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“Thank you, baby. I’ll make it up to you when you get home. In exactly the way you like.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ll get you the money, Brooke. But I’m not coming home. I already told you; we’re done.”
“You don’t mean that. Once the debts are paid, we’ll go back to the way things used to be.”
“No. We won’t. I don’t want anything to do with you. My lawyers are already working on the divorce papers.”
“I won’t sign them.”
Of course, she’d try to make my life miserable right to the very bitter end. “Then I’ll see you in court. I’ll call you when I’ve worked out something with the money. Just…sit tight. Don’t answer the fucking door.”
I hung up before she could say anything else. I sat there on the bluffs for another hour, watching the sunset and wishing my life was as carefree as it had been the last time I’d been up here.
I’d made so many mistakes.
Eventually, darkness fell and the mosquitos swarmed in, so I pulled my helmet back on and rode slowly back along the beach, then took the turnoff for Providence.
I passed my mom’s house and noted hers and Karmichael’s cars in the driveway, but I didn’t stop. My dad’s place was only a few houses down the street from Mom’s. It had been great when I was a kid. If one parent pissed me off, I just walked down the road to the other. But half the time my parents had been hanging out together anyway. When my mom and Karmichael had gotten together, my dad had taken it like the true gentleman he was and told her that all he wanted was her happiness.
I still remembered walking in and catching my mother on the floor, begging his forgiveness, only for my father to gently tell her there was nothing to forgive if she was following her heart.
That’s the sort of man he’d always been.
My mother had been his best friend and fiercest supporter ever since, steadfastly standing up for him whenever the media decided to try to play him as some evil millionaire developer who didn’t have a heart.
A junky brown car sat in my driveway, right in front of the house where I always parked. I stopped behind it and hung my helmet on the handlebars, shaking my head in annoyance. The sooner Kian moved out, the better. He could take his friends and their shitty cars with him.
Inside, I half expected to find Kian and with a bunch of half-drunk buddies, lounging in the living room, watching sports on the big-screen TV. But when I stopped in the entryway, it was quiet. I moved to the back of the house, the outdoor area with the pool and barbecue was another likely hangout spot, but it was quiet too.
That really only left his bedroom.
I paused with one foot on the bottom stair.
Maybe it wasn’t a friend’s car after all.
Maybe it was a woman’s.
Or a man’s.
Kian hadn’t had a preference back when we’d known each other.
Heat flushed my body, then settled at the back of my neck at the thought of him naked with someone. I plodded up the stairs, my feet suddenly as heavy as lead. My room was right at the top. It would have been easy to just keep walking and go inside, shut the door, put on some headphones until Kian’s guest left.
But I was clearly a sucker for punishment. I turned left and tiptoed my way down to his end of the corridor.
The bedframe squeaking was audible even before I pressed my ear up against his door.
Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.
“You’re wild,” Kian laughed.
“They don’t call me Rebel for nothing.”
Rebel? No fucking way. Jealousy speared through me, hot and fast, quickly turning into anger. Before I knew it, the doorknob was twisting beneath my hands. “What the fuck, Kian!” I bellowed.
Rebel froze, mid bounce on Kian’s bed.
Kian glanced over at me from the couch where he was flipping through an MMA magazine. His mouth lifted in the corner, amused, like he’d been planning this all along. “Oh, look. Vaughn’s home. Good to see you, buddy.”