“He quit his job so that we could be together…all the time.”
“And you don’t like that?” she asks, her brows furrowed.
“No. I know it’s weird, but I do like it. I want to be with him all the time.”
“Okay.”
“The first couple of days after we got together, he tried to get me to wake up at five a.m. with him?—”
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.” She laughs, interrupting me.
“Exactly. I’m not a morning person unless my morning starts at like ten a.m. So he bought a bed and set it up in the gym, andwhen he gets up at five a.m., he carries me downstairs, and I sleep in the gym while he works out.”
“That’s…weird.” I’m not sure what my expression looks like, but she quickly adds, “But kind of cute, I guess.”
“It is cute. Now I wake up and get a show. He’s all hot and sweaty, his muscles all bulgy and…well, yeah. I’m not averse to mornings when they start like that.”
Smiling, Etta nods. “Yeah, I totally get that.”
“So after I wake up, he makes us breakfast, and then we go upstairs and get ready for our day. He runs me a bath, and he washes my hair, and then he dries it for me. He learned how to do pigtails and how to use a blow dryer, and he takes care of me and…it’s…he’s perfect.”
“I’m waiting for a but here, babe,” Etta says.
“So yesterday we went to the doctor. I didn’t know I was pregnant. We just went to talk about me not renewing my birth control shot. It turns out I’d gotten my dates a little mixed up, and now I’m pregnant.”
“And he was happy?”
“So happy. We both were. We both are, or I thought we were. But then this morning, I woke up in bed. Not the bed in the gym, but the bed in our bedroom. It was eight thirty a.m., and Knight was in the bedroom, fully dressed, just staring at me.”
Tilting her head to the side, Etta stares at me expectantly.
“He got up and went downstairs without me. He left me in bed alone while he was in the gym, then he cooked and ate breakfast without me. He showered and got dressed without me.”
“You’re mad that he left you in bed to sleep instead of waking you up?” she questions, clearly confused as to why what sounds like a thoughtful gesture has actually upset me.
“Do you know how long we’ve spent away from each other since he turned up in Rapid City?”
She shakes her head.
“Probably less than two minutes. He follows me everywhere. I don’t even pee alone anymore. I haven’t been alone in six weeks, and suddenly, the day after we find out I’m pregnant, he doesn’t care anymore. The day he came to fetch me, I was a mess. Abel gutted me. He smashed my pinball table to pieces, then took my cell phone charger and the TV remote. He left me to wallow in the silence, and I hate silence, you know I do. When Knight knocked on the door, I was broken, and he took one look at me and just said, ‘I’ll help.’ He ran me a bath, undressed me, and bathed me. He dried my hair and picked out clothes for me, then he dressed me and brought me here. I was broken and lost, and he put me back together. He claimed me, and he takes care of me. For the last six weeks, he’s wrapped me in a blanket and carried me downstairs because he can’t bear to be that far away from me. He runs a bath for me each morning, he cooks breakfast for us, and we eat naked before we get dressed together in the closet. But this morning should have been perfect. The first day, when it is three of us, not just two, and he suddenly decides that the routine he lives by and needs to get through the day suddenly doesn’t matter. That being near me doesn’t matter. That I don’t matter.” Tears spill down my cheeks as I struggle to say the last few words. But it’s the truth. After six weeks of indulgent, constant contact, he discarded me, and all those broken pieces that he put back together have fallen apart again.
The door flies open as Knight storms into the room, his chest heaving. His eyes are burning with more emotion than I’ve ever seen before, but instead of wanting to crawl into his arms, seeing him just makes me cry harder.
“We’re leaving,” he says, lifting me into his arms. “Etta, could you rearrange her appointments for this afternoon?”
“No,” I shriek, writhing in his hold.
“Of course,” Etta says, ignoring me. “And Knight…”
Freezing, Knight turns to look at my best friend. “You need to fix this,” she says, her voice lethally cold.
“I will,” he promises, pushing open the fire exit and carrying me out of the studio and into the alley behind the shop.
Screaming like a banshee, Knight ignores my cries, holding me hostage in his huge arms as he strides toward the car. Carefully placing me in the passenger seat, he fastens my seat belt before closing the door and climbing into the driver’s seat.
“I have clients,” I yell.
“Enough,” he says, not a trace of his usual calm, robotic tone left in his voice.
