Stripped Down (25 page)

“I’ve got issues, Blondie. Just because I don’t talk about them or wear them on my sleeve doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I don’t want a relationship any more than you. Yet you...Shit, you.” He ran his hand through his hair and sighed, shrugging a shoulder. His lips formed a sad line that was barely a smile. “Never mind. I’m gonna go, all right? Staying here doesn’t make any sense.”

But, as he turned back into the house, I was stuck on one word.

You.

“Me what?” The words had jumped out of me, and I hurried into the house before he could go, kicking the door shut behind me. I found him in the front room, his back to me as he stuffed his phone into his pocket. “Me what, Beckett? Don’t just say that and then shut me out.”

“Shut you out?” His voice was calm, much more so than mine had been, and that was somewhat scarier. He turned, his gaze finding mine before he was fully facing me. “You can’t shut out someone who never got anywhere inside you, Cassie. You’ve pulled me in and pushed me away so many times I’m fucking dizzy from the whiplash of it. You’ve fed me so much bullshit over and over because you can’t open your damn eyes and see past the scenarios you create in your head. You’ve played your mom card so many fucking times to push me away that I’m surprised it’s not tattered and ripped to shreds.”

His words stung like hell, but I took them. Because he was right.

“I told you to leave me alone,” I said quietly. “I told you I wasn’t what you wanted, but you wouldn’t leave it. You wouldn’t stop trying. You can’t ask me to accept something I never wanted. That’s not how it works.”

Defensive. Defensive. Defensive.
Then it won’t hurt when he goes.

Your justification is bullshit, Cassie.
And I knew it.

“Well, congratulations. This is what you wanted. I’m giving it to you.” He snatched his keys from the table with a huge clink. “You wanted me to leave you alone, so that’s what I’m doing.”

I should have stopped him.

But I didn’t.

Because it was what I wanted. Wasn’t it? I wanted him to go. To leave me as I was. To let me go back to my life. Where he was nothing but a man in pants and a white shirt.

Not somebody who could break my heart with the barest clench of his fist on the other side of the world.

So that’s why it didn’t hurt at all as he walked out of my house and got into his car.

Nope.

That didn’t hurt at all.

If only the tears blinding me agreed.

He didn’t need to leave by choice because I’d all but forced him out of the door.

“I
have an idea.” Mia slapped both hands on the table she was sharing with CiCi. A red crayon scattered onto the floor. “I think we should get some pancakes.”

CiCi pursed her lips. “I am hungry.”

Mia slid her gaze to me. “Is that all right? Can I take her out for some?”

I wavered, but the moment CiCi turned her pleading, brown gaze on me, I was a goner. “Okay, but just one. Just because you didn’t throw up this morning doesn’t mean you’re completely okay. And light on the syrup, Little Miss Sugar.”

She grinned like it was Christmas morning.

Mia winked at me. “Don’t worry. Just one pancake, I promise.” She picked the red crayon up and put it back in CiCi’s case.

Together, they packed everything into her little backpack.

West had called me at eight this morning and told me that he was taking over training me. There’d been no mention of Beck, other than he’d said that CiCi wasn’t in school, so I could bring her in to work, as it’d be quiet. He had no idea how grateful I was for it—or that he’d brought Mia to amuse her while I worked. Apparently, as I’d suspected over the weekend, Mia had a special touch with kids. It was probably because, beneath her businesswoman personality, she was a kid at heart and a little wild.

Okay, a lot wild.

Mia quickly kissed West while I hugged and kissed CiCi. I expected my stomach to roll as Mia took her out, but it didn’t. That alone said how much I’d come to trust Mia so quickly.

“All right,” West said, clapping and breaking through the quietness left in their wake. “Now that they’re gone, we can do the tables. Grab a trash bag, and between us, we’ll have them cleared in no time.”

I did as he’d said, memories of yesterday morning flashing in my mind. I beat them down as I shook the bag out and threw the first few in. “In hindsight, we could have paid CiCi to do this.”

West laughed, grabbing the fliers off four tables before shoving them in the bag I was holding. “You’re probably right, but I think there are things such as child labor laws.”

“I don’t think it’s child labor if they ask to do it and enjoy it and you pay them in ice cream.”

“I’ll keep it in mind. I might hire her during school breaks to do this and pay her in ice cream.”

“I’d be okay with that,” I said. “As long as I still get paid for that time.”

He laughed again. “Deal, Cassie. I think we can figure it out.”

Encouraging. Good to know he didn’t hate me.

“Hate you?” He raised an eyebrow, his blue eyes bright. “Why would I hate you?”

“Shit. Did I say that out loud?”

His smile answered the question as he took the bag from me.

“You know... Because of this thing with Beck.” I fiddled with the bottom of my shirt before I remembered I should be working and grabbed some fliers from the floor.

West snorted. “This thing with Beck is partially his own damn doing. He’s a grown-ass man with the morals of a college graduate half the time, but his heart is always in the right place. Even if his dick is in the wrong one. Not like that,” he quickly added. “Well, about you. I’m not saying you’re the wrong place.”

“Don’t worry. It is what it is.”

He held the bag open for me to drop fliers in. “Is it? Because, when he left your place last night, he came to Rock Solid with a face like a submissive’s spanked ass. Worse than the morning after you got married. He looked like he wanted to ram his fist into a brick wall, and he’s many things, but violent isn’t one of them. Unless the Chargers are losing a football game, but that’s another story.”

