Page 12

12

AMELIA

I must be cursed or something, because I swear ever since I found out about Dex and his secret life, my life has been one thing after the other. Now I’m not only jobless, I’m also transportation-less. How am I supposed to get to my interviews without a car? Sure, I could take an Uber, but those cost money, and my supply is finite.

I stare at Richard across the table. He looks as if he doesn’t have a care in the world.

The bowl of chips and salsa in the center is tempting, though I’m so anxious I don’t know if I can eat. But Richard wouldn’t take no for an answer, so here I am.

“Worrying on an empty stomach isn’t good for you,” he says, pulling me out of my daze.

I move to grab one chip, dipping it in the salsa and biting off a tiny corner.

“Happy?” I ask, my tone defeated.

Richard’s eyebrows furrow as he sighs. “Amelia, I’m not?—”

“It’s fine,” I say, not wanting to sound ungrateful. “I’m just…”

“Stressed?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” I breathe out. “I just feel like…everything is falling apart.”

Richard shifts closer to me in the booth we’re sitting in.

The chili lights cast an ambient glow on us, and I have to fight looking at him. I don’t want to see the look of pity of his face.

Poor Amelia. Whatever will she do?

“I know the feeling,” he says, and his words make me stop. I turn to look at him.

“What?”

“I said, I know the feeling. Like the world’s been ripped out from under you?”

I nod as reality hits me. Of course, he’s talking about his divorce.

“Your divorce, you mean?”

He nods. “That…among other things. Like losing my dad.”

Dex never spoke about their dad, and I didn’t ask. I only know that his mother and stepfather have been married for about nine years, together for ten.

“Dex never talked about him, you know. Your dad.”

“The twins were thirteen. It was…hard on them. Not surprised he’s never really talked about it.”

“And you were twenty-five, right?” I ask carefully. Looking at Richard, it’s hard to believe that he’s in his forties. I swear, if it wasn’t for the grey hair he’s rocking nowadays, he could easily pass as a man in his thirties.

But I can also see the creases at the corners of his eyes.

Older men have never been attractive to me, but then again, I think Richard Rose would be attractive to a blind person. He’s just got this…aura about him.

“Yup. Just started playing with the Badgers. Suddenly I became the stand-in, whether I wanted to or not. I had a mom and two brothers to take care of. So I get it, Amelia. I really do.”

I watch the light shift in his eyes, and his words strike me in the heart like a knife.

Because there’s a truth there that I think Richard has never spoken before, perhaps in front of anyone.

But he’s telling me. That should mean something, right?

“I’m sure that was difficult for you.”

He shrugs, dipping a chip in salsa.

“I mean, what other choice did I have? My mom was grieving, my brothers needed someone to take care of them, and I—” He sighs before continuing. “That’s why what I’m about to say, you need to understand that I get it. I know what it’s like to be in your shoes, Amelia.”

His words alarm me, and I feel my defenses already starting to come up. Whatever he’s going to say, it’s going to piss me off, I know it.

The waitress brings out lunch just as his phone rings.

I breathe a sigh of relief. Saved by the cell phone again.

“Yeah. Okay, great. Yes, thanks, Harry!” he says, smiling, and my heart skips a beat. He hangs up, looking at me. “Your car has been delivered to our place,” he says, and my blood stops.

“Our place?” I ask.

“My place. Dane’s place. Tripp’s. We all live together?—”

“Oh. I see…” I say, tucking some hair behind my ear. “So you can work on it.”

He nods. Right, that makes sense.

So why does the fact that they live together create a sort of panic in my chest along with a bloom of wetness between my thighs?

What the fuck is wrong with me?

“Actually, that’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about…” he says carefully.

Even though he speaks softer, his voice is still tinged with that deep, gravelly edge that is some cross between a purr and a rumble, and I have to bite my tongue to keep in the moan that wants to escape me.

Maybe this is how a midlife crisis starts.

“What do you mean?” I ask as I stab at my smothered chicken.

“I mean, I know doing this all on your own can’t be easy…” he says, and I stop with my speared chicken halfway to my mouth.

