Forcing myself to look away from the smorgasbord ofman on display next to me, I look at the other pictures tacked on the board and see the guy who told him to leave me alone because they didn’t have time. The only thing that saved me from being raped was that they were short on time.
I point at the other picture that wasn’t there yesterday, “That guy was with him, he was driving.”
All heads turn to look at where I’m pointing, and Spits pulls it down to set it on the table with the picture of the other guy. “This is good.” His head is bowed, and he is looking at the pictures but when he looks up at all the eyes on him, he says, “Oh, uh, I meant that it’s good that we have a face to go with,” he pauses again and looks at me with a pained expression, “the terrible thing that happened.”
“Man, you need to stop looking at the screens so much and maybe socialize or something,” Jax says and steps between Marley and Breanna to get to the table where Spits is.
I don’t miss the way he looks at Marley as he turns toward her to squeeze between them. She keeps her gaze on me and leans away from him, her arms crossed over her chest.
“Let me clean up my mess and brush my teeth and I’ll start breakfast,” I say and move away from the warmth of Mason next to me.
“No, you go brush your teeth, I’ll clean this up for you,” Marley says and points to the back stairs that lead to my room.
The towel I dab on my mouth after I brush is soft and fluffy and I stare at my reflection in the mirror. How in the world has my life come to this? It feels like it’s been a hundred years since I was a normal girl with a normal life and dreams. A tear slides down my cheek and soaks into the towel.
I miss my mom. I miss the safety of my parents and the warmth that I knew I could have any time I felt like it, whether it was a hug or just a conversation. I miss the normalcy of walking into the safe cocoon of my lifelong homenot knowing the things I know now.
Kinley walks into the bathroom and I quickly dab the towel under both eyes. She has her hands behind her back.
“You okay?” Her Oklahoma accent seems more pronounced in the question.
Turning away from the mirror, I nod my head, “Yeah, just trying to figure out who I pissed off in another life to get here.”
I’m only half joking.
She shuffles her feet as she cuts her eyes to the shower area, she looks uncomfortable, and I pull my eyebrows together. With an eye roll, she steps toward me and holds her hand out, “Here.”
I look down to see a pregnancy test box in her hand. My eyes go wide and snap up to meet hers, “Where did you get that?” I shake my head, “I don’t need that.”
She rolls her eyes again, “I had a close call after last New Year’s and I ended up buying like five boxes to be sure.” Her eyes volley between mine, “I’ve seen you nauseous several times and you’ve thrown up twice - that I’ve seen,” she shrugs her shoulders, “just rule it out.”
Doing a mental tally of my cycle, I realize I’m a week late.
Shit!
But we always use protection. It would have to be from when we were at the hotel. I think about every time we did it that night, he used a condom each time.
My hand flies to my mouth and I suck in a sharp breath. The shower.
“Fuck, that’s why you feel so good, I forgot the condom,” Mason mumbled into my ear as he held me against the wall under the stream of steamy water.
He rested his forehead on the tile wall behind me and pumped into me a few more times before he pulled out to go get a condom.
My eyes lock on Kinley’s.
She tilts her head to the side, eyebrow cocked, with a look of ‘I told you so’ and lifts the box higher, jutting it at me to take.
“Oh no,” I whisper and step backward shaking my head. “This can’t be right. No. We’ve just been fooling around, he’ll think I’m trying to trap him!” I step forward and grab Kinley’s arms, the box shaking and rattling in her hand, “You can’t tell him, he’ll hate me!”
She sets the box on the counter and grabs my shoulders, “You don’t know for sure yet, find out and we’ll go from there.” Her fingers squeeze my shoulders, and she nods her head in the direction of the box before she turns and walks out.
Someone in the ethos is for sure mad at me, how can this get any worse? All I wanted was a little bit of good in this shit show of my life. I don’t have time to do anything about this right now, I look at my watch, I’m really late and I need to make breakfast so everyone can get to the stables to take care of the horses.
Tossing the towel on the counter, I take one last look at the box that represents whether my life will go from bad to worse. I opt for ignorance for the time being and go downstairs.
After everyone has eaten breakfast and gone their separate ways, I start my regular day after cleaning the kitchen. Since Mason’s teammates have been here, there seems to be stuff everywhere, especially weapons.
Trying not to let the extra clutter bother me, I set out to straighten and dust Mr. Harlow’s office. The large desk looks like all its pieces were carved by hand and handcrafted with love, if I had to guess, I would say that it’s maybe a hundred years old.
