I shrugged. “I don’t know. Just surprised, I guess. It seems that you haven’t wanted me over there since our first night together.”
He unsnapped my seatbelt and pulled me toward him. “Wanting to be alone with you and knowing what’s the right thing to do are two different things. That first night at my apartment, I went way too fast, letting my physical wants get in the way. It was stupid on my part, so I’m almost grateful my ex showed up.”
I dropped my head. “About that …”
Brock nudged up my chin. “Charity, it’s over. We’re divorced. I could never trust her again. I’ll never be able to get the image of her and him out of my head.”
“But what if the baby’s yours?”
“Would that honestly bother you? If I was a father?”
I sat still for a moment, wanting to answer honestly. “I’ve never been around children, never even babysat. That’s my cousin, Kayla. She’s the sweet homemaker kind of woman. I just don’t know.”
“The baby isn’t mine, Charity. I’m positive. But even if it is … I see kindness in you. I bet you’d be great with kids. You’re fun. Kids like fun.”
I bit down on my lip. “You think so?”
Brock pressed his lips against mine for only a second, then pulled back. “I do.” He said the words with such emotion that it felt as though there had been a deeper meaning to the two simple words.
“I guess we’ll just play it by ear then. See where it goes.”
“That sounds like a plan. So, dinner tomorrow night?”
“Sure.”
“You want me to pick you up?”
“No. I’d like to drive,” I told him. I didn’t want him to worry about getting me home at a specific time. “What time would you like me there?”
“I usually get off around four, so by the time I get home and get cleaned up … How ’bout six?”
“Perfect! That’ll give me time to have a chat with my father before I leave.” I jolted as I remembered he was supposed to tell me what his sister had whispered in his ear. I wanted to ask about what she’d whispered in my ear, too, but something told me that was a more serious conversation for a later date. “Hey … I almost forgot. What did your sister whisper in your ear?”
Brock stole a look out the window, then turned his eyes back on me. “She said you were sexy, more befitting a Puerto Rican man than … well, you know.” As soon as he said the words, Brock hopped down from the truck and trotted around to the passenger side, opening my door.
“And you agreed?”
“I do,” he said again in that smooth low drawl of his.
I slipped into his arms, but remained in the shelter of the open door while he gave me a goodnight kiss. A long, satisfying kiss that made me want to hop back in the truck and demand that he take me to his apartment tonight.
Heat rushed downward through my body, as though a trail of warm syrup filled my veins. Maybe there was such a thing as a love potion, because Brock Ryan had definitely drugged me with something. What else could explain the powerful emotions wracking my insides? Not just sexual feelings, but my heart and head. Emotions that made me want to say yes to anything he might ask of me. As in, saying yes to sappy things like exclusive and forever , and okay to being with a man with a child who wasn’t even mine. Who was this woman who’d taken over my body and mind?
In the past four years, I’d dated plenty of men — boys — but not one of them had been even a flicker next to Brock’s shining light.
I wondered for a second, though … Why had his wife cheated on him? Why would a woman toss away a man who seemed so perfect? What had Autumn meant?
Chapter 9 – Brock
For the first time since I could remember, I actually didn’t dread going to work. Just the knowledge that I’d see Charity tonight had made even this cold and blustery November day feel bright. The weekend had been a perfect seventy degrees and sunny, but a cold front had worked its way into Tampa Bay a few hours before sunrise.
And tonight was the night of our big date. At least, I hoped it would be a big deal. Not that I hadn’t already, but tonight I would lay my feelings on the line. Make it clear to Charity that I wanted to be exclusive. I hoped that the horrible weather wasn’t an omen. My mother was extremely superstitious. Most Puerto Rican women were. She’d probably tell me to cancel the date. But the sound of rain on the roof could be romantic. I’d have to cancel my plan to eat dinner on the lanai, but I could come up with something in the living room. I didn’t have a dining room table, only the kitchen bar, so maybe Thai food would be the best way to go tonight.
