Page 29

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

carter

Arden and Penny are drunk.

Like, the wasted kind of drunk. There isn’t going to be an ice cream date after this event. No, I’m currently hauling them both into the back of my G-Wagon like they’re bales of hay while Lowesy climbs into the front seat with a look of regret.

“How did this get so out of hand?” he murmurs.

Probably around the fourth tequila shot, but I’m not a judge.

I glance in the rearview mirror, to where Arden is slumping toward Penny, laughing so hard that tears are running down her cheeks.

It takes me a second to realize Penny isn’t slurring right now, she’s just trying to imitate Boston’s deep voice.

It’s not very good, but I applaud the effort.

“If she asks to connect to your speakers, say no,” Declan mutters, a look of fear on his face.

I nod, but just as quickly, hands are slapped on the back of his headrest, and Penny is hauling herself between our seats.

“Don’t pit him against me!” she seethes, reaching to grab his face. She pinches his cheeks between her fingers. “My playlist is beautiful and poetic and life changing!”

He cocks a brow and murmurs through her tight grip on his face. “One Direction is life-changing?”

Arden squeals a laugh, burying her face in her hands.

“I’m going to give you one chance to rephrase that,” Penny tells him sternly.

He stares at her, love pouring out of his eyes and stinking up my car.

“Lucky, I’m not telling him not to play your Ones N’ Roses playlist because I don’t like it.

I’m telling him not to play it because you go a little crazy when you listen to it, and this is a very confined space. Someone is going to get hurt.”

Penny grins, slumping onto the center console on her elbow. She sloppily smashes her mouth to his. “I’ll be careful. Thank you, baby.”

I’m starting the vehicle when the blonde whirls on me. The look she gives me holds just as big of a warning as the one she gave Lowesy. “Give me your phone, Forker. Tout de suite!”

I glance at Lowesy. “Did she just accuse me of farting?”

Lowesy’s lip twitches upward. He shakes his head. “No, she’s asking you to be quick. It’s one of the five phrases she remembers from high school French.”

“I mean, everyone uses that phrase,” Penny says with a roll of her eyes. “I can ask you if I can go to the bathroom, if you’d like. Then you’d see my high school French in all its glory.”

When she flops back into her seat, Declan shoots me a sideways look. That fear is heightened now, like we’re trapped in this G-Wagon with a fucking bear. “Whatever you do, press ‘skip’ if Def Leppard comes on or she’ll be leaving this vehicle in a neck brace.”

I drop Dec and Penny off at their house and watch him practically carry her up their driveway while she belts out a One Direction song at the top of her lungs.

Once he gets her inside, I help Arden into the front.

She buckles herself in and slumps against the door, red hair all wild and messy from headbanging in the back with her new partner in crime.

I shake my head, but can’t fight my smile. I don’t think this girl has let loose in a while. As much as she’ll hate herself for it in the morning, I’m glad she let her hair down tonight.

“You okay, Red?”

“Chicken nuggets,” she mumbles.

I glance at her. “What?”

“Can we get chicken nuggets?” she asks, peeling herself off the window. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, smearing her red lips. “The only meal I had was the lemons I bit into after that crazy woman handed me my tequila shots.”

I laugh. It’s still early. We were out of there by ten. Sweets and Arden barely left the bar that whole time unless Morgan and Emma slid up next to them. That’s when they’d go to the bathroom. It was like watching a choreographed dance routine.

“We can get chicken nuggets.”

Her eyes widen, bloodshot as hell. “Really?”

I nod, a grin pulling on my mouth that I can’t smother. “Really.”

She cheers again. Such a happy sound. A sound that jolts me back to life a bit, like a fucking defibrillator pressed right against my chest. When she reaches across the console and wraps her hands around my arm, that jolt turns into a full-on electric shock.

“You might be the best faux boyfriend I have ever had.” She sighs.

I hate the way my pulse is picking up at the tone of her voice.

“Had a lot of those, have you? ”

“A couple,” she says, and I can feel her smiling against my arm, “but you’re the best one.”

“The hottest, too?”

She sucks in a breath and pretends to think about it. “I’m not sure about that, but you might slide into that treasured spot when I see you holding a box of chicken nuggets.”

I slow at a red light, realizing that she must be exceptionally drunk because there is no way she’d still be touching me if she weren’t. I glance down at her, and for a moment, I think she’s asleep, but then she gives a little hiccup.

