And sure enough, the text is from Dalton.
Dalton: Time for you to head back. Asa's not in good shape.
Oh, shit. Did my death wish curse him earlier?
Me: Were you guys in a car wreck?
Dalton: No. He just beat the shit out of his father and he's having a major fucking breakdown.
Dalton: He keeps rambling about how Sloan better be there by the time he gets back. Never seen him like this, man.
I delete the texts and then set my phone back in the cup holder. I grip the steering wheel. "Sorry, but we can't stop and eat. Dalton says Asa had a breakdown and they're on their way back."
"A breakdown?" Sloan says.
"Yeah, something about his father? Apparently he beat him up at the casino."
Sloan looks out the window. "His father is alive?"
I glance over at her. She doesn't know about his father being charged for murder? I guess it makes sense that Asa wouldn't tell her. That's not really something you would want your girlfriend to know.
"He doesn't know you're with me. We don't have to get back before them. I'm hungry," she says.
I hate that I'm forcing her to go back home when she needs to stay the hell away from there. "Dalton says he's adamant that you be there. Apparently he's in pretty bad shape."
She sighs. "That's not my problem. Why does Dalton know you're with me, anyway? I don't trust Dalton. Or Jon. Or Kevin."
"Don't worry. I trust Dalton with my life." I reach over and take her hand, pulling it onto my lap. "I'll park at my car and then come over later tonight. I think there should be some distance between you getting home and me showing up."
She nods, but she doesn't say anything else on the drive home. We're both dreading the inevitable, which is coming face-to-face with an unstable Asa Jackson. He's bad enough when he's in a good mood. I don't even want to think of how he's going to treat Sloan tonight.
When we reach my car, I look around to make sure I don't see anyone. I parked a couple miles from her house and then walked the rest of the way this morning.
Before I get out of the car, I pull her to me and kiss her. She kisses me back with a sigh and it's kind of sad. Like she's tired of saying goodbye like this.
"How come it seems every time we take a step forward, we're forced to take ten steps back?" she asks.
I push a strand of hair off her forehead. "We'll just have to start taking bigger steps forward."
She forces a smile and then says, "I hate that I won't get to talk to you when you come over tonight. Or touch you."
I kiss her forehead. "Me, too," I say. "We should have a sign we can use in place of being able to talk tonight. Something subtle that only we'll notice."
"Like what?"
I lift my hand and rub my thumb across my bottom lip. "That's mine," I tell her.
She crinkles up her nose while she tries to think of one.
"You should twirl a strand of hair around your finger," I suggest. "I like it when you do that."
She smiles. "Okay. If you see me doing that it means I wish I could be alone with you." She pulls at a strand of her hair and twirls it around her finger.
I lean forward and kiss her, then force myself out of her car. I wait until she drives away before texting Dalton again.
Me: Don't let him alone with her before I get there. I'm scared of what he might do.
Dalton: Noted. Not sure what's going on with him. He shot up, slept for ten minutes, now he's talking incessantly. He keeps saying he wants spaghetti and that his hair is really thick. He's not making any sense. He even made Kevin run his hand through his hair.
Fuck. He's already unpredictable. This isn't good.
Me: Let me know as soon as you all get back. I'll wait an hour and then head that way.
Dalton: Good idea. BTW, he just looked at me and said you were LSD. What do you think that means?
Me: No fucking clue.
Dalton: He said, "Carter causes the worst hallucinations and he's hard to fucking locate. He's LSD."
Me: He's out of his fucking mind.
My phone is ringing as soon as I walk through the front door. I glance down at the screen and see that it's Asa.
Great.
I slide my thumb across the screen to answer it. "Hey."
"Hey, baby," he says. He sounds like he just woke up, but I can tell he's still in a car. "Are you home?"
"Yep. Just walked in the door. Are you still at the casino?"
"Nope," he says. "On our way back."
So I heard.
"We're hungry. We want spaghetti. Can you cook some?"
"I have a lot of homework to do. Wasn't really planning on cooking tonight."
