AJ
Six weeks later
Something was up with Bess, and it wasn’t just recovery bullshit. It was more, and I knew it since the day after Christmas when she fucked me like I was nothing but a hard cock, then pretended to be exhausted afterward, putting off spending time together.
Since then, she’d asked me to “slow things down.” She rattled off some bullshit like, “I care about you, AJ, but I don’t want to take advantage of you. We’re better off as friends, I think. Either way, we need to slow things down. Think about what we want. Blah, blah, blah.”
What the fuck? Slow what down?
She’d never used the key I’d given her to my place, she picked up all kinds of extra shifts at work, including dinner, and she’d started going to the morning meeting on her day off. She knew damn well I couldn’t go to morning meetings. That was when I checked on my crew, and if I didn’t show up, they goofed off.
Fuck!I punched the air as I paced my large wraparound deck. It was nearly Valentine’s Day, and this had been going on for too fucking long.
I’d just come home from a meeting, one that Bess said she would try to attend. But she texted and said she took someone’s dinner shift and added,I don’t think we should go to the same meetings. Too much hidden baggage and not good for the group.
Why not? We weren’ttogetheranymore. We’d done nothing but hug since the day she used me and tossed me out. I’d made a proclamation, given her a key, and apologized. She’d been dismissive of everything—except the thorough fucking. And now she was worried about the group.
Fuck the rest of everyone else.
And I still loved her. I’d been infatuated with the dumb girl since she stepped foot out of the treatment facility and opened the passenger door to my car. I’d be damned if I didn’t make this work. She needed me.
I decided to do something about it and stomped down off the deck, heading straight for my truck. I threw the door open so hard, it almost fell off the hinges, then I climbed in and sped off.
As I entered the bottom of the very long and pretentious driveway leading to the WildFlower, I experienced a single moment of regret. Perhaps I was acting irrational? But then I tossed that thought aside and climbed the steep drive up to the main hotel in my four-by-four, pulling right up to the valet circle.
“Hey, man, I’m just stopping in to see someone who works here. Want to leave it out front?” I asked the young dude.
“We’re not supposed to do that, but as long as you’re quick, no problem, sir,” he answered, all professional in his little valet vest.
I tossed him the keys and walked toward the entrance.
“Who’re you visiting?” he called after me.
I hesitated, not wanting to answer, but felt like the asshole was doing me a favor.
“Bess Williams,” I called behind me.
“Sorry, man, but I think she just headed out. She needed another one of the staff to do a favor for her, and they left about five minutes ago. I was on break, so I saw them leaving out the rear entrance.”
He tossed my keys back, dismissing me.
“What favor?” I demanded to know.
He shrugged. “Don’t know, buddy.”
I wasn’t his buddy, but I let it go.
“Do you know which direction they were heading?”
“Listen, I shouldn’t have even got involved. I’m not supposed to discuss staff comings and goings.”
“Yeah, I got you,” I bit out, before jumping back in the cab of my truck.
My tires crunched along the wet gravel as I pulled up in front of Bess’s place. The porch was backlit from the house, and I could make out Bess leashing Brooks and handing him off to another woman.
What the hell?
Brooks never went on a leash. Who was the other woman? What was Bess doing with her precious dog? So many questions ran through my mind as I jumped out of my truck and stomped toward the two women. They both were staring at me like two does caught in the headlights and it was hunting season.
