Page 13 of Crazy In Love (Love & War #2)

“You flatter yourself thinking I hate you.” Scowling, he rubs his elbow and watches while I get what I wanted— to pull my own suitcase out —so when the fifty-pound monstrosity drops to the ground and crushes my toe, his eyes glitter with arrogant amusement.

I heave fresh air, breathing through the pain that began at five o’clock this morning. Motherffffff!

“I don’t even know you,” he continues. “But it took all of five minutes to figure out that you can’t stand this town, you don’t want to be here, and you have no desire to be nice to any of the locals.”

“I’m a nice person!” Shouting. In the street.

Super nice . “If people have a problem with me because I… sorry, let me check my notes: exist , then there’s not much I can do about that.

This town isn’t intolerant of me , Christian, it’s intolerant of anyone who isn’t a fifth-generation hillbilly with a small mind and a little bit of inbreeding. ”

“Inbreeding?” He sets his hands on his hips. “But you’re the friendly one?”

“You’re being mean to me!” Good lord, just shut up already!

“I’m here to see my friend. I’m on day two of forty-two, and if you try really hard, you could probably go this whole time without seeing me at all.

Soon enough, I’ll be on that plane, and you’ll get your little family back, all to yourself .

Jesus.” I tear the handle up and drag the heavy suitcase from the road to the sidewalk.

“Forty-two days, Christian. That’s all I get.

Your inability to be a decent human being for six fucking weeks, when Alana specifically asked me to be here, is ridiculous. ”

She wants me to be nice to him. She wants to spare his feelings. But fuck him! Why doesn’t he get the talk about being nice to me ?

Only one of us gets to be an active participant in Franky and the baby’s lives. The other will be on the other side of the country, right where Alana left us.

If I’m lucky, I might get text updates and photos whenever she thinks of me.

Somehow, Chris gets to be the uncle, the next-door neighbor, and co-owner in the gym with Tommy, but he’s convinced them all that he needs special treatment.

“She told me to be nice to you, you know that?” I meet his scorn-filled eyes and burn him with my ire.

“She told me that you need gentle hands and sympathy because you’re oh-so-fragile .

What you actually need is a lesson in boundaries.

Stop pretending I’m your own personal villain when I’ve never done a damn thing to hurt you. ”

Angry—at him, and at me, too, because I already broke my promise to Alana—I jerk my suitcase onto the sidewalk and stalk back to get the second, smaller case. My movements are jerky and uncoordinated, forcing the case off balance and stoking the flames of my temper.

“Maybe I deserve gentle hands, too,” I growl.

“Maybe I’m sensitive, but not nearly as whiny about it as you are.

” I get the second case onto the sidewalk and position them, one on each side of me, before drawing a deep breath and bringing my eyes up.

“My only concern, from now until I’m on that plane heading east, is Alana, Franky, and the baby.

My job, as Alana’s best friend, is to honor her wishes and make this time as stress-free as it can be.

So I’m going to be around, and I’m going to do the things she asks of me.

I will be in their lives, and even when I’m gone, I’ll always be the one they needed when those Watkins boys were hateful and mean. ”

“We didn’t know the truth of what happened!

” He throws his hand up in frustration. “We thought she left for no reason. Or worse, that she took Tommy’s son and kept him away to be cruel.

Or doubly worse,” he snarls. “That she cheated and had someone else’s baby and was too fucking scared to own up to it. ”

“And all along, she was a victim of something incredibly horrible. And you and Tommy sure were comfortable hating her. Some folks might consider that a learning experience and a chance for personal growth. But nope, you’re out here embracing your hate like a good little small-town, small-minded douchebag.

” I turn on my heel and tug my suitcases along, but then I stop again and toss a pithy sneer over my shoulder.

“It’s telling, by the way, that you rate cheating as worse than the possibility of Tommy losing ten years with his own son.

Neither is true, of course. But your priorities are clear.

You value control over love. That’s not cute.

” I bring my gaze back around and stride toward the shop door.

I tear it open and make a hell of a ruckus, rolling the suitcases closer and stepping onto the threshold to bar the door from closing before I’m through.

Grumbling and scraping, dragging the stupid overweight cases through, I emerge on the other side and pretend not to see the dozen stares pointed back at me.

