Page 8 of Absolutely Pucked (Punk as Puck #3)

CHAPTER

FIVE

KILLIAN

My back was aching, every day a fresh hell since leaving home.

Sleeping on Damir’s couch for the last month wasn’t the worst situation I’d been in since splitting up with Delia. It definitely beat sleeping in my car, but I was developing knots in my muscles that were never going to heal if I didn’t do something about my situation.

I couldn’t mooch off my one remaining friend forever, and I also couldn’t keep letting the fear of what Daniel might do if I tried to apply for a job paralyze me every time I found the courage to think about going back to work. But it wasn’t as easy as submitting a resume.

I still wasn’t divorced, and I was only allowed to practice law in one state. There was so much to be done if I really wanted to start my life over somewhere new. And none of that could happen until I was no longer legally tied to Delia.

Of course, every time I tried, even the mere suggestion of going to court to finalize the divorce sent Delia into a tizzy. And the next thing I knew, she was filing another motion or adding something else to mediation.

I had no idea why she wanted to hold out for so fucking long either.

She’d been caught cheating, but California was a no-fault state.

Besides, I had no intention of asking her for anything at all.

I figured she was going to fuck me over with alimony, but I’d been working as the office bitch for years now, and my salary was still pathetic, so whatever a judge decided to award wouldn’t be shit.

Not to mention, I had no job after being fired by the man who was screwing her six ways to Sunday, so when we did eventually stand in front of the judge, there wasn’t going to be much to actually give her.

Her expectations of what life married to a lawyer was going to be like had been dashed the day I got my first job and she realized I wasn’t going to be making millions like all the suit-wearing douche bags on TV.

Her dreams of wearing head-to-toe Chanel and Gucci had been destroyed by my first student loan payment, making my paycheck sorrier than the pizzeria job I had during my undergrads.

It didn’t stay that way, but Delia had never been satisfied. At least, until she was. Until the moment she realized she had been trying to climb the wrong tree in the world of corporate law. I would never forget the day when I knew everything was about to change.

Daniel walked his smarmy ass into my sorry excuse for an office one afternoon, took her hand, then kissed it while meeting my gaze. “You’re one lucky son of a bitch,” he’d said .

I recognized the look on her face when she stared back at me. It was the same look she’d given me right before her sob story about Tucker breaking her heart. It wasn’t something I would ever fall for again, but it was in that moment I didn’t want to warn Daniel.

I wanted an out.

One PI later, and I had all the evidence I needed. Hell, I had more than I wanted. Emails and texts full of proof that she’d been manipulating me from the moment she and I locked eyes in Tucker’s hospital room.

The pathetic lies she’d given me about how he broke up with her and told her to find a whole man had been fucking bullshit.

The way she’d been sobbing in my arms every night, asking why Tucker wouldn’t love her if she was willing to love him just the way he was, had gutted me.

My anger with him had eclipsed all those little red flags she was waving.

And Tucker had been…fuck. He’d been suffering.

He was so goddamn angry at his situation.

He’d lost everything—himself, his sight, his legs, and his career with the NHL.

It just made sense in my head that he would push her away, and I didn’t want him to take her down with him if he was going to spiral.

She was easy to love. At first. She was kind and thoughtful and attentive.

She told me she was holding off on getting married because she wanted to make sure that Tucker was happy before we tied the knot, and God help me, but I believed her with every fiber of my being. I needed to believe that being with her was for Tucker’s own good. That this was something he wanted .

That everyone would end up happy.

It was too easy to agree, even if I knew it was going to destroy my relationship with my brother.

I waited. I pined. I worked and tried not to think about Tucker, who had cut all of us off.

I watched him secretly, every chance I could. I saw him in the Paralympics. I saw his triumphs when he won medals and then failures when he torched everything around him. I saw the socials he never updated, except once or twice a year, if I was lucky.

Then nearly a decade passed, and I heard rumors through my parents that he was finally content with his life. No, it was more than that. He was happy .

Inviting him to Vegas had been my one mistake. I thought he was willing to take responsibility for throwing Delia out on her ass. Instead, he looked at me like I was the monster. Like I was the asshole who had broken their home.