My instinct is to hide, to tell him I’m fine. But I know that I’m not, and I get the feeling lying to Rich would only cause more problems.

It’s just a discussion, Amelia. Two grown-ups having a conversation…

“Nothing good in life is ever easy,” I say as I bite off a piece of chicken.

“Right, but with the right support system …” he says, waving his hand about nonchalantly, “it would be a hell of a lot easier.”

His gaze holds mine steady.

“What are you getting at, Rich?” I ask, feeling defensive. The way he’s looking at me has my nerves on edge. Given everything that’s happened today, it just feels like something’s about to drop. Something I’m not sure I’m going to like.

He shrugs. “Maybe if you moved in with us , we could?—”

“Move in with you? My ex’s brothers ?” I drop my fork. “Are you insane?”

I watch his lips turn up into a smirk. “That wasn’t a no.”

“You’re serious.” I say, coughing on my damn chicken. I hit my chest, forcing the food to go down before I literally choke.

“As a heart attack, baby girl,” he says with a grin.

“Rich, I’ve been here for like five minutes, I?—”

“You’ve been here for two weeks, Mia. Because my idiot brother fucked everything up, and now you’re what? Doing the single mom thing?”

His words shouldn’t feel as judgmental as they do, because it’s the truth, but somehow they make me feel judged. But before I can say anything, he continues.

“You’ve gone on how many interviews? Your car just shit the bed, and you’re stretched thin with Lyla as it is and don’t tell me you’re not.”

The nerve of this man. Seriously, who does he think he is?

I cross my arms, firing a glare at him.

“I am not,” I say, but even I can hear the weakness in my words.

Richie raises one eyebrow. “Our house isn’t all that far from our parents. Between the three of us, and them, you’d have no shortage of help with Lyla, and not to mention we could take you wherever you need.”

“I can’t do that,” I tell him, shaking my head. Panic builds up within me. It’s too much. I can’t?—

“Can’t or won’t?” Rich says, his gaze imploring.

“I can’t be a burden like that. Not to you, or your brothers or—” My voice cracks as the words between us echo in the air.

My mind wanders back to Florida, to being alone. Alone while Dex was off at practice, or alone during games…

So many times I’d wished my parents could have stayed longer than the week they visited after Lyla was born. Before everything went to shit…

I hate to admit that Rich is right, that I am struggling. It’s one thing to know that yourself, but another to say it out loud, and I am not in the market for anyone’s sympathy or charity. I can make my own way, and I will. For me and my daughter. I don’t want to be beholden to anyone again, not after Dex’s betrayal…

“Don’t give me that bullshit, Amelia. That’s an excuse.”

“You are an asshole,” I tell him, fighting back tears. “I’m not some thing you can just boss around and?—”

“Maybe I am. But I’m not a liar, and you know I’m right.”

That’s when the waitress thankfully comes with our check, and I breathe a sigh of relief. I pull up my phone, fuming as I try to queue up an Uber, but Rich only grabs my phone, plucking it right from my hands.

“Hey!” I yell, but I watch as he swipes off of the app before locking it and stuffing it in his back pocket. He glares at me, that steady gaze back and full force. I feel like I can’t move, even if I wanted to. Something about that stare, that gaze…it’s stern, commanding.

The kind of look that says, “Try me and see what happens.”

“I told you I’d take you home. I’m taking you home. I’m not risking you getting fucking assaulted or kidnapped by some stranger.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” I say, but he shrugs.

“I’ll take it, if it means you’re safe .”

The waitress brings back his card and some boxes for our food, and I am so flabbergasted I can’t even begin to speak. Though every part of me wants to tell him off, there’s a part of me, even if it’s small, that likes the authority in his voice, the authority of his demand.

It’s simple.

“Fine,” I say begrudgingly as I load up my take-out box. When I get up, he’s right next to me, his hand on the small of my back, his heat surrounding me. I look up at those amber eyes, expecting to see fire and brimstone if his gravelly command is anything to go by, but that’s not what I see at all.

