With a straw half chewed hanging out of his mouth, he approached us. Miranda cleared her throat and looked worried, but smiled anyway. “Oh, this is him now. Conner, this is my boss and my friend Amy.”
“Nice to meet you.” Oh my God!
It was hard to not hyperventilate. I felt like I was meeting a celebrity instead of a normal person. His southern drawl made me want to scream like a girl seeing a boy band. “Love the accent. Your sister tells me you’re like a real cowboy.”
He cocked his eyebrow and looked at Miranda then finally back to me. “Let me know if you ever wanna ride.”
I just sat there stunned that he’d said something like that to me. He had to know I was married. Who says something like that when you first meet someone?
Miranda started screaming at her brother, enough for him to leave the room. I left a short while afterwards for several reasons. The first being that I thought her brother was the biggest asshole I had ever met in my life and also because I was worried Rick would come looking for me. I knew they offered to hide my car, but I was still too scared to involve them.
Going home was a mistake. He didn’t hit me again, but I was called every name in the book before he finally fell asleep on the couch. His daughter, Shelby, left to stay with a friend as I laid in my room balling. Sometime in the middle of the night, I felt arms wrapping around me and bad breath kissing all over my face. I was afraid that if I fought him, he would hurt me, so I let him have his way with me. It felt like it took forever and when it was finally over, I went in the bathroom and cried some more.
He left that next day and when he came home after his run, everything calmed down again. Weeks passed and nothing bad happened. Just to be safe, I started hiding money, setting myself up for some kind of escape plan in case it did happen again.
A while later, I came home from work and he was there waiting for me. He came at me, accusing me of cheating on him. I knew it was ridiculous, but it didn’t matter. He got three good swings in before his daughter walked into the room. He stopped when he saw her and I took it as a way to get out of the house. We went grocery shopping and when I got back to the house, he was passed out.
My step daughter went to her friends, while I drove as fast as I could to Miranda’s house. There was no way I was going to be alone all night with him. I was starting to be afraid for my life and I didn’t have enough money to disappear.
Since it was already dark, Ty and Miranda were getting settled in for the evening. I was a wreck and Miranda did her best to comfort me, but I knew she was tired. When her brother came in looking like death, I refused to look at him at first, but as the time passed, I pulled Miranda to the side. Her brother needed someone to keep him straight and I needed something to keep my mind off of Rick. “I will stay up with him.”
“I can’t ask you to do that. He is a mess.”
I insisted. “It’s fine.”
“I know you think he’s an ass.” She was right, I did.
“It doesn’t matter. You’re my best friend. I love you and I will help your brother. The worst he can do is hit on me and I have no interest in someone like him. Just go get some rest.”
I watched her walk into her bedroom and shut the door before I turned around and saw Conner staring at me on the couch.
Chapter 3
Conner
I shouldn’t have let someone like Brina talk me into taking another pill, because I had to go through the withdrawals all over again. To make matters worse, Miranda’s friend was over and appeared to be staying the night. I tried to go into my room and stay out of their way, but I started feeling so bad that I needed to be around someone.
At first my sister wanted to stay up with me, but for some reason, her friend, that I was a total ass to, insisted that she would stay up with me. I had nothing to say to the woman, but there she was, just trying to be nice, even though her life was obviously a mess.
With the television on, it was easy to avoid conversation at first. Miranda had gotten us both a cup of hot tea before she headed off to bed. We talked about what we were watching, but never about each other and I just wasn’t in the mood to be my normal cocky self. Between the jitters and the feeling like I could vomit at any second, I was just trying to keep my composure.
As the night progressed and television got raunchier, Amy seemed anxious. She got up to go to the bathroom and when she came back she sat further away from me. Some romance show was on and to be honest I wasn’t paying it any mind. Her sudden movement caught me off guard. I’d like to say that it was me being irritable, but she really just rubbed me the wrong way all together. “I won’t bite you know.”