Not asleep, just wasted.

It hits me how much I like her. She’s a good girl, and someone I’m damn happy to have met.

She’s the kind of person you have to take a step back and appreciate once you get to know her.

Independent. Strong. The kind of person who you could bury under ten pounds of shit and she’d still claw her way back out of it, flashing you the middle finger as she does.

She hides it behind a hard shell, but this woman is pure sweetness underneath all those complicated layers, and I fear I might be getting addicted to the sugar rush.

I slide my hand up to brush my fingers against hers. “Did you have fun tonight, Red?”

“So much fun,” she says with a nod, her cheek squished to my bicep. “But I think I will kill anyone who is mean to Penny again.”

I glance back at the road. Yeah, me too.

I have an idea about that whole interaction between Sweets and the she-devils.

I am not about to voice it to Penny or Declan, but I am scared of what will happen if Morgan has the information I think she does.

I’m scared for her life if she uses it. They’ll never find her body if Penny gets to her afterward, and Lowesy will be right beside her, hiding the evidence .

Morgan is a dangerous person. I’ve had my sneaking suspicions about her for a while, despite not bothering to get to know her well. I don’t trust her. I think Danford got stuck with her young and couldn’t find the will to leave. I don’t trust her with him, either.

That girl is a snake.

“You feeling okay?”

She nuzzles deeper into my arm and nods. “I’m tired, Carter. Really tired.”

I glance down at her and my gut tenses. That sounded like it was about more than just tonight. Like in general, she is exhausted, and my god—I don’t blame her. All she does is work, and when she’s not working, she’s stressed about it. When she’s not working, she wants to be.

I slide my hand upward to cup her cheek, letting her keep her head on my shoulder.

“Get some sleep, Red. I’ll wake you up when we have the nuggets.”

“I fucking love nuggets,” she whispers.

She passes out. Hard. I order the nuggets and slide them into a safe spot, and she’s still out cold. Not willing to wake her, I drive to her house and only shake her when we’ve pulled up and parked.

She lets me help her into the house, and my instincts are begging me not to leave her. I hate this place on a good day, but leaving her here drunk and passed out? I can’t do that. So, I don’t. I won’t. She’s tired enough that she might not fight me on it.

She plops onto the couch, smiling widely when I drop the nuggets in front of her.

She looks at them like they’re made of pure gold.

I make a note of that. She dives in and douses them in ketchup, making these sinful little moans I definitely do not need to hear when she’s innocently eating a piece of chicken.

“I’m going to get you some water.”

She nods, swallowing a bite. “There are cold bottles in the fridge.”

I walk into her kitchen, not surprised to see it as bare and lifeless as the rest of her place. Snatching a water for her, I tread back into the living room, cracking it open and handing it over. She takes it with a weak smile and appeases me by taking a sip.

I drop onto the loveseat. “Can I ask you something?”

Her eyes snap to mine. Seems to have trouble swallowing the bite in her mouth. “Sure.”

I gesture to the living room. “Your place is a lot more bland than I expected from you.”

She slowly lowers the water to her lap. “Is that a question?”

“Just curious why. You’re all personality, Red. Big and bold and angry at the world. Why is this place so dull?”

She shrugs, reaching for another nugget. “I told myself I wouldn’t be here long, so I refuse to decorate it.”

Oh, well, I like the sound of that. That’s a plan that I can get on board with.

“How long has it been now?”

She won’t look at me. “Five years.”

Fuck. That’s not the answer I was hoping for. Five years feels like it can easily drift into ten.

I keep forgetting how hard this has all been for her. How each day is a struggle, with people constantly needing things from her. Patients, her sisters… Her fake boyfriend. She’s never had an easy ride, has she?

“You’ll get out of here,” I say quietly, nodding when she finally meets my eyes. “I know you will.”

She forces a smile. “Me too.”

After she’s done her meal, I help her to the bathroom.

She tries to take off her makeup, but ends up smudging it all around her face more than she actually washes it off, so I sit her on the toilet and take that gross piece of fabric she was using and wipe her face for her.

She stares up at me with those sweet brown eyes as I gently scrub her skin, watching me like I’m a snake about to attack.

Being the best fake boyfriend in her roster (and the hottest), I tuck her into her bed, smiling when she nuzzles into her pillows like it’s a five-star hotel. I almost choke on air when she pulls a stuffed skunk out from under the blankets and holds it tightly to her chest.

