Anticipating the dead air from an empty apartment, I approached hesitantly, but when I walked in, I heard the soft sounds of a TV.
I found her in her bedroom on the bed, lying horizontally at the foot of it. She’d stacked pillows under her head so she could stare dead-on at the hockey recap from a game I knew she’d already watched last night, because she had them on back-to-back.
My relief that she was here, that she hadn’t locked me out, didn’t stop me from demanding, “Why didn’t you pick up when I called you?”
“Because I didn’t want to deal with you. Plus, it’s charging and I didn’t feel like moving.”
Her dull tone filled me with concern, but I shucked it off as I headed toward her.
Her gaze tripped over the tray, and because she didn’t sit up when she saw the coffee order—one Neev told me via text was her ‘go-to’—I knew ‘deep shit’ made the Mariana Trench look shallow in comparison to how badly I’d fucked up.
Admittedly, a coffee order was a crappy peace offering.
Maybe I should have gone with diamonds?
“How much did you hear?”
“Everything.”
“About—”
“Which part ofeverythingdon’t you understand?”
“You can’t say anything, Kitty.”
“What’ll you do, Stan? Dose me with C-L-O too?”
Again, I cringed.Fuck.
With a wince, she straightened, groaning as she sat taller then held out a hand. “Pass me that bottle of pain meds over there, please.”
Obeying, I gave it to her, watching her as warily as a mouse would a cat that was licking its chops.
At the moment, she held my future in the same hands that wrung the bottle of pain meds like she wished it were my neck.
“FUCK!” she screamed when the child safety lock bested her.
Cautiously, I approached the bed and snagged a hold of the bottle. Opening it, I tipped some pills onto my palm and passed her three.
“Thank you,” she muttered sullenly.
“Water or coffee?”
Her dead-eyed stare glanced off the coffee I’d brought her. “Water, please.”
Reaching for the tumbler I’d filled this morning, I passed it to her at the same time as I set her coffee on the nightstand.
She heaved a sigh before taking the meds then shoving the tumbler back at me.
A better man would have asked her if she wanted me to leave.
But I’d proven to her that I wasn’t that.
I’d never be that.
In all honesty, I figured she’d have to invoke Aidan O’Donnelly Sr.’s wrath to make me go. Even then, Luc would have to get involved because?—
“The worst thing about this is that I can admire your talents.”
