Branded(41)

“Right, also, I am a complete and total asshole,” I announce into the radio.

She turns around and stomps back up my stairs and into the house, slamming the door behind her. With a smile, I climb back down off of the rig and hand Collin the radio through the open passenger window.

A few of the neighbors clap and I wave my hand at them.

“Got it all on video. Can’t wait to show it to the guys,” Collin laughs as he slides over behind the wheel.

“Fuck you.”

He continues to laugh as he starts up the truck. “Good luck in there, buddy.”

I turn away from the truck as he pulls away and head inside the house. I find Phina back in the kitchen, pacing across the tile, still fuming. She stops moving when I walk up to her.

“Why in the hell did you do that?”

“I just wanted you to know how sorry I am. And I wasn’t lying when I said I remember. I remember you asking me to go slow, I remember how I felt like the luckiest fucker in the entire world and I remember thinking that it must be a dream because the girl I had been in love with for years would never give something like that to an idiot like me,” I explain. “I had A LOT to drink that night, and I know it doesn’t excuse anything, but it’s the only excuse I have. And do you know why I said that shit to you the next morning? Because my hung-over ass really thought you’d slept with someone else and I was pissed. I’d wanted you for as long as I could remember and I wanted to kick the ass of whoever got to have you. If I could, I would kick my own ass right now.”

I hold my breath as she walks closer to me.

“You drive me crazy,” she says.

“The feeling is mutual. When do you want to go to your place and pack a bag?”

She rolls her eyes and shakes her head at me.

“That is non-negotiable. I am still not going to live with you.”

I let myself touch her, wrapping my hands around her arms.

“I need to make sure your safe. I don’t want to worry about you when you’re not here.”

She shrugs out of my grasp angrily and takes a step back.

“I am not your fucking responsibility!” she shouts, smacking her hands into my chest.

I move towards her, refusing to let her move away from me. “I love you! That makes you my fucking responsibility!”





“I love you! That makes you my fucking responsibility!”

Oh, Jesus, why did he have to go and say THAT?

I hear the conviction in his voice, see the pure honesty in his eyes and it’s like someone punched their fist right through the walls of my chest, wrapped their hand around my heart and squeezed the life out of it. I’ve never felt more unworthy than I do right at this moment. How can he love me? How can he possibly love someone with so much baggage and who is so clearly fucked up? I’m standing here hitting him again when all I want to do is latch onto him and never let go. His words mean more to me than he could ever know. No man has ever loved me. No man has ever looked at me and saw something more, something deeper, something other than the façade. DJ sees me. He sees what I could be, he recognizes that there’s more to me than the bitch who pushes everyone away, and it scares the shit out of me. His words have branded my soul and have cracked that last piece of armor I’ve firmly held in place for so long. I want to fall apart in his arms and beg him to give me more, which just makes me lash out.

I clench my hand into a fist and punch his fucking chest because anger is the only emotion I know how to handle.

“You don’t love me! You fucked me, there’s a huge difference!”

He shakes his head. “Nice try, Fireball, but I happen to know you love me, too, so quit being so goddamn stubborn!”

I pull my fist back again and let it fly towards his chest, but he grabs onto my wrist and hauls me against him.

“Stop fucking hitting me! What is it with you and pain?!”

“Stop fucking talking about love!” I fire back, choosing to ignore the pain remark. “You’re just saying that because you feel guilty about what happened in high school.”

“It has nothing to do with guilt. I LOVE YOU! I FUCKING LOVE THE SHIT OUT OF YOU!” He screams into my face.

I stomp my foot like a two-year-old and try to hold back the words that are on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t stop them. I can’t stop the truth from flying out of my mouth.

“GODDAMMIT, I HATE THAT I LOVE YOU, TOO!”

His face immediately loses every ounce of anger and his jaw drops.

I want to laugh. It’s right there, bubbling around in my belly and I want so badly to just throw my head back and let it out, but I can’t do that. I just told him I loved him right back, and now I’m even more pissed than I was before. This irritating man made me fall in love with him all over again, dammit!