I should have known. Instead, I thought he was a liar trying to get at me one last time, and when I went to his room and found he was already gone, I breathed a sigh of relief. I thought I could do it. I could forgive myself for what had happened between me, him, and Delia.

I could get married and live the life I’d always dreamed about.

I got a promotion shortly after that. And when I presented her with the ring for a second time, she looked me in the eye and said yes.

I did not expect to be thrown out on my ass six weeks after our honeymoon with a smirk and a list of demands.

And I couldn’t explain why my first instinct was to go running to my brother, but it was.

It wasn’t the first time in the last decade that I’d wanted to run to Tucker, crawl into his bed, and tell him every dark thought that had crossed my mind.

He’d been my best friend once before middle school social pressures and our shitty parents ripped us apart.

He was the person I thought would always be here.

But we got older, and he got angrier, and it was my fault for not seeing why.

It was my fault for leaning in when my parents shit on him and spoiled me.

I couldn’t imagine a world in which he was going to forgive me, but the very least I could do was become a better person.

“How long have you been up?”

I glanced over to see Damir walking into the living room in only his boxers, holding a cup of coffee with one hand, using the other to scratch his balls. I rolled my eyes and looked away as he shuffled toward the front window and yanked up the shades.

The sun did little more than cast filtered light over his living room.

It was the epitome of bachelor pad, which wasn’t a surprise.

It was a wildly expensive, luxury Manhattan apartment paid for by his current salary and his parents, who came from old money.

It was everything Delia had wanted and everything I knew I’d never be able to give her.

Damir would have been the better choice, and if she hadn’t been so stuck-up with her head up her own ass, she might have left me for him long before this whole mess began. But it was what it was, and at least Damir was on my side.

He had been the nicest guy in our frat—the one who’d grown up with a sense of empathy and moral conscience, but he was still a frat boy at heart.

And that was obvious by the fact that he’d never settled down, and instead of doing his laundry, he threw everything out and bought new clothes every few weeks.

“I didn’t sleep much.”

He sighed and dropped into his recliner. “Dude. I told you to start taking the bed some nights.”

“It’s not going to help.” I stretched my arms high above my head, and for a brief flash, I saw Ford’s face behind my eyelids. It was weird to miss a guy I’d known for a handful of hours, but there was something about him that stuck with me.

Maybe it was that he was my first guy—at least, the first guy I’d gone that far with. Maybe it was the fact that he knew my brother.

But I think, most likely, it was that he was kind. The world was lacking men like him. Deeply. Desperately. I hadn’t met many over the years, and it was easier to just allow myself to sink into the stereotype.

Except easier was also so much more miserable.

“You’re making that face again. Bro, seriously, just let me?—”

“I’m fine.” I stood up and glanced across the room at my suitcase. I knew what he was going to say. He told me he would sponsor me to take the bar here in New York. That he’d hook me up with a job when it was done.

That I could be his little charity case puppet, and I couldn’t deny it was tempting. But from the bottom of my soul, I also knew it wasn’t what I wanted.

I needed to settle in somewhere. I had to make a choice about my life. Whatever Delia was going to do, I couldn’t just sit on my ass and play her dutiful little husband any longer.

I had more than enough amends to make without letting her delay me.

“Look, I got a call from Rob—remember him? He was Johnston’s intern?”

I did. He was older—a man who had changed careers and was only a year ahead of us in school. At the time, everyone laughed at him for being grey at the temples and divorced two times. God, if we only knew then what we knew now…

“What about him?”

“We’ve been getting lunch every now and again. He works at his uncle’s firm. They do mostly family court stuff, but the pay’s decent, and the work is literally nonstop. He said he’d be willing to set up an interview for you. Legal secretary shit, but at least the pay will be decent.”

Blowing out a puff of air, I turned to face him. He was still scratching his balls. Christ. “I don’t know, man. I’m not sure I want to be here. It’s expensive.”

He shrugged, knowing I wasn’t wrong. Even though his parents paid for most of his life, Manhattan was still hell on the bank account, which meant I wouldn’t survive.

Right now, I had access to zero dollars and zero cents.

