Perfect Chaos(59)

I sighed. He obviously didn’t want to talk about it. “He changes phones constantly except for the number I have.” Kai was always the one to call people.

I slipped away from him, walked over to the nightstand and picked up my cell. I entered the password and then another to get to Kai’s number. I pressed call. When Kai answered, he wasn’t his usual charming self; he was the hard, cold bastard who had demons in his past. I didn’t even have to say anything before Kai told me to pass the phone to Deck. I did.

I’d been around Deck enough to know that trying to listen and find out what he was saying to Kai was hopeless.

I walked out of the room, and with every step I felt Deck’s eyes on me. When I glanced over my shoulder I saw his face as he held the phone to his ear—pure, unadulterated wrath.

Tears pooled in my eyes as I closed the door behind me.





AFTER TELLING DECK everything, I was pretty fucked up … kind of like I’d been run over by a bull then ripped apart. I didn’t like that my emotions were all scrambled up now. I’d been hiding this from Deck—from everyone—for so long that now I was overcome with so much guilt. It was acid staining my soul, a soul that had already been damaged, but I’d managed to live with it by doing what I did. However, I had doubts. Not of going after Robbie, fuck no. I wanted him to piss himself because he was so freakin’ afraid. What I doubted was who I was now. I felt like I was part Chaos, part Georgie and part the innocent girl I’d once been. I didn’t know who the real me was anymore.


Deck had walked into his office talking to Kai three hours ago. I watched a movie, finding out Deck had no television channels, only movies, and then I sat by the pool hoping he’d come out of his office and join me. I listened for crashing or shouting, but it remained quiet; not sure if that was a good thing or not. With Deck, sometimes being deadly silent was worse.

I had tried the door to his office and it was locked. After the movie, I tried again—still locked. Since I was really bored and nervous as to what the hell he was doing in there, I knocked. His reply? “Not now.”

My reply? “When?”

“When I’m done.”

So, I made dinner, a surprising feat for me considering I sucked at it.

The band Tear Asunder would come over every Sunday when they were in town and I’d help make brunch, but that was the most cooking I did. It was a pretty big group now that Kat and Emily were with two of the band members, Ream and Logan, it was like a big family gathering. Even my parents often stopped by. Crisis had a thing for my mom—well, Crisis had a thing for every woman. The guitarist was a sex God … at least he thought he was. A blond one with a sexy ass and devilish eyes.

I had hit on him … more to make Deck jealous, but that was when I was drunk, and that night it wasn’t a pretend drunk—I was smashed. Deck ended up throwing me over his shoulder and taking me back to his place where the usual happened—nothing.

I pulled the tilapia out of the oven and sprinkled more lemon pepper on it then dished it onto the steaming green beans. I poured light garlic lemon butter sauce over the whole thing.

“You made dinner.”

I hadn’t heard him come out of his office or approach me and I dropped the sauce pan. It clattered onto the counter and remnants of sauce splattered. “If you want to call it that.”

He grabbed my hips from behind then leaned down and kissed the side of my neck below my right ear.

I melted, sinking into his touch like a flimsy stem of a dandelion. Wow. He was being sweet. I didn’t get why yet after whatever went down with Kai, but I was getting sweet Deck and after all the shit I just told him I was taking it.

He took the plates out to the terrace and I brought two glasses of ice water with lemon. When we sat and ate, it was still sweet and … comfortable. Deck actually opened up and told me about how he and Connor competed in JTF2 training. They were both the top of the class, and Connor excelled at everything involving water while Deck excelled at tactical planning. It was a toss-up with who had the better shot.

“And I bet he bragged about every single thing he did better than you.”

Deck chuckled. “Hell yeah. Connor was the cocky bastard who made everyone laugh.” Yeah, my brother had always been the easy-going one. Even when I was upset at something silly, he’d come in my room and within five minutes, he’d have me giggling. “When we were in deep on a mission … ” Deck paused as if thinking about it. “He could put a smile on the guys’ faces. Even Vic’s.”

I laughed, and the tension I’d been feeling slipped from my shoulders. I hadn’t realized how uptight I still was. I looked at Deck sitting back in his chair, the tautness around his lips gone and it was like … well, it was like there were no shields between us. We were two normal people talking.