He sighs and says, "Yeah, well, I wasn't really planning on craving spaghetti."
"Sounds like we have a dilemma," I say, uninterested.
"Not to me. Make some fucking spaghetti, Sloan. Please. I'm having kind of a bad day, here."
I close my eyes and fall onto the couch. This is going to be a long night. I might as well make it as easy on myself as possible. "Okay. I'll make you spaghetti. Would you like meatballs with that, dear?"
"I would love meatballs. We want meatballs, right, guys?"
I hear a couple of the guys in the car mutter, "Sure."
I kick my legs up on the arm of the couch and put the phone on speaker, resting it on my chest. "Why are you having a bad day?"
It's quiet for a minute, and then Asa says, "Have I ever told you about my father, Sloan?"
"No."
He sighs. "Exactly. There's nothing to fucking tell."
Jesus. What in the hell did that man do to him? I rub my fingers against my temples. "When will you be back?"
Asa doesn't answer my question. Instead, he says, "Is Carter there?"
I immediately sit up on the couch. Blame the paranoia, but my voice grows a little weaker. I try to hide it when I say, "No, Asa. He's with you."
There's a short pause. "No, Sloan. He isn't."
The phone grows even quieter, and when I look down at it, I realize he hung up. I press the phone to my forehead. What does he know?
An hour later, they all walk through the front door. I'm not finished with the spaghetti yet because I had to go to the store to get the damn noodles. Asa walks into the kitchen, and I gasp when I look up at him. His shirt is covered in blood and his fist is almost unrecognizable. I immediately rush to the first aid kit in the pantry. "Come here," I tell him, directing him to the sink.
I run water over his hand, trying to find where the blood is coming from, but it seems like it's coming from everywhere. His whole fist looks like raw flesh. My stomach turns, but I force myself to finish cleaning it so I can bandage it up and not have to look at it.
"What in the hell did you do, Asa?"
He winces and looks down at his hand. Then he shrugs. "Not enough."
I put ointment all over his hand and then wrap it, but that's hardly going to help. He probably needs stitches. Several stitches.
I feel his hand clamp tightly around mine, and my eyes dart up to his.
"Where's your fucking ring?"
Shit.
"On the dresser. I didn't want to get it dirty while I cooked."
He stands up and yanks my arm, pulling me toward the stairs. I can feel the pull all the way up to my neck. "Asa, stop!"
He doesn't let go of me, and when he drags me behind him, through the living room, Dalton stands up. "Asa," he says.
Asa still doesn't stop. I have to run just to keep up with him as he takes the stairs two at a time, so I don't fall down. He swings the bedroom door open and grabs my ring off the dresser, pulling my left hand up between us. "You keep your fucking ring on your hand. That's why I bought it for you, so people would know they can't mess with you."
He slaps my hand on the dresser and then opens the top drawer, holding my hand down flat with his.
"What are you doing?" I ask, fearing the answer. He opens the second drawer and rifles through it.
<
br /> "Helping you remember never to take it off," he says, grabbing a tube and slamming the dresser drawer shut. My eyes land on the bottle of super glue in his hand.
The hell he is.
I try to yank my hand back, but he uses even more force to hold down my wrist. He pulls the cap off the super glue and starts squirting it on my finger, spreading it under my ring.
The tears begin stinging at my eyes. I've never seen him like this and I don't want to push things even more. I stop fighting and stand as still as I can, aside from my heart racing in my chest. Carter isn't here, and I'm honestly too scared to fight back right now because I'm not sure that any of those guys downstairs would come to my defense.
Asa tosses the super glue on the dresser and lifts my hand, then blows on it to dry the glue. He stares at me the whole time he's blowing on my finger. His eyes are black. Huge and black and terrifying.
"You finished?" I whisper. "I don't want to overcook your spaghetti."
He blows on my hand for a few more seconds and then leans in and kisses my palm. "All done. Now you won't forget."
He's crazy. He's fucking crazy. I think I've always known he wasn't a great person, but I had no idea how crazy he was until looking at his eyes just now.