We could eat on pillows around the coffee table. That could work. I just needed to get some floor pillows to sit on when I stopped by Walmart on the way home. Or maybe I should just get a dining room table, hoping that Charity would make regular visits to my apartment.
“Arrived at your destination,” the GPS informed me.
The first call of the day was a grunt job, which would normally have ruined my day, but even that bad news couldn’t smother the smile on my face. I enjoyed talking to people, so I loved the sales part of my job. More often than not, though, I still had to take service calls where I would end up knee-deep in crud.
The house the GPS had directed me to was a simple one-story Florida home. Nothing extravagant, something I could afford if I wanted. Well, some day. Right now, I had to save every penny so I could invest in my own equipment.
Clipboard in hand, I knocked on the door, standing back so the homeowner could see my uniform through the peephole.
The door opened, and a familiar young man waved me in, never making eye contact as he bickered with someone on the phone. “I don’t care what you want. This conversation is over.” He clicked end and tossed the phone on a nearby sofa, his eyes flicking to mine once as he pointed to a room down the hall. “My mom said everything’s backed up. Crap coming back up in her shower.” He plopped down on the couch, picking his phone back up.
“I’ll go check it out,” I said, moving toward the hall, hoping he wouldn’t look back up.
He glanced up again. “Yeah … um … she said to let me know how much.”
I closed my eyes as I walked off. Charity’s ex had definitely recognized me as the man Charity had been kissing Thursday night. He’d tried to remain cool, but I didn’t miss the tiny furrow between his eyes. I had to give it to him, though; he was probably a good poker player. If I hadn’t surprised him, he probably would have been cool. Of all the plumbing companies in Pinellas County, why had his mother called the one I worked for?
After checking the other drains in the house, I was positive that it wasn’t just a local clog. The blockage was somewhere between the house and the street, which meant I needed to access an outside drain. More than likely, the punk wouldn’t know where it was. If he had, he would have been more than capable of renting a power drum cleaner from the local home improvement store and expelling the clog for his mother himself, as I’d learned to do from the moment my father was out of our lives.
I walked back out to the main area of the house and heard the boy practically crying on the phone.
“Please … I swear …” His voice was low as he whispered something else that I couldn’t understand.
What a wuss. What had Charity ever seen in him?
“By any chance,” I interrupted his sulking, and he covered the mouthpiece, “do you know where the outside drain is?”
“Yeah, my mom said if you asked, the drain is right next to the shrubs near the front of the house. You may have to move some of the mulch.” His whimpering had all but stopped. “You need me to text her and find out exactly where it is?”
“Nah. I’m sure I can find it.” I walked toward the front door, and the boy snapped right back to professing his love through fake tears.
It only took a few minutes of searching to find the outside drain. Another fifteen minutes to unload my equipment, and a few minutes later I had the seventy-five-foot cable threaded into the dra
in, and the clog removed. As cool as the morning was, I was now sweating and I felt like the crap I worked in was sticking to my very core. I really needed to have a sit-down with Tom. No way did I plan to continue with the grunt work. When I’d agreed to work for him, assuming I’d only get paid on whatever clients I’d brought in, I was ecstatic to know that I would get a shot at all new business. I’d been thinking sales, though, not backbreaking grunt jobs. I could pay a high school apprentice a buck more than minimum wage to handle the crap work. That way I could get out and bring in more clients.
After loading all the equipment back into the company van, I wrote out an invoice and returned to the house.
I rapped on the open door. “You’re all set.”
“Come on in,” the boy chirped as he swung the door open wider, leaving it open to the outside elements. “My mom left a check. I just need to fill in the amount.”
I stood in the foyer, not bothering to close the door either, appreciating the draft that surged in because the lanai door at the rear of the house sat open also. The fresh air felt good. I was so tired of the smells associated with my job. Maybe I just needed to go back to college.