They don’t care about me, and they sure as shit don’t care to defend me to the asshole outside—why would they? They agree with him!

Screw them all.

“You need a hand, Aunt Fox?” Franky places his pen between the pages of his book and pushes his glasses along his nose. “I could help you if you want.”

“No, I’m okay, buddy. I need you to run the shop for five more minutes until I can get these squared away. Can you do that?”

“I’ve got it.” Chris sweeps past me, grabbing the heavier case and steamrolling across the store too fast for my brain to register what he’s done. But when he reaches the base of the stairs, he stops and glances back, softening his expression.

Though I know it’s fake.

How do I know? Because I have ten years of experience with Franklin Page, and those boys are damn near carbon copies of one another.

“You go first.” He waits for my slow approach and gestures up the stairs. “I’ll follow.”

“Seems your default behavior is dick . But when you have an audience tapped into the town grapevine, you sure know how to act right again.” I shoulder check him on the way past–since I can, and obviously, I still have a bunch of anger to work through–then I heft my suitcase up each step— climb, thud, scrape, climb, thud, scrape —and keep going until I get to the door that couldn’t possibly be confused for anything except an apartment.

I snag the handle, pray it’s unlocked, and growl when it’s not. So then I have to wait— climb, thud, scrape, climb, thud, scrape —for Chris to join me on the tiny landing, made smaller by my luggage crowding us in.

He leans around me, his chest touching my back and his arm brushing my hip. I can’t even call it a smooth move. The kind guys pull at the clubs in New York when they want to test a woman’s tolerance.

Here, at this moment, it’s nothing more than a necessity.

There simply isn’t enough room for anything else.

He twists the key and releases the lock, then shoving the door open, he extends his hand forward, like I’m some kind of simpleton who needs direction.

“I installed a new lock this morning.” He follows me in and rolls my suitcase just past the threshold, setting it out of the way.

“Alana hasn’t lived up here, obviously, and the lady who owned the place before had sixty grandkids and had given out too many spare keys to trust the place to be secure. ”

“Sixty?” I wander into the living room, which is also the bedroom, which is also the kitchen. Honestly, it’s cute as hell. “Don’t exaggerate for the sake of exaggeration, Christian.”

Finally, perhaps for the first time since knowing him, his lips curl into a ghost of a smirk. “I wasn’t exaggerating. Small-town folk with small minds only have two things to keep them busy. Gossiping is one of ‘em.”

Screwing is the other.

“I left a key for you on the counter,” he gestures toward the glistening silver, “and I fixed the shower ‘cos it was leaking. Alana brought linen and stuff over a few days ago and made the bed, but with all the work I’ve been doing, the covers got dusty, so I replaced all that this morning for you, too.”

“You changed the sheets?” Swallowing, I look past him to the bed that looks… amazing . Military corners, but with thick, plush covers and heavenly pillows artistically scattered.

Not in a million years would I guess Chris was the type to create something pretty .

“You didn’t have to change it all. You could’ve left the fresh linen on the end of the bed, and I would have dealt with it.”

“Just say thanks,” he grits out. “It’s easy once you get used to it.”

Smarmy bastard. But I’ll be damned if I don’t smirk anyway. “Thanks.”

“Franky and I went grocery shopping yesterday, but we didn’t go nuts, since I figured you’d spend most of your time at the house. Got you yogurts and fruit and stuff. Make sure you eat the bananas first, or they’ll go bad.”

“If they go bad, I tend to put them in the freezer until, like magic , they turn into banana bread.” I drag my suitcase across the room and deposit it beside the first. “Or, well, they used to. When Alana was in New York. Now, I just have a bunch of bananas and no bread.”

His eyes flicker with… something .

So maybe he’s not Franky’s carbon copy exactly. Because I can’t read this look before it’s gone again. Instead, I twine my fingers together and nibble on my bottom lip. “Thanks for setting the apartment up for me. I appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome.” He exhales a heavy breath and drops his gaze.

His jaw hardens, the muscles in his cheeks firming and releasing.

For every moment of silence he allows, the dread in the base of my stomach grows heavier.

And when he starts toward me, measured steps and twitching nostrils, my pulse skitters just a little faster.

Finally, he stops just two feet away and brings his gaze up to mine.

Self-conscious, I look down at myself. My clothes. My shoes. My existence, really. “What?”