Marriage of Inconvenience(Knitting in the City Book #7)(148)
I thought for a minute, trying to figure out what he meant, but my head was fuzzy. Eventually, I just asked, “Getting arrested for assault?”
“Yes. For beating the shit out of Caleb Tyson.”
No one could argue with that.
“Okay, well, at least now we know. Kat is going to be pissed.” Immediately, I knew I needed to amend that statement. Kat was already pissed, now she was going to be even more pissed.
“Yeah, and—”
A cry in the background pierced the air; baby Desmond was upset about something.
“Okay, I have to go. See you tomorrow at the hotel.” He sounded tired. I almost felt sorry for him.
“Yeah. See you tomorrow. Bye. And good luck.”
He made a short sound like a chuckle and we ended the call.
As I sat there in the middle of this giant information dump, I navigated to my phone’s recent contacts, finding Kat’s immediately. Next to her name was the picture she’d sent me when I was in Australia weeks ago.
She was smiling.
She looked happy.
She loves you.
I was a fucking idiot.
Scrolling past her picture, I tapped on Stan Willis and brought the phone to my ear.
He answered after two rings. “Boss.”
“Kat with you?”
“Yeah.”
“Where are you?”
“Still at Caravel.”
“What’s she doing? Can she hear you?”
“No. She’s in the executive locker room lounge thing,” he cleared his throat, then added haltingly, “She’s . . . taking a shower . . . I think.”
Of course she is.
Now I was thinking about her in the shower. Great.
“Did she say when she’s heading to the hotel?”
“She didn’t say anything about going home.”
I nodded, a plan forming in my head. “Okay. I’m coming back up. I’ll take over your shift.”
“You’re coming all the way back here?”
“No. I haven’t left. I’m just downstairs in the parking garage.”
“Okay. Bye, boss.”
“Bye.” I hung up, staring at the cement wall again, nodding as my plan came together, resolve replacing the rocks in my stomach.
We’d spent two years—two fucking years—with a misunderstanding between us. I didn’t want to do that again, not even for two hours.
So what am I going to say?
It was a particular place to be, this limbo. It had me asking myself philosophical questions and thinking things like,
What is love?
And, How do you know you’re in love?
And, Why does she think she loves me?
And, If this shitty feeling is love, I’m going to be so pissed.
Because if this shitty feeling was love, if this choking, desperate mix of happiness and pain I felt every time I saw her or thought about her was love, if I’d been in love with her this whole fucking time and I’d been lying to myself and lying to her and wasting time, then I deserved a big, fat fucking punch in the face.
“Crap,” I said, shaking my head at myself.
Worst-case scenario, she wouldn’t speak to me. But at least I’d be close by in case she changed her mind. Best-case scenario, we would talk things out, she’d help me figure out my dysfunction, and we’d end up banging on the couch this time instead of the desk.
Or maybe the shower.
I opened the driver’s side door, shut it, turned, and was punched in the face.
Falling back and down, the wind was knocked out of me, not because the punch was strong, but because I’d been caught unawares.
“Stay down,” a voice ordered.
I coughed, trying to clear my lungs. In the empty parking spot next to my rental car were three sets of boots. I glanced up, squinting at the owner of the boots who had knocked me down.
“Ricky?”
“Stay down, Danny.” This came from a different pair of boots.
I looked over. “John? What the fuck are you guys doing?”
I didn’t get up, giving myself a minute to cough and check my jaw. It was fine. I might end up with a bruise, but no biggie. Like I said, the punch hadn’t been that hard. Given the similarity of Ricky’s build to a brick skyscraper, the fact that my jaw wasn’t broken was a miracle.
He’d definitely pulled his punch.
Someone behind me made a grab for my wrist and I pulled it away, turning and glaring. It was Mark.
“What the fuck you doing, Mark?”
These guys. These were some of my brother’s guys, all sporting neck tattoos that looked just like mine, all good guys.
Actually.
No.
Not good guys.
Criminals.
But, for criminals, not always bad guys. Just sometimes bad.
“You got to come with us,” Ricky said, crossing thick arms over a thicker chest under an even thicker neck.
“I’m not going anywhere with you assholes.”