I checked my watch, impatient to get to my next call. The faster I could knock out my day, the faster I’d see Charity.
“Got it,” the kid finally called from the small galley kitchen. “How much?”
I’d already given him the invoice, but I looked down at my clipboard. “Two forty-nine.”
A rap on the doorframe behind me had me moving out of the way. Clearly he’d been expecting company, the reason he hadn’t bothered to close the door.
“Nathan?” the familiar voice called as she pushed open the door farther to enter, evidently not recognizing me beneath the ball cap, dressed in khakis and an old worn denim work shirt.
“Right here, babe.” Nathan handed me the check. “Thanks!”
Charity blinked her eyes from the brightness outside to focus on the person Nathan was speaking to.
The only thing that came out of my mouth was a sigh that I couldn’t have repressed no matter how hard I tried.
“Brock?” Charity’s voice shook on my name. At least she had the decency to feel guilty.
I waved the two of them off and charged out of the door.
“Brock! Wait!” she called, but I wasn’t in the mood to hear another woman’s excuse of why she couldn’t remain faithful.
I jumped into my van, thankful I’d backed into the driveway so I could leave quickly. I didn’t care why she was at her ex-boyfriend’s house. I didn’t care that if I’d chosen to take this service call last, I would have probably found her in bed just as I’d found my wife. I just didn’t care.
I squealed out of the driveway, taking a quick glance in the mirror to see the woman’s face I’d somehow managed to fall in love with in just four days. A woman I’d allowed to get too close so she could break my heart.
What the hell was it with women anyway? What did they see in pathetic losers?
My phone buzzed in the cup holder. I picked it up and looked at the screen, then threw it to the back of the van, hoping it would shatter into a million pieces so I wouldn’t be tempted to read her lame excuse.
How had this happened again? How could I change my path?
I called Tom on the work radio, “Gotta call off today. Too sick to continue working. Sorry.”
Tom radioed back seconds later. “It’s okay. Call me if you don’t think you’ll be able to make it in tomorrow.”
I hadn’t lied. I was sick. Sick of everything. Sick of the path my life had taken. So many things in my life could have gone differently if it weren’t for — I cut off my thoughts. I was too old to blame my life on my father, on Caitlyn, on the system …
But I wasn’t too old to make a change. I needed to sit down and make a plan. Decide what I really wanted to do. It wasn’t too late to go back to school. I still had my Bright Futures. Or I could join the military, as my father had done.
My mind spun as I flew down the road. What if Caitlyn really was pregnant, though? What if it was mine? I’d always sworn that the one thing I wouldn’t do was be like my father — in any way.
The rap on the door came at six o’clock exactly, but I just couldn’t go through with it. I just couldn’t bear listening to her excuse of why she was at her ex’s house. No, we weren’t exclusive, but she’d known how I felt. I had told Charity what I wanted from day one. I hadn’t held back my feelings at all.
“Please, Brock …” her voice came through the door, so I slipped on my noise-canceling headphones. I had been a sucker, and I knew it. But not anymore. Never again.
Fifteen minutes passed before I was brave enough to remove the headphones. I made my way to the front door and peered through the peephole. No sign of Charity.
With as much caution as if there might be a zombie on the other side, I slowly cracked open the door. I stuck my head out to see that the corridor was empty too. Good. But then I saw a scrap of brown paper jutting out from under the doormat. A fast-food napkin. I picked it up to see the words I can explain scribbled on the bottom of the thin paper with what I could only guess was lipstick.
I tore up the napkin and walked back inside. “No!” I said to my empty walls. No matter what her excuse, I couldn’t allow another woman to walk all over me. To treat me as though I were trash. I wasn’t trash.
I’d prove it to all of them … prove it to myself.
Chapter 10 – Charity
The last month of my life had been horrible. I really missed Brock. In only four days I’d fallen harder than I’d ever fallen for any guy. But for some reason, he absolutely refused to take my calls or answer the door when I stopped by.
