“Ten-grand.” I laughed.
“Done.” He held out a hand for a shake.
I didn’t shake on it. I think I said, “Get the fuck outta here!” And he’d laughed on his way out the door, telling me he was heading home to lay some pipe.
I felt sour. And mildly jealous for a split second, which was not my style. And I remembered that feeling when I ran into him again last night, which is what brought me to his place. Curiosity. I had to see for myself that she wasn’t what I’d remembered. Wasn’t the one that got away. Because something about her that night… it took me a few days to shake the sour at the idea I let her go because I didn’t stop the shithead from a coin toss.
The girl I’d seen here in this place didn’t seem like the same girl as at the bar that night laughing with her friends, dancing carefree on the dancefloor, filled with confidence when Raymond made his approach. This girl wasn’t a junkie or loser. She also wasn’t vapid. Instead, she was evidently beaten down by something or someone. It didn’t take more than a few minutes to see she was as timid as a rabbit and my guess was that Raymond was knocking her around. And I didn’t fuckin’ like it.
Not only did I not like it, I feel partly responsible for it. I saw her first. I let her go in a fuckin’ coin toss. And here we are.
Last night I crashed here not because I was drunk or even because I was too tired to go home. I only stayed because he was tanked and I had a feeling that if I left, he’d knock her around and I couldn’t stomach that.
So I slept on a sofa bed that was too small and not remotely comfortable instead of going home to my California King, but I slept on pillows that smelled like her perfume and shampoo.
She is beautiful. She’s beautiful and she’s broken. I don’t know much yet, but I do know that son of a bitch doesn’t deserve her. I haven’t yet figured out what I’ll do about it, though I know I’m going to do something.
3
Violet
“Sorry. I hope you weren’t waiting long. I’ll just, uh…” I step toward the bedroom door, carefully clutching the towel at my chest so it won’t drop.
Killian gives me a sexy smile as his eyes sear a trail that starts at my eyes and then travels down to my toes before lazily drifting back up. My nipples react with a sharp tingle that borders on painful.
“No need to apologize, Violet,” he says softly, looking directly into my eyes.
I immediately back up, taking in his face once more before grabbing for my doorknob. Our eyes meet for long enough for me to see that his green eyes sparkle with playful mischief before he closes the door.
When I close my bedroom door and lean back against it, I’m breathless. I feel a smile creep across my face as I sink my front teeth into my bottom lip. But then that smile dies on my face because straight ahead is my sleeping asshole abuser of a roommate.
Oh shit.
Horror washes over me, making heat sweep across my face.
My nightie and my undies are in there, on the back of the toilet, and if I remember right, my undies are sitting on top of my nightie, plain as day for Killian to see.
I bite my cheek and let out a sigh while getting my clothes together as quietly as I can and a moment later I hear his footsteps as he leaves the bathroom. I get dressed and carry my heels with me, so they won’t make noise on the wood floor, waking Ray and putting him in a mood, and then I head back into the bathroom to apply my make-up. Yep, my black satin poker undies are sitting right there on the back of the toilet, the perfect place for a guy to spy them as he takes a leak.
I toss them into the hamper in the bedroom before I go back out, finding Killian putting the sofa bed away. The stack of blankets and pillows are neatly piled on the arm.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says, coming toward the coffee maker.
He watches me pop a pod in and put a mug underneath before I open the fridge. I feel his eyes on me while he stands there with his arms folded across his chest.
I shoot him a smile.
“Milk, black, hazelnut, sugar?”
“Little bit of milk. And yeah, gimme some sugar.” The gruffness of his voice as he demands that I ‘gimme some sugar’ makes a thrill shoot up my spine.
I make his coffee.
“More sugar,” he says huskily.
I spoon in a second teaspoon and stir it, avoiding his eyes because if mine meet them I’ll definitely blush. I make myself one in a ceramic travel mug and splash in some hazelnut creamer.
“How do you get to work?” he asks me, voice sounding funny, as if he already knows the answer.
“Today… bus,” I reply.
“Not carpooling with somebody?”
“No.”
“Why don’t you take the car? He’s asleep.”
“He might need it.” I look at my feet.
“He’ll probably sleep it off till you’re home from work. He got pretty hammered last night.”
“It’s all right.” I lift one shoulder in a half shrug.
It’s actually my car, but I don’t want to take it and deal with his mood later if he needed it. Ever since we got down to one car, it sort of became his. I never cared in the beginning, he’d drive me to work, but in the past year, he’s gotten harder and harder to get out of bed when he hasn’t had work to get to. Even when he has, sometimes he’s impossible to rouse.
Since he’s been laid off this time, I’ve just taken the bus instead of fighting with him to get up. Correction, I took my car a couple times a few weeks ago when he wouldn’t get up and got screamed at for an hour on the phone while I tried to work as well as dealt with attitude for days because he’d had plans that he didn’t tell me about. Plans that, evidently, weren’t enough to get him up the three times I attempted to wake him. These days, I’ve found it easier to just take the bus.
And the kicker? He lets me. Even if he has no plans. Even if he’s just planning on going to the bar that’s within walking distance. One of the many nails in the Violet and Ray relationship coffin.
Killian’s mouth looks tight. “Hang on…is it your car? He said it was. His is in the shop?”
“Pretty sure he needs it today,” I lie, and I know it’s unconvincing because I can feel my face flaming.
He probably talked shit about my car because it wasn’t a sportscar and evidently, he thinks he has to impress Killian.
“He even have a car?” he asks.
Of course I’m not about to say that Ray’s car got repossessed a few months after I met him, despite me giving him a car payment to get caught up.
“Umm…not at the moment.”
He shakes his head. He knows Ray. He and Ray apparently grew up together, so he’s obviously not surprised.
He poses a new question. “When do you gotta leave?”
I glance at the digital clock on the stove. “In about five or ten minutes.”
He frowns. “Your hair’s wet. It’s freezin’ out there. Frost on the ground. High winds by the sounds of it.” He looks at me like I’m an errant child.
I nod. “Yeah, I shouldn’t have washed it having slept in. I was half asleep in the shower. Don’t worry about rushing. Just… twist the lock on your way out and –”