“Yes, it is what it is.” I stuffed another handful of fliers into the trash bag, but this time, it was so vigorously that he almost dropped it. “He’s an insufferable pain in my ass with a complete and utter refusal to listen to what I want.”

“Funny. He pretty much said the same thing about you.”

“Are you two thirty or thirteen? Actually, ignore that. I already know you drew straws to name your business and that already answers it.”

His raucous laughter rang out around the empty club. “He told you that, huh? That wasn’t one of our finer moments, I agree, but hey. It worked.”

“It did, indeed. And I bet you love how it worked out, right?”

West cut his eyes to me, a twinkle in them. “I’ll never tell.”

I laughed quietly and scooped up the last of the fliers. I was starting to understand the friendship he and Beckett shared. They were so different, but in many ways, they were exactly the same. Their sense of humor was identical, and I guessed that and a good dose of trust was all they really needed.

We worked through another couple of jobs before West spoke again. “Cassie... I promised Beck I wouldn’t get involved in this when I found out what’d happened, but I feel like I need to break that promise right now.”

“That’s never good,” I mumbled, wiping the top of the bar off.

West put his hand over mine, stilling my vigorous cleaning, and looked at me. “I’ve known him my whole life. He’s basically my brother. Never once have I seen him act this way over anybody, and without putting you down, there have been a lot of those.”

“All due respect, I don’t want to hear it.” I took my hand from under his.

“It’s all right. We’re not talking as boss and employee. You can tell me to shut the fuck up if it’ll make you feel better.”

I sighed heavily and perched on a barstool. “No, but just you saying that made me feel better.”

He smiled. “If there is something real between you, then I don’t want the two of you to throw it away.”

“I’m not in the market for something real. I’m not in the market for anything.”

“Because you’re scared, right?”

“Yes, but also because I’m simply not in the market for any kind of relationship.” I slapped the cloth down on the bar and grabbed the fresh fliers from the end. I had thought about saving them for when CiCi came back, but screw it. I needed to be busy.

“Mia was like you once. When we met, that woman was the most commitment-phobic person I’d ever crossed, and I wasn’t exactly open to something more serious than a single fuck myself. Fuck me, I woke up one morning and found her fucking Googling ‘how to know if you’re a commitment-phobe’ or something like that.”

Why was he telling me this?

“But things changed, Cassie. We changed. Somewhere between my attempting to seduce her and her rebuking my advances, we fell for each other. We worked out our issues because our need to be with each other eclipsed them, and now, I couldn’t imagine my life without her. Shit, I’d shackle her ankle to mine if she ever tried to leave me.” He approached me with the other fliers, laughter in his eyes. “But that didn’t mean we had it easy.”

“Our situations are completely different and completely incomparable. And, without even bringing Ciara into it, I am happy with our life. It’s hard, and sometimes, I wonder if it’s worth it.” I swallowed hard. “But it’s stable.”

“Even if you could have a better life?”

“You know what, West? What is a better life? Who determines that? Because we might struggle sometimes, but I get to watch her grow up despite the difficulties, and we’re happy. We laugh every day at stupid things. Yes, it’s hard, and I worry often, but I can’t imagine how anything can be better than happiness in its purest form. If being a mom has taught me anything, it’s that happiness is never purer than when it’s in a child’s laugh.”

He stopped walking from table to table with me. I swallowed hard again as I set two fliers on the table as the instructions had said, but when he didn’t make the fifth table, I stopped too. Then I turned.

He hadn’t moved. He was still standing there, staring at me. “I owe you an apology.”

“I can’t imagine what for.”

He jerked his head toward the bar and dumped the fliers on the table. I followed him over to it and sat on the edge of the stool next to him. He ran his fingers through his dark hair and looked at me.

“When Beck told me he was married, I assumed you’d tricked him, and I had no idea who you were. Even when I found out, I felt the same thing, and honestly, that day I walked into his house and you were there and I found out you had a daughter, I thought the same thing. I thought you’d married him for his money.”

“Don’t worry.” I looked down. “He thought the same thing the next morning even though I couldn’t exactly remember it, either.”

“Cassie.” West gently touched the side of my knee and leaned down so he could meet my gaze. “Darlin’, I’m sorry. You might be the wisest, most honest person I know. And that’s why I’m going to tell you something I’m probably going to lose my balls for.”

My heart thundered in apprehension, and my palms got sweaty like a switch had been flicked. That didn’t sound good at all, and now, I was afraid of what I’d hear.

But I sure as shit wasn’t fucking prepared for it.

“Beck never filed your divorce papers. They’re sitting in my desk next door .”

I
t had taken me five minutes to convince him, but West called Mia, asked her to amuse CiCi for a little longer, grabbed the papers, and handed them to me. He’d also insisted on driving me to Beck’s house, considering he was the one who’d dropped the bomb on my lap.

We pulled into his driveway, and I was out of West’s Audi before he’d killed the engine. I stormed up to Beck’s front door, enveloped divorce papers in hand, and knocked on it. West made it to the door before he’d answered and stuck a key into the keyhole, winking at me. Then he pushed it open.

“Beckett Cruz, get your fucking ass down here right now!”

“Do you mind if I stay?” West muttered behind me. “I’ve always wanted to see someone call him on his shit.”