I thought about showing up at his work, but then realized that would look too desperate. For whatever reason, he’d made up his mind why I was at Nathan’s house. So, if he couldn’t trust me enough to listen to why I was there, then so be it. I just had to realize that we weren’t meant to be, as sad as that made me feel inside. We hadn’t even been together long enough to have our song, and yet, every time I turned on the radio, I had to flip it off when a sad song came on. For some reason, I felt as though I’d lost more with Brock than I had ever had with Nathan, and we’d been together for nearly three years.
Per my father’s insistence, I sat in my room, numbly flipping through all of my college options, the different acceptance letters I’d received. I’d skipped this semester, but he wanted me to start right after winter break, and I hadn’t even found a place to live yet.
Maybe I’d just knock out a few classes at St. Pete College to make him happy.
The problem was … I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I wasn’t like my cousin. I didn’t want to settle down and start popping out babies — at least not anymore. Four days with Brock and I’d considered it. And yet, I couldn’t think of one career that I wouldn’t go completely stir-crazy from doing every day for the next forty or fifty years.
My mom had gotten her realtor’s license. Not that she sold anything. The moment my dad’s practice had taken off, she’d turned to other ventures in the real estate market, working with government officials. I wasn’t even sure what she did, but her job took her to Tallahassee several times a month, to Washington D.C. several times a year, and to her iPhone every other minute of the day that she wasn’t sleeping, leaving my dad and me to fend for ourselves.
Bleh! Why would anyone want to live that kind of life? It was no wonder my parents never had any more kids. I wasn’t even sure if they still had sex.
“Charity Jane,” my dad bellowed as he tapped on the door.
God, I hated that name. “Yes?”
He inched open the door, peeking inside, his eyes darting around my room as though I would have been doing something other than what he’d asked me to do.
I almost laughed. What did he think I did in my room? Danced in front of the computer to make YouTube videos or got high? He watched too much reality TV when
he was home.
His eyes settling on me, he must have surmised that it was safe as he walked to my desk and sat down, spinning the chair back toward me. “How’s it going?”
I let out a long-suffering sigh that I knew would bug him, then collapsed on my bed, pulling one of the frilly purple pillows onto my lap. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just go to St. Pete for the first two years. No one cares where you get your associates anyway, and by then maybe I’ll know where I want to go.”
“Don’t you want to have fun, baby? Join a sorority?”
“Seriously, Dad?” I considered plunging my head into the pillow so I wouldn’t have to discuss sorority life with my father. “You want me to join a sorority?”
“I don’t know … You’ve just seemed so down lately. And besides, that’s how your mom and I met. She was in the sorority that won the right for my brothers and me to escort them to the end-of-the-year social.”
Ugh! And that’s exactly why I’d never join a sorority. I wasn’t a subservient kind of woman. As a distraction from the thought that my dad was a frat boy, I shuffled the acceptance letters I’d been weeding through. “I don’t know, Dad. I think I’m just tired of all the drama.”
He nodded as though he understood. As a plastic surgeon, I was sure he dealt with drama all the time. “What happened with Brock? I know your mother wasn’t thrilled, but he seemed like a nice guy. A little older than I’d prefer — Jesse’s father said he’d just gone through a divorce — but you’re certainly old enough to take care of yourself.”
His comment comforted me. At least my father had faith in me. More faith than I did, anyway. “Brock was nice, but … I don’t know. It didn’t go so well.”
My father frowned. “He didn’t force you to do anything, did he?”
“No, Dad,” I whined. “Brock was sweet. We just come from different worlds. I think I intimidated him somehow.”
My dad lifted his hands as if he wasn’t surprised. “You’re a beautiful girl, Charity. That doesn’t shock me. Probably why Nathan ran for the hills too. Some men have a hard time dating a beautiful woman. Like your mother. I swear, every time we went out I thought I was going to get into a fight defending her honor.”
Love Until It Hurts (Crazy Love Book 2) Page 8
