I turn and look at him, straight on for so long, he mutters, “Watch it.”
I turn back to the road, barely seeing it.
“What is this? Are you…are you offering? Do you want that?”
My breathing’s going haywire. My mind’s a mess.
“Look. You heard my story. I’d be a terrible dad.” I make a pissed off sound in my throat, which he ignores. “I’d be the worst person for the job. I mean, who the hell wants an ex-felon in their life? I’ve spent more nights in prison cells and fuckin’ oil rigs than in a real home, a real bed.” I’m blinking hard, but say nothing. “Now, since I met you, I know this one thing. One.”
To the right is a strip mall. The drugstore’s lights are on. While he’s talking, I swing into the lot and park.
“If you were mine, Kit. And, who knows, maybe had a little human growing inside you? I’d take such fucking good care of you.”
I turn and look at him, my entire being soft and vulnerable as a fresh bruise.
“I’m a walking red flag, Kit.” He looks at me and I can see how he’s convincing himself, too, while he talks. “But with you, for you and…” His eyes go down, then back up. “For my family, if I had one, every one of my red flags would become a weapon, a shield between you and the rest of the world. I’d be an asset, never a problem.”
“You’re not a problem, Jake.”
“I’m single-minded. I can be an asshole. When I left prison, Ricky helped me get back on my feet, but mostly it was this hard head of mine that pushed me forward. I had a goal: to make money. To get rich. ’Cause money’s the only fucking thing in this world that seemed to matter. If I worked hard enough, if I didnothing but that, one day Tommy fucking Bentley and his old cash, old power wouldn’t scare me.”
“Then I met you.” He searches my face, looking blindsided for a handful of seconds, and leans in. “And suddenly, I got it. The thing I’ve been missing all these years. That safety that money buys? It’s got nothing on the way I feel when I’m in your presence. Beside you.” His hands take mine and press them together. “Inside you.”
“Jake, I?—”
“A red fucking flag, baby. That’s me. A whole fucking string of ’em. But I’myourred flag, Kit.” He bends, puts his lips to my knuckles and gives me a kiss that’ll be seared into my soul forever. When he meets my eyes again, I see a fire burning inside them. For me. For us. “I’m yours. With or without a baby. If you want me. I’ll be your fuckin’ red flag. Forever.”
I can’t get to him fast enough. By the time I get my seatbelt off and lean over to kiss him, I’m already wrapped in his arms, surrounded.
When our lips meet, it’s explosive—like everything with us. Probably a good thing some asshole honks, laughing as they pull into the spot next to us. Otherwise, I’m not entirely convinced I wouldn’t have done the man right here in the CVS parking lot.
We don’t go into the store for a test. The man’s ripped his chest open and shown me his insides and now all I want is to be alone with him again. In his arms.
I drive to my place because at this point, there’s no way I’m spending another second in this pair of panties.
We trip on the walkway and Jake catches me. “I’m buying supplies and I’m fixing this fuckin’ thing.”
I laugh, although already, some part of me wonders how this’ll work. He’s leaving in three days. Three. Days.
Oh, no, it’s down to two.
We make it up onto the porch and, after a long-drawn-out kiss while I attempt, unsuccessfully, to open the door, we’re finally in the living room and he’s backed me up against the door. His hand’s already dragging up my skirt and the kissing’s getting messier and I look up and there’s a man standing there, in the hall leading to my bedroom.
I freeze, a shocked, “What the hell?” tumbling from my lips as I blink for a few seconds, blindsided by the unexpected sight of my brother, much bigger than I remember him, tattooed, tough as nails, and clearly pissed all the way off.
“What the fuck is going on here?”
37
Jake
I turn, slow, careful.
Frank, who I saw almost six weeks ago when I went to pay him a visit, looks about ready to explode.
With good reason.
“Frank. Oh my god, you’re home? You’re home. You’re home!” Kit races over to him and throws her arms around him. They hug long enough to give him time to lower his head and put his cheek against her hair and then lift it up to give me a death glare.
