Page 30 of Absolutely Pucked (Punk as Puck #3)

CHAPTER

EIGHTEEN

FORD

“Oh my God oh my God oh my Gooooood!”

Killian made a soft noise of distress. “Can you please stop screaming?”

I wasn’t screaming. I was whisper-screaming, and there was a difference. But Jonah was sitting ten feet away inside my office, and everything was about to blow up in my face. Killian looked like he was going to pass out—and with good reason. But if he lost this, he had a life to go back to.

Sort of.

Mostly.

This was it for me. This was my family. Tucker was never going to forgive me. It was bad enough I was housing his brother. Shit, he might even get that because he knew what a fucking bleeding heart I was.

But fucking Killian? Getting big, bold, annoying-as-fuck feelings for him?

He’d never speak to me again.

I looked over at Killian, and my heart crept up my throat, into my mouth, and settled between my teeth. A single word—ending this all—would break it. I should. I knew I should, but I didn’t want to. Telling him it was over felt as hard as agreeing to lose another fucking limb.

“I’m gonna barf,” I murmured.

“Not before you get your ass in here and tell me what’s going on!” Jonah shouted behind the door.

Fuck him and his hearing. Though in reality, he was probably pressing his ear to the door. He had trained his ears to listen for even the slightest sound of the puck on ice, but he wasn’t…Batman? Wolf Guy? Fuck, I couldn’t remember what masked jackass had super senses.

“Let’s go,” Killian said softly. “We’ve lied enough as it is.”

He was right. But it was killing me that it wasn’t killing him because telling Jonah likely meant this was all over. Tucker loved me, but he would ask me to make a choice. And it would have to be him.

Pushing the door open, I let Killian walk through, and then I closed it behind me and locked it. I didn’t give a shit if a school bus full of toddlers came in on a field trip. I wasn’t letting anyone interrupt this moment.

“Should we, uh, sit?” I asked.

Jonah was standing by a shelf, resting his shoulder against the wall, and Killian was hovering in the opposite corner, staring between my face, Jonah’s face, and the kitten sleeping in Jonah’s hands.

“I’m fine where I am,” Jonah snapped.

Killian shrugged, froze, then said, “Me too,” like he was remembering he had to be verbal .

“Fine, okay. We can do it like this. Whatever.” I cleared my throat. “So, Jonah. I’d like you to meet Killian Banks, my…lodger.”

Killian winced, and I hated myself because while it was true—mostly—it was unnecessarily hurtful. I needed to fix it.

“But he’s more than that. We’re also fucking.”

“Ford!” Killian said, horrified.

“Fine. Making love?”

“Jesus Christ,” Jonah whispered. He turned his face toward me. “What is happening? Like, this dude must have a solid-gold dick that comes beer because I don’t know what the fuck else would possess you to do this.”

Shame and guilt ripped through me. But so did a sort of righteous anger because before this moment, Jonah had loved Killian. A lot. When he was just Ian, he was a godsend who had been kind and loving. He was Jonah’s new favorite person. He had gotten him a kitten, for fuck’s sake!

“I didn’t come here to tear anyone’s life apart,” Killian said softly.

Jonah scoffed. “Really? So you pretended to be a homeless guy for what? Shits and giggles?”

“He’s not pretending,” I immediately defended.

Jonah laughed bitterly. “Right. The rich lawyer with the hot wife and everything Tucker lost is suddenly down on his luck?”

Killian stared at his feet and took a breath. “I was never rich, and my hot wife figured out that wasn’t in the cards. So…”

Jonah’s head whipped to face him. “So she what? Left you?” At Killian’s silence, his lips curled into a knowing smirk. “Ah. She cheated . Well, isn’t karma a bitch ?”

“Mm.” Killian sucked his lips between his teeth and rolled them. “She’s currently pretending to be pregnant with my baby because she’s not going to get jack shit for alimony after my boss fired and blacklisted me to make her happy.”

Jonah was silent for a long moment. “And you want me to what? Feel sorry for you?”

“No,” Killian said very quietly. “I don’t. I came here because I found some stuff out about Delia, and I wanted to tell Tucker. I wanted to apologize—without expecting his forgiveness,” he added quickly.

“So tell me how you tripped and repeatedly fell on Ford’s dick, then,” Jonah demanded.

I fought back a cough as Killian flushed.

“I saw how happy he was. Tucker, I mean,” Killian clarified.

“He was happier than I’d ever seen him before.

He’s so in love with that guy. I only saw them together for a second, but…

” He trailed off and let out a slow breath.

“If I said something to him, I’d ruin that.

