drink.”
15
Sin
Fury burns through my veins as I pound on the front door, then remember there’s a doorbell. I envision Rafe answering the door. I hope Rafe answers the door, because I’m going to lay the motherfucker out. My hand flexes into a fist, then releases, flexes, then releases. Open the goddamn door, asshole.
Juanita answers the door, her brown eyes wide with mild alarm at the ferocity of my knocking. Her alarm ratchets up another notch when she sees how fucking angry I am.
“Where is Rafe?”
She points toward the living room.
I storm right past her without another word.
I get just a glance at the scene before I disrupt it. Laurel and Rafe are sitting on the couch watching television, a bowl of popcorn between them. His arm is stretched across the back, draped over her shoulder. She’s laughing at something on the television, but he doesn’t look as impressed.
Her smile dies as I storm into the room. Rafe’s arm abandons her shoulders and he eases forward, regarding me warily.
Struggling to keep a lid on my fury, I clench my fists again and take a breath. Unlocking my jaw, I tell him, “I need to talk to you alone.”
Easing up off the couch, he glances back at Laurel. “I’ll just be a minute.”
He shows me to the foyer, but that’s not far enough. I walk back outside and wait for him to follow. Still eyeing me as he shuts the door behind him, he asks sarcastically, “Is this far enough away, or should we walk down the street?”
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I demand.
Like the smug son of a bitch he is, he lifts his eyebrows and says, “I think I’m having yet another quiet night in with Laurel. Why?”
Jabbing a hand angrily out at nothing, I ask, “You wanna tell me why your men are moving that fucking waitress into one of your apartments right now?”
Rafe rolls his eyes and falls back a step. “Oh, good. The morality police dispatched another fucking officer.”
“This is not a fucking joke,” I tell him.
“This is not your business,” he counters.
“It absolutely is my business,” I fire back. “You fucking up the relationship I handed you on a goddamn silver platter? That is my fucking business. I’m making it my business. You have been with her for a week, and you’re already fucking around on her?”
“First off, I am not with her. Laurel made it very clear to me and her sister that we’re only ‘testing the waters’ to see if we want to be in a relationship. I can’t even fuck her because she has a defective fucking uterus. This is not cheating. Secondly, her name is Marlena, not ‘the waitress’ and I am not fucking her either.”
“I don’t give a fuck what her name is.”
Pointing his finger at me and lifting his eyebrows, he says, “Lastly, it is not your motherfucking business. You didn’t hand me anything, and I am not wronging Laurel. All I did was repay a little kindness to a woman who was nice to me for no reason. That’s it. I’m not moving Marlena into the apartment so I have unfettered access to her. That is not what this is. In case you didn’t notice when you stormed into my house, Laurel is the one I’m spending the evening with. Laurel is the one I had dinner with, and Laurel is the one I stayed in with when she said she didn’t feel like going out tonight. Again. Laurel is the one I will go to bed with tonight and the one I will wake up with tomorrow. I am not going to abandon Laurel.”
“That doesn’t mean shit,” I say, shaking my head. “You have the financial resources to take care of her; I’m not worried you’re gonna abandon her. I’m worried you’re not respecting her, and I’ve gotta be honest, that really pisses me off.”
“Well, that sounds like a personal problem you need to take care of,” he tells me. “Laurel’s mine, not yours. You don’t decide how I treat her. And she has no complaints, so—”
Gesturing at the front door, I ask, “She knows, then? If I go in there and tell her you’re moving the woman you bought a dress for into an apartment, she won’t be surprised?”
The look on his face tells me that is not the case.
“This is bullshit,” I tell him, shaking my head. “You like Laurel. Why are you doing this? Why are you fucking it up?”
Sighing and raking a hand through his hair, he tells me, “It’s one thing after the next, Sin. Yes, I do like Laurel. I like her a lot. But it’s one fucking struggle after the next. This isn’t a relationship, it’s a damned ordeal. First I’m an asshole and I fuck it up, I fully admit fault there. Then you get in the way and she leaves. I make her come back physically, but she’s still stuck emotionally, then we can’t even work through our shit. She doesn’t like to go out, and I don’t want to stay in all the damn time. At the end of a long day, I can’t even fuck her. It’s just… this isn’t fucking fun. I’m sorry, but you wouldn’t be having fun either.”
“Bullshit,” I say. “I did have fun in the same fucking circumstances. If the only ways you can have fun with Laurel are going out or having sex, I feel sorry for you. She can’t have sex with you because she’s trying to carry your child, you asshole. Give her a few weeks.”