bent over the kitchen table, railing her from behind.”

  As much as I try to imagine the scene from his perspective, I can’t. It’s clouded by my own childhood. Even at the tender age of fifteen, I think I would have been grateful to find out one or both of my parents were connecting with another human in a way they’d never been able to connect with each other. I might have shied away from sex if I saw my mother in that situation though.

  Alex reacted differently. He threw himself into sex.

  A smirk tips up the corner of his mouth. “There are so many questions piling up behind your lips, you look like you’re going to explode.”

  I don’t deny it. There’s no point. If anyone knows how deeply inquisitive I can be, it’s the man who was my first study subject. “I don’t want to interrupt until you’re done.”

  He settles his arm into the crook of his elbow. “That’s it. I’m done. Now you know why I hate her. Ask away.”

  “Really?” After all these years of dancing around the subject, it’s hard to believe I’m being given free rein to poke and prod to my curiosity’s content.

  He smiles, but it’s a different smile than I’ve ever seen before—soft, honest, with just a hint of the hurt he hides so well.

  “I assume no one else knows about this?”

  He blinks then nods. “I never told anyone. I couldn’t do that to my dad. To my brothers. We weren’t even sure she’d beat the cancer, so there was no point. She might have been dead in a few months. Mom and whoever the fuck that guy was never even saw me. I walked back out the way I came and stayed on the porch to intercept anyone who might get home next. I don’t even know how the guy got out. I never saw him again.”

  This man is far, far stronger than I have ever given him credit for. Not just physically. “You must have so many unanswered questions, too.”

  He lifts the shoulder he’s not lying on. “Not really. It’s more like I don’t want to know anything. Even if I had answers, it wouldn’t change what happened.”

  “Having answers might change your understanding,” I clarify.