Instead, I see a softness that should not be there, not one bit.

It’s almost… understanding.

I swallow harshly as he says, “Good girl.”

Every nerve in my body snaps to attention once more, just at the sound of those two words. My gaze dips to his lips, then back to his eyes, and he moves closer just a fraction. Close enough that I can smell his heady cologne and feel the warmth of his breath on my skin.

“You don’t have to fight me, you know,” he says softly, the chili lights casting an orangey-red glow on him. Beneath them it’s hard to see the gray in his hair, or the creases at his eyes. Underneath them, for a moment, it’s almost like he’s someone else. Someone familiar but also…new.

“I don’t want to fight with you, Rich,” I tell him, and it’s the truth. He nods.

“Then don’t,” he says simply as he gently pushes me toward the exit.

“It’s not that simple,” I tell him, my voice barely a whisper.

We walk in silence to the car, and I think maybe this is it. Maybe I’ve just fucked everything up for good this time. He stops and opens my door before I can get my hand to the handle. He sighs heavily as he nods for me to get in.

I do so without hesitation.

A moment later, he takes his seat, closing his door, but he doesn’t turn the car on. Instead, he turns and looks at me.

“Just…think about it, okay?” he says, not giving me a chance to respond before he turns the radio on and pulls out of the parking lot, leaving a thick tension in the air.

I text Sam as soon as I get into the car, telling her what happened. Though I feel more on the spot than ever telling her Richard is the one who came to my rescue and gave me a ride. Of course, she gives me hell that I could have called her, and honestly, I could have.

I should have told Tripp and Rich that I could handle this on my own, but…

But I also didn’t want to be rude when Tripp offered to help. And then Rich showed up, and…

The whole way home, I can’t stop thinking about what he said, or that moment when he leaned in. At the restaurant. The moment I could smell his scent, feel the warmth of his breath on my skin.

I can’t deny that Richard Rose pisses me off. But I can’t deny that beneath his infuriating asshole-ishness, there’s a part of me that likes that. His audacity, his utter indifference, the way he just says what he wants without repercussion.

And isn’t it every woman’s dream for a big, hot, older man to sweep her off her feet and take care of her?

Maybe.

But I also know that what he’s proposing isn’t anything beyond just support. He’s family. Well, sort of. He’s Lyla’s family…

Which makes me stop dead in my train of thought and I turn to look at him just as we pull up to my apartment.

He turns the car off, and I think he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t. Instead, he just gets out of the car, opens my door, and waits.

And suddenly I feel the strangest wave of guilt.

He’s just trying to help, I tell myself. He didn’t have to show up when Tripp called, didn’t have to call a tow, didn’t have to buy my lunch, and he certainly didn’t have to drive me home after I was so standoffish.

“Thank you,” I say as I get out of the car, biting my lip. I don’t look at him directly, because I can’t. I shut the door quietly as he breathes heavily.

“You don’t have to thank me,” he says.

I steal a glance up at him, feeling my stomach turning with embarrassment.

“Walk me to the door?” I ask, but it’s as if the words in my throat that I really want to say are stuck.

I’m sorry.

“Of course, sweetheart,” Rich says, his tone somewhat softer, but still with that raspy edge that makes my insides warm.

I let him walk me to my door.

“Sam should be by soon…” I say, looking up at him. Part of me wants to invite him in, if only to be polite. But the other part wants to keep him out, keep him from seeing the truth. It’s one thing for him to suspect me, it’s another to see the reality of his words.

“Text me if you need anything,” he says as he leans in close to me. He captures my gaze with his, his jaw firmly set. The sunlight catches the slivers of silver in his hair, lighting him up like fire.

It’s impossible not to let out the soft sigh that escapes my throat. Not when he smells like this, not when he is looking at me like this.

“Uh-huh,” I say, because all of a sudden, I forget how to speak.

Richard nods, licking his lips as he takes a step backward, and the air rushes in.

Gone is the suffocating feeling, the warmth and the draw of Richard Rose.