“Yeah, you better.” He turns back to the water. “I’m sure your husband’s ready for you to come home.”
His words have my legs turning to Jell-O, and my heart begins to pound against my chest. It’s not like I was trying to hide that. I mean, Nik and Shane were at my wedding, I knew he’d probably heard, but something about that comment doesn’t sit right.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” he asks, not bothering to look away from the water.
“Act like you know anything about me.”
He finally turns back to look at me, and something shifts. Whatever he was feeling before is gone. He quirks a brow. “Don’t I?”
“No. You don’t. I’m not the girl I was when I left. You made sure of that, didn’t you?”
His face falls before his nostrils flair and he stands, moving closer.
“What’s he think of that tattoo on your ass?” he asks with a cocky smirk.
There he is. The man underneath the façade. The one who says things just to cut me.
I lift my chin, trying to conceal just how much he’s still able to get under my skin. “I had it removed.”
He scoffs. “Yeah, I bet you did.”
Shrugging, I say, “It’d be pretty pathetic to keep it since it was just a stupid summer fling, don’t you think?”
Bullseye.
Pain flashes in his eyes. Good. I hope it hurts like a bitch. No one deserves it more than him.
Spinning on my heel, I keep my shoulders straight all the way back to the house, not reacting until I slam the door to my bedroom.
I’m still stewing long past dinner time. I flop down on Gran’s couch, flipping on the TV. He has a lot of nerve showing up here to play that Jekyll and Hyde shit. You’d think he’d get tired of messing with my head after a while.
A thud comes from outside the front door.
“What the hell,” I mutter under my breath, sitting straight up.
When I hear it again, my heart lurches. Before I canspiral into a panic, I recognize Shane’s voice through the door.
“Motherfucker,” he mumbles.
Relief washes over me, and my shoulders relax. I jog over and rip it open. “What are you?—”
Everything stops.
He’s stumbling around on the porch with dirty clothes, greasy hair, and pronounced dark circles.
“Oh my god. Are you okay?”
He shakes his head, shuffling inside.
Reaching up, I grab his face. “Shane, what the—You’re burning up.”
He heaves, and I race to the kitchen, dumping the groceries I bought earlier on the counter. I shove the bag at him just in time for his stomach to empty.
“It’s okay. Get it out,” I soothe, running a hand in circles on his warm back.
When I’m pretty sure the vomiting has paused long enough to move, I grab his arm and guide him to the couch. “Come on. Sit down.”