I had no idea when I would be able to get my accounts unfrozen, and when that happened, I had no idea how much Delia was going to be able to take.

“So what is your plan, then?”

I bit my lip, then said, “I don’t know. But if I try to get a job, I’m afraid Daniel will go out of his way to fuck me over.”

Damir gave me a look, then leaned over his thighs. “You can’t let your fear ruin everything. And you can’t sit here and rot.”

That much was true. At some point, Damir was going to get tired of me, and I was done being that guy. “Let me see what—” My words were cut off when my phone began to buzz, and my heart hammered in my chest when I looked at the table and saw Daniel’s name on the screen.

“Don’t answer it,” Damir said flatly.

I shook my head. It wasn’t like I had a choice. They had me by the fucking balls. He walked out of the room when I reached for the phone, and I ignored the ache in my chest as I swiped the screen to answer.

“I hope this is about mediation.”

He laughed. “I’m not her bitch boy, Killian.”

“Then why are you calling?”

“I just wanted to let you know that I hated how things ended. We used to be friends,” he said, his voice dripping with false sympathy. “I want to work something out.”

“You and Delia are literally blackmailing me to keep me from getting a job,” I told him. “I know she seems to enjoy fucking me over, but I don’t understand why you’re in on it.”

He sighed. “Listen, I—” Then he went quiet for a beat.

In the background, I could hear a woman, and it was most definitely not Delia’s voice.

When he spoke, it was muffled, but I could understand him perfectly.

“No, hon. Just a work call. Of course I’ll be done in a second.

Yes, I understand I need to respect family time on vacation.

Give me two minutes, and you won’t hear a peep out of my phone. I love you too, babe.”

My eyes widened when he cleared his throat. “Oh my God. That’s Alyssa.” His wife. The one he had supposedly left for Delia. The one who was losing it all. Just like me. I almost laughed. “Was it the alimony or child support?”

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he growled.

This time, I did laugh. “I think I do. You were never going to leave her, were you? Fucking me over was a way of pacifying Delia.”

“Agree to her terms,” he snapped.

My brows lifted. “I have. Repeatedly. She’s the one who keeps dragging it out. She rejected my offer three times.”

He was very, very silent. After a beat, he spoke, his voice tense. “I see.”

Ah. He didn’t know that. Those two dipshits were playing each other. “If you want her off your dick, you have to let me get a goddamn job so I can give her what she wants. Keeping me broke is going to be hell on those secret credit cards your wife doesn’t know about.”

I could hear the click when he swallowed. “You’ll hear from her attorney soon.”

“And I hope I don’t hear from you after my next job interview,” I warned him.

He said nothing, and a beat later, the line went dead. It wasn’t a promise of anything, but it also wasn’t a threat.

At least, not until the text came in .

It was from an unknown number, and it didn’t surprise me at all that Daniel had a burner so readily available.

Unknown: Six months, and this will be over. Then you can do what you want.

Me: I can’t survive on nothing for six months.

Unknown: I can unlock one card. It’s got four grand on it. Make it work.

He was joking. He had to be joking. I couldn’t make four grand last six months. He was out of his fucking mind.

Me: If I say no?

Unknown: Then you won’t work again. Trust me. You know I know people.

Something had to be done. I couldn’t roll over and take it up the ass like this. Not from him. Not from the monster that was taking real joy out of ruining my life. I also couldn’t keep sponging off Damir either.

I had a choice, but it was a shitty one.

Me: Four months. Or I’ll rob a fucking bank to pay for a PI to ruin you. I don’t care if I spend the rest of my life in jail if I take you and her down with me. You know I have shit on her. Your skeletons are in your closet wearing leather and lace.

Unknown: Four months. And then you lose my number for good, and Delia never knows we spoke.

It was an easy agreement. And now, all I had to do was swallow my pride and live rough.

The only thing that was helping me stay sane and centered in all of it was the fact that this was my fault.

And if this was the universe telling me how I could live in purgatory to get rid of my sins, then I was willing to accept it.

I had no idea what a clean slate would look like, but I was finally allowing myself to hope that there was some kind of happy at the end of this ever after.