Asa follows me out of the bedroom and down the stairs. Dalton is standing at the base of the stairs, and I can see the concern in his eyes.
I still don't trust him.
I walk back into the kitchen and straight to the stove. I pull the noodles off the burner and begin pouring them into the strainer just as a car pulls up in the driveway.
Carter.
I finish straining the noodles, staring down at my ring the whole time.
It's not even straight. It'll be a bitch peeling off the super glue and will probably take me days. The least the asshole could have done was make sure he glued it on straight. It's going to drive me crazy.
I make sure not to look at the front door when it opens. I go back to the stove and stir the spaghetti sauce, then check the meatballs in the oven. Asa is washing blood off his arms at the sink when Carter walks into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator.
"What happened to you?" Carter says.
I can't make out what Asa says, thanks to the pulse still pounding in my ears, but Carter laughs. "You guys win any jackpots?"
I turn around and walk to the sink, catching a glimpse of Carter out of the corner of my eye.
Asa shakes his head and says, "Not a goddamn thing. Not like that jackpot you had wrapped around you Friday night."
It feels like all the blood completely leaves my heart. I can't look at Carter right now. I can't. Either Asa is testing me to see if I react to that statement, or Carter isn't at all who I thought he was.
"She was a motherfucking firecracker," Asa adds. "Good job, man. I was definitely impressed."
I walk to the oven to check on the meatballs, but only so I can get a glimpse of Carter's face. He takes a sip of his beer, not making eye contact with me. "She's just a friend," he says.
I have to grip the oven door with all my strength, because it feels like I'm about to crash to the floor.
What girl? When? Friday night was when Carter came to my room and kissed me. How in the world did I not know he was here with someone else?
I feel like more of a fool in this moment than I've ever felt dating Asa. At least I've always known Asa is an asshole.
I honestly thought Carter was different.
"A friend my ass," Asa says. "Do you hump Dalton against the living room wall like that? Jon? Where I come from, friends don't do that to friends, my man."
I pull the meatballs out of the oven and am forced to walk the long way around the island back to the stove, just to avoid either of them seeing the tears in my eyes. A few seconds later, I feel Asa's arm slip around my waist. He kisses my neck, and fuck if I don't turn around and plant my mouth on his. As much as I hate him and as much as I want to cut his dick off for what he just did to me upstairs, this kiss isn't at all about him.
I want Carter to feel what I just felt. Like there's a huge gash in my chest.
Fucking bastard. They're all fucking bastards.
I pull away from Asa. "You're making it hard to concentrate. You guys get out of the kitchen so I can finish cooking."
I have no idea how I'm able to speak, because each of my words wants to turn to sobs. I drop all the meatballs into the sauce, and as I'm pouring the noodles in, Dalton walks in the kitchen.
"Christ, Asa. Go take a fucking shower. We'll all lose our appetite if we have to stare at all that blood while we eat."
I use Dalton's distraction to glance over at Carter. He's staring right at me, his eyes full of concern. It's like he's trying to tell me a million things right now. He lifts his hand and runs his thumb over his bottom lip.
I don't twirl my hair around my finger. Instead, I rub my mouth with my middle finger and then turn to face Asa. He pushes my hair over my shoulder. "You should come shower with me. It'll be kind of hard to do it one-handed."
I shake my head. "Later. I have to finish cooking."
Asa runs his fingers down my arm, sliding them over my hand and over my ring. He turns and walks out of the kitchen. Dalton follows him. As soon as I'm alone with Carter, he's rushing across the kitchen toward me. He stops when he reaches me and comes as close as he can without it looking suspicious. I grip the counter in front of me and don't look up at him.
"It wasn't like that, Sloan. I swear. You have to trust me."
His words come out in a rushed, desperate whisper.
I don't look at him when I say, "You were making out with another girl?" I slowly turn my head and make eye contact, and I can almost swear he's about to risk getting caught and pull me to him.