I was such a giant, insecure dickhead at the bachelor party, and at the very least, he deserved an apology for that. ”

Jonah scoffed, but I could see something in his face softening. “Sorry I stole your girl, took your life, then was a giant asshole to you and made you feel like shit about yourself?”

Killian laughed bitterly. “I might not have put it in those words, but maybe I should. They’re very honest.”

Jonah grunted. “Will you stop fucking agreeing with me! ”

“No, because you’re not wrong. I mean, some of the details are wrong.

I didn’t steal Delia. We didn’t get together until after Tucker shut us both out.

I didn’t know she told him we—” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat.

Shit, this was entirely new information.

“It doesn’t matter though. What matters is how much he was hurt.

But he’s always been so much better than me at everything.

God, even having his body shattered apart, he’s wildly successful and happy, and I’m a miserable, broke, jobless loser. ”

Jonah was silent for a long time. “Why should any of us believe you?”

“I’m not asking any of you to,” Killian said.

“I know that makes me sound like a bastard, but none of your opinions matter to me. The only person that matters with all this is Tucker, and I don’t know if there’s any point in telling him now.

It’s not going to change the past, and I don’t want to ruin any progress he’s made. ”

Jonah’s brows furrowed, and he wrinkled his nose. “So why are you here? If you saw him all happy as a pig in whatever pigs actually like to hang out in?—”

“Mud,” I offered.

“Shut up,” Jonah snapped. “Why stay, Killian—Ian—whoever you are? If Tucker was your priority, why this whole thing with Ford?”

“Because I was being a giant, selfish dipshit. I had four grand to my name that had to last four months, and I thought I would work some crappy job where Tucker would never see me and live in my car until I could get my ex and my former boss off my back.” Killian’s shoulders deflated.

“Then my car went missing, and I had nowhere to go. ”

“Well…shit,” Jonah said with a heavy breath of air.

“He showed up at my door half-hypothermic, and I just…I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I couldn’t let him die. There was something in my gut telling me that maybe what Tucker believed wasn’t the whole truth.”

“It isn’t,” Killian said, “but please know that it doesn’t matter. I was in the wrong. No matter what Delia said back then, he was still my brother. I should have never let her come between us. I should have stuck by him.”

“Yes,” Jonah said fiercely, but it was clear he was wavering even more. “You should have. That was the dickest move that has ever dicked.”

Killian’s mouth twitched. “You’d do a lot for your brother, wouldn’t you?”

“There are days I want to literally string Micah up on a clothesline by his balls and leave him out there for the fucking crows…but I would also rather die than let someone come between us like that,” Jonah said.

Killian bowed his head again and nodded. “Yeah. It’s more complicated than that with me and Tucker. It…anyway, it doesn’t matter. What’s done is done.”

I held my breath as I could see all of Jonah’s thoughts playing out on his face. Then he turned to me. “This is killing me because I know you wouldn’t do something like this for a man who wasn’t worth it.”

My heart sped up a little. Fuck. Was Jonah going to forcibly out my feelings to Killian? If he asked point-blank, I wasn’t going to lie. But I also knew this couldn’t work, and saying the truth aloud would be so much more painful than holding it in.

“I need you to promise me you’re going to tell Tucker. Everything,” Jonah added. “Both of you know he deserves at least that.”

“Yes,” Killian rasped.

“But…I get that it’s tricky. Whatever the fuck is going on with your life…

” He started to wave his hands like he forgot he was holding the kitten, then quickly clutched her to his chest. “I get it, okay? So what I really want is for you to promise me that you’ll tell him before he figures it out on his own. ”

Fuck, that was so much worse than admitting my feelings.

Having to vomit up the truth like that? To Tucker’s face?

I hated Jonah for a moment, but it didn’t last long because the fucker was right.

“I’m going to tell him,” Killian said. “I just need a little more time.”

Jonah hesitated, then shrugged. “I can give you that. He’s busy being dicked all the way down to the lust circle of hell by that cute little accountant. No need to throw a wrench in that today.”

More borrowed time. It wasn’t enough, but it would have to do.

“We should get the kitten back to my place,” I eventually said.

“Yeah. And for all this,” Jonah said with a sniff, “you’re making me dinner. Real dinner. With meat and vegetables and everything. And don’t skimp on cheese.”

I did not, in fact, skimp on the cheese.

Jonah and Killian got the new kitten settled while I threw together some stuffed tortellini with shrimp and asparagus.

The dish tasted more complicated than it was, but there were enough steps that I could keep myself distracted from the chaos raging around my chest.