“What the fuck is that?” I bark out.

Her bloodshot eyes snap open. When she sees what my eyes are glued to, she pulls the stuffed animal closer to her and glowers at me. “It’s Stinky.”

“Stinky?” I cock a brow.

She dips her chin, eyes turning so cold that I almost flinch away from her. “Don’t make fun of Stinky, Carter. I will kill you.”

I huff a laugh. “I wouldn’t dare. Is Stinky a special skunk?”

She nods, burying her nose into its fur. “It was the last thing my mom bought me before she died.”

My heart sinks.

Fuck.

No making fun of Stinky. Got it. Anyone who does will end up in the morgue. I promise.

“Well then, I love Stinky,” I murmur, and I crouch next to her bed, leaning forward to press my lips to Stinky’s head. Her eyes go wide, a drunken smile taking over her whole face. “Goodnight, Red. Goodnight, Stinky.”

“His full name is Stinkerton the Third,” she tells me, like that is something I absolutely need to know if I’ve just kissed him.

I bark out a shocked laugh, but then she sinks even deeper into the pillows and blinks up at me, eyes truly soft for the first time since I met her.

“Yeah, I’m never going to call him that.”

“You really hate calling people by the right name, don’t you?” she mumbles, eyes drifting shut.

“Nah, I just like how fired up you get when I do it to you.”

A small smile tugs at her mouth before she lets out a long breath, pulling Stinky close and forcing her eyes open. “I feel safe with you, Carter.”

I blink, stunned by the admission. My stomach flips a bit at those words, and I don’t like that it does. This is a game. It’s an agreement. I need to keep us both on track here. I don’t want to hurt her and I sure as hell don’t want to get my heart ripped out, either.

Still, hearing her say something so deeply vulnerable gives me an immense amount of pride.

I give a woman who has not known a moment of peace since she was a girl some sense of security. That’s a win I’ll gladly stand on the podium for. Proudly. Give me the gold fucking medal. Right now.

I angle my head, reaching up to push her hair back.

“Yeah?”

“Mhm,” she nods, “just thought you’d like to know that. You might scare other people, but I like who you are. I see who you are.”

I stare at her, drunk and honest. A lump of emotion builds in my throat that I have a hard time swallowing down. That one hit its mark, right in my heart. The Beast doesn’t even stir. He doesn’t need to when it’s just me and her. He rests. Something he’s never done.

“Thanks, Red,” I mumble, knowing this is the nicest she’ll probably ever be to me. I want to cherish it for a moment, even when her eyes flutter shut again. “Have a good sleep, alright?”

She says nothing, just breathes deeper and smothers her face into Stinky’s fur.

I watch her for a second, mesmerized by how complex a woman she is.

She has so much on her shoulders, and she’s so fucking guarded, but she’s just a vulnerable girl underneath all of it, clinging to the scraps of her childhood that she had to leave behind before she was ready.

I don’t know why I do it. She’s asleep and nobody is here. But still, I lean forward and press my mouth to her forehead.

When I leave, I shut her bedroom light off and close her door, but I don’t go very far.

I lock the front door and park my big ass on her small couch.

She’s wasted, and this place is a walking episode of Dateline .

There is no way I’m leaving her alone like this.

She feels safe with me, so I’ll make sure that she is.

Reaching across the side table to grab a pillow from the loveseat, I bump my hand against her empty plate in the process, smothered in ketchup, and knock over a stack of neatly piled papers.

Cursing, I turn my phone’s flashlight on and aim it at the floor.

My heart sinks to my fucking ass.

I see my name over and over on these pages. I see my past staring up at me. Here is my mugshot from when I was twenty. There’s the one from last summer. I slowly move the pages around and my throat suddenly feels very, very dry.

I don’t know why this feels like a slap in the face, but it does.

This isn’t the kind of shit you can just grab off the internet.

No, this looks like it came directly from the police. This is my file, stowed away somewhere until it can finally be used against me. I’m proud of her. This is the kind of stuff that women should do to protect themselves. You never know what someone can be hiding .

But still, it stings.

I reorganize the papers and put them back on the table, face down like they had been. When I finally get somewhat comfortable on the couch, I stare up at the ceiling and wonder why, if she felt so safe with me, she got that snivelling little fuck to run a background check on me.