He starts shaking his head. "I wouldn't do that to you. It wasn't like that."
His words are slow and precise this time. Everything about him makes me want to trust what he's saying, but everything about every single male from my past tells me never to trust anyone with a dick.
He glances around to make sure no one can see us. All the guys in the living room have their backs to us and they're facing the TV. Carter leans in and squeezes my wrist. "I would never do anything to hurt you. Ever. I swear on your brother's life, Sloan."
And that's when I really get angry. No one swears on my brother's life. It's over before I even realized I did it. I slapped him so hard, all the guys in the living room turned around in their seats.
I can't believe I just slapped him. I can't tell who's more shocked by it. Me, him or all the guys who are now staring at us. I'm more hurt than I've probably ever been in my life, but I'm still smart enough to know I need to cover up the fact that I just slapped him so it doesn't appear personal. "Don't dip your finger in the spaghetti sauce, asshole! That's disgusting!"
Carter immediately realizes what I'm doing. He forces a laugh and rubs his cheek, but I can see the disappointment in his eyes as he turns and walks toward the living room. I don't feel bad for him. My brother and I have had enough bad luck. The last thing we need is for Carter to be telling lies and making empty promises while swearing on Stephen's life.
I spin around and I stir the fucking spaghetti. I pause to wipe tears away with the sleeve of my shirt, and then I start stirring again. A minute later, Dalton appears at my side and reaches across me. He grabs a spoon and dips it in the sauce, then puts the spoon in his mouth to taste it. He nods and then tosses the spoon in the sink, right before leaning into me. "He's telling you the truth, Sloan."
He walks away, and that's when I can't control the tears any longer. I don't know what to believe. Who to trust. Who to be mad at, who to love. I go to the sink and wash spaghetti sauce off my hands.
I need out of this house.
I walk to the back door and yell over my shoulder. "Your fucking spaghetti is ready, you goddamn asshole motherfuckers!"
I rinse out the last of the bowls and place them in the dishwasher.
Asa never
made it down to eat. Sloan never came back inside. I texted Dalton a few minutes ago and asked him to go upstairs and check on the status of Asa before I risk going outside and talking to Sloan.
I wipe down the countertop and start the dishwasher. I hear Dalton coming down the stairs at the same time I get a text from him.
Dalton: He's passed out naked on his bed. Looks like he'll be that way for a while, but I'll text you if he starts to come downstairs. Make sure your phone is on.
I double and triple check the sound and vibrate settings on my phone, then slide it in my pocket. I head outside to smooth things over with Sloan.
She's in the middle of the swimming pool, floating on her back, staring up at the stars. She doesn't look at me when she hears the back door shut.
As I'm making my way toward her, I notice her shirt and jeans are thrown over a lounge chair.
Fucking hell.
She's swimming in her underwear.
That may be normal practice for her around here, but it just feels like I'm stepping on a landmine by being out here while she's not technically in a bathing suit.
I reach the edge of the pool and stare down at her, but she still won't look at me. The water is covering most of her face, but with the light from inside the house, I'm able to see the redness in her eyes.
It's kind of fucked up if you think about it. She's upset that I might be messing with other people, but all the while she's sleeping in another man's bed every night.
Hell, she fucking kissed him just to spite me earlier.
But I get it. And I don't blame her, because I know how much she was hurting. How much she is hurting.
And that's the hardest part of this. It's not that I'm about to have to convince her that I really do have feelings for her. The hardest part is knowing what she feels right now as she doubts them.
If I could just come out and tell her the whole truth, it would make things so much easier. But that's a violation of my job. It would be disobeying a direct order from Ryan. And as unstable as Asa is right now, the less Sloan knows, the better.
When Asa mentioned Tillie in the kitchen, the color completely drained from Sloan's face. I could have killed him right then and there.
Sloan fans her arms out and kicks her legs, giving herself a push back toward the middle of the pool. "He forgot to turn off the pool heater this weekend," she says quietly. "It feels really good. I think I might just stay here forever."
Too Late Page 15
