He looked at me with flat, emotionless eyes. “No need for the sarcasm. A simple no would’ve been enough.”
“No, asshole, I didn’t make dinner! If you’re so damn hungry you can make something yourself.”
I whipped around, my belly knocking the pretty candle holder I’d picked up for only fifty cents at a garage sale off the counter. It fell to the floor and broke into pieces, but I didn’t bother stopping to clean up the mess. I kept going, snatching my purse off the couch on my way to the door.
“Where the hell are you going?”
“I’m going to my prenatal class, jackass! And by the time I get back, you better have checked your mood, or so help me God, you’ll be sleeping in your truck tonight!”
I slammed the door behind me with a satisfying bang and stomped over to my car. I’d give him this time to cool the hell down and take it for myself to do the same. I knew we’d be fine once I got home, but I was going to make him suffer for a bit, then grovel a lot before I let him off the hook.
Only, he wasn’t there when I got home.
I didn’t know it at the time, but those were going to be the last words we’d say to each other for a very long time.
Jensen
Twenty-two years old
I sat on a stool in some shitty hole-in-the-wall bar, clutching my whiskey and nursing a steady buzz, all while feeling like the biggest asshole in the world for how I’d treated Shane earlier. That wasn’t me. I didn’t treat my woman like shit. But my old man had taken it on himself to come into the shop today with the sole purpose of getting under my skin, and like the dumbass I was, I’d let him.
“You really think you’ll give that girl a good life like this? You’re a grease monkey, for Christ’s sake.”
“Always knew you’d never amount to much, but you’ve still managed to exceed my expectations.”
“She’d be better off if you just disappeared from her life.”
I’d let it get to me. Wanting to prove I’d changed, I stood there with my hands in my pockets as he dumped all that shit on my head. He wanted me to lose it. He wanted me to blow, and I was determined not to let that happen. But by holding back, I’d allowed the hatred and rage to fester. I let the doubt and uncertainty creep in and infect me, letting it twist into self-loathing as he landed one verbal blow after another, until Banks finally came out there and sent his ass packing with the threat of using his fists to rearrange the bastard’s face.
Then I did the worst thing I could possibly do. I went home and took all the pain and animosity and fury I felt toward him out on the woman I loved.
“Christ, I’m an asshole,” I grunted under my breath before lifting my glass and downing it in one gulp.
The moment the glass hit the bar top, someone slammed into the back of me, jamming my ribs into the edge of the counter. I looked over my shoulder at the drunk asshole who’d just run into me. “Watch where you’re fuckin’ going.”
The guy wobbled, leaning heavily to the left before finding his balance. “Chill man. It was just an accident.”
I should have let it go. If it had been any other day I would have, but I was no longer in control. I’d let the anger take over. It was like all the changes I’d worked my ass off to make since Shane came into my life had been pointless.
I turned all the way around “Usually when you ram into someone you apologize, dickhead.”
“Yeah?” Drunk guy grinned sloppily. “Maybe I would’ve if you weren’t bein’ such a cunt.”
I slowly rose to my feet, temples pulsing and my forehead throbbing as red coated my vision. “What did you just call me?”
“You heard me, asshole. You’re actin’ like a little pussy. Why don’t you just sit the fuck down and shut up?”
I felt my lips curl up in a vicious smile that didn’t feel at all like me. “Yeah? How about you make me?”
The stupid son of a bitch actually swung. It was sloppy and slow, and I easily dodged it, but it was exactly what I’d been hoping for, what I’d been craving like an addict.
My first punch broke his nose. My second sent him to the floor. I punched over and over, the burn in my knuckles, the splitting skin, the feel of flesh slamming into flesh, it gave me a familiar rush I hadn’t felt in way to fucking long.
And just like that, I was gone.
Chapter Twenty
Shane
It was late Wednesday morning and I was completely over my flu so I took advantage of finally feeling like myself for the first time in days, loaded Brantley up, and we hit the grocery store. It was probably my least favorite errand, but my kid loved to go with me, so we made it a thing.
“So what are you thinking?” I asked, looking at the top of my son’s dark head as he followed along beside me, gripping the side of the cart I was pushing with his short, stubby fingers. “Fruity Pebbles or Cinnamon Toast Crunch?”
He turned to look up at me, his gray eyes big with hope. “Both?”
At my arched brow, he grinned wide and mischievous. He had his playful little grins, but this was the first time he hit me with the exact same one I’d seem from his father a million times.
The older my kid got, the more Jensen started to come out in his features. It had started when he was three. Brantley was sitting at the coffee table, building a castle with his Legos, and I was walking past with a basket of clean laundry. From the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a profile that belonged to a face I hadn’t seen in years and was so startled I dropped the basket right on my big toe.
Now, at five, he was basically all Jensen. The man’s little carbon copy, and now they also shared the same smirk. The girls in Redemption were going to be in so much trouble.
“You’re pushing your luck,” I said in mock warning. Every week I told myself I was going to start doing better as a mom. I was going to cut down on my kid’s sugar intake. I was going to make him eat vegetables. I was going to start making balanced meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And every day, work and exhaustion and the million and one things I had to do in such a short twenty-four-hour period got in the way. Which was why I found myself smiling and caving at my son’s exaggerated puppy-dog eyes. “You grab one box, I’ll grab the other.”
He pumped his little fist in the air and reached for the Cinnamon Toast Crunch on the lower shelf while I got the Fruity Pebbles off the higher one.
We tossed the boxes into the cart and started down the aisle. “Where next?” Brantley asked, grabbing hold of the handle once more.
“Produce section,” I answered, injecting authority into my voice as I said, “I let you get your junk, and in return, you’re gonna eat some green beans.”
He came to a stop and looked up at me, dead serious. “Two green beans,” he bargained.
“Twelve,” I countered.
“Four.”
“Eight.”
He sighed heavily, like dealing with me was doing his head in. “Six.”
I held out my hand. “Deal. Pleasure doing business with you.”
We shook, me winningly, him begrudgingly, and started back down the aisle. I lifted my head to make sure I wasn’t at risk of running anyone over with my cart and jolted to a stop. An instant chill coated my skin at the sight of the woman standing only feet away, dead center at the end of the aisle.