“Did he kiss you goodnight?” The words came out in a growl, and I didn’t bother hiding the rage that grew from picturing his mouth on hers.
“You need to go,” she said, her words cutting me in two as she stood up and turned her back on me.
“Kat.” Not a question. A command.
She didn’t turn. She stood rigid with her hand on the doorknob, waiting to hear what I had to say.
“I’m sorry.”
She looked over her shoulder. Her eyes filled with pain and what looked like pity. “What are you sorry for, Derek?”
Everything, I said silently. For walking away from my mother when she refused to leave the bastard who was beating her. Walking away from Marsha when she told me she was pregnant. Signing away my rights to my daughter. Lying to Sam. Beating the fuck out of her when she told me she was pregnant.
I was sorry for hating Jack when he’d done nothing wrong. For telling Frankie no when she asked me to join them. But most of all, I was sorry for walking away from Kat tonight. Leaving her dazed and confused after kissing the hell out of her.
But I didn’t say any of that. Instead, I told her a fucking lie.
“I’m sorry I ruined your date.”
She took a deep breath and turned the knob until the door opened. She stepped inside and turned to face me. “It wasn’t a date,” she said right before she closed the front door.
My eyes closed in relief. My next thought was to run up the steps and bang on her door until she opened it. But I didn’t do that either. I walked back to my truck and backed out of her driveway and went home.
“Derek, why do you think you don’t deserve forgiveness?”
Haizley asked the same question every fucking week, and I avoided it every time. I never knew how to answer it.
Until now.
“Because there is no excuse for what I did,” I answered, staring out the window at the house down the street. It had been days since I stood in front of Kat and said I was sorry, with a bullshit excuse about ruining her date.
“Forgiveness doesn’t excuse what you did.”
“Then what’s the fucking point?” I asked, craning my neck to pin her with a glare. She never flinched. I couldn’t count the number of times she told me she wasn’t afraid of me. Even before the cameras recorded our sessions.
Not the sound, she’d said.
Video only.
For her protection.
She claimed it wasn’t her decision. That Gunner insisted. I knew that big fucker didn’t trust me. I wasn’t sure any of them did. But King let me stay. Let me work for them. They used me for my skills; I was a damn good builder, so they tolerated my presence to have their houses built.
“Forgiveness acknowledges that what you did was wrong. It helps release anger or the desire for vengeance. Jack forgave you because he wants you in his life.”
“Jack forgave me because I saved his daughter.”
“Yes, you saved Charlie and, in the process, you killed someone who once meant something to you.”
Marsha didn’t mean shit. She was a woman I dated for a while. I fucked her, but I’d never have married her. The woman was batshit crazy; I knew that when I met her. But she was fucking good in bed.
I ran a hand over my face.
That wasn’t something I could reveal to Haizley. She already knew how much of a fuckup I was.
“What about Sam?” she asked.
“What about Sam?”
