AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She raises an unamused eyebrow at me. “Oh, is it there, Boxer Joe? So you not only look like Superman but have his X-ray vision too?”
“Huh?” I turn back to her.
“Your hand is swollen and red. Already. You need an X-ray.”
“Not gonna happen, sweetheart. No way that will stay quiet.”
“If you won’t get an X-ray, then let me examine it to make sure it’s not fractured, and then you better keep this ice on it.”
“Fine,” I grumble, leaning back in the recliner and allowing Katy to put her hands on mine and her body between my spread legs. Now it’s my turn for a smug grin.
“No fracture that I can tell,” she says when she’s done. “At least not an obvious one.”
Katy’s phone starts going off with text pages, and I stand, threading my good hand through her hair and kissing her like my ex-best friend who wants my girl is watching. I kiss Katy until she’s breathless and her lips are glossed from mine.
“I’ll see you tonight.” Another kiss. “And I’ll be sure to give you that spanking.” Which she knows I won’t since she has her period, but that was more for Cayden than for her anyway. I shove her out the door and fall back into the recliner, putting the ice back on my fist because yeah, it is swollen and it’s definitely red, and it hurts like a motherfucker. Speaking of. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“She says you’re not dating her. It has to hurt that she doesn’t care enough about you to acknowledge you.”
Cayden leans against the head of the bed, his feet dangling over the side, his ankles crossed. I’m pleased to say he’s going to have a nice shiner by tomorrow. “Your face looks like shit.”
Because he’s vain, he puts the ice on his cheek.
“Funny thing… you found out I was nailing your wife behind your back for two years and all you did was leave town. You didn’t even seek me out. You just left with your dick between your legs. I show up here and flirt with your new non-girlfriend in the hall, and you punch me out cold for it.”
I relax back in my chair and throw my ankle back up on my knee as I stare at him, unfazed.
“I know who she is,” he says, his face rife with confidence, and he follows that up with, “She’s the third-year medical student girl.”
My eyes widen. “How do you know that?”
“I remember her name. You whined about that girl for over a year to me on the phone and in person when I saw you. Is Katy why you moved here? Did you know she was working here?”
I don’t know why I bother answering him, but I do. Maybe because I’m shocked he remembered her name or because I hadn’t realized I whined about her to him for that long. “No. It was a coincidence.”
“And now you’re trying to get her pregnant. That’s pretty perfect for you, Bennett. To be so in love and trying for the baby you’ve always wanted.”
My jaw clenches. “I’m not in love with her, asshole, and shut up about the baby. You, of all people, have no right.”
“You are in love, my friend. It’s all over your face. It’s in the way you look at her. In the way you kissed her just now and came after me for putting my hand on her back, and punched me out for so much as talking to her.”
I lean forward, pressing my elbows into my parted thighs while holding the ice to my hand and willing myself not to hit him again. “Why. Are. You. Here?”
“Because you never gave me the chance to explain.”
I laugh acerbically and shake my head. “Liz explained everything to me. There was nothing left for you to add, and I wasn’t going to let you rub salt in it just because you could.”
I move to stand, but he stops me when he rushes out, “I didn’t know she got her tubes tied.”
That pulls me up short and I turn to look at him. “She said you told her to do it.”
“No.” He gives a small head shake. “She lied. I never would have told her to do that. I know what having kids means to you.”
“And yet you fucked her behind my back.” Liz cheating hurt like hell, and her getting her tubes tied and not telling me was a crushing blow. But Cayden was my best friend for nearly two decades. The one person—other than my mother and Liz—in my life who I felt I knew and could trust with anything.
It gutted me when I found out it was him. And when the accusations started, he kept his mouth shut. He didn’t come to my defense even though he knew I’d never do any of the things they were saying about me. That was crushing.
I was alone with no one on my side, no one I could trust, losing the life I loved, the one I had built, and all the people in it. And now he’s here fucking with Katy, the one good thing I have going, and I can’t stand it.
