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The next afternoon was Ben's wake. The following morning was his funeral.
I blinked at the tears that started to threaten at the back of my eyes as I made my way into the hall toward my apartment. Suddenly, the door to Ben's apartment flew open and, I admit, a surge of relief flooded my system. If ever there was a time I needed some of Johnnie's light-hearted charm, it was right then. But then I stopped short, my pathetic little heart starting to pound hard against my ribcage.
Because it wasn't Johnnie in the doorway; it was a woman.
And she was, well, she was gorgeous. She was tall and lean (and I mean lean), with thighs that I would kill for. Her face was delicate, almost doll-like with flawless porcelain skin, deep brown eyes, and rich-mahogany hair that she had sweeping her shoulders that was slightly damp from, presumably, a shower.
Well then.
I mean, I shouldn't have been upset or even surprised. He was a manwhore; that was what manwhores did. They slept around. One woman was just as good as another.
"Hey," she said, eying me oddly and probably with good reason. I mean I had totally been staring at her.
"Hey," I said, nodding slightly and rushing past her toward my apartment.
I let myself in and closed my door, throwing off clothes as I moved through my apartment until I was just in my bra and undies and crawled slowly into my bed, falling down on the middle on my belly and letting out the sob I had been holding in for hours.
Ben was dead. And the Ben I knew and loved was the same Ben that knocked a little boy's teeth in and did god-knew what else to him. The only person I had in town was gone. His son had made me feel something then replaced me with another brunette just a couple hours later.
Yeah. That seemed about right.
That was how my life went- endless piles of crap I had to pretend I didn't smell as I sidestepped them so no one could ever say I stepped in it. How silly of me to think there could be anything different.
My hands covered my face as if I could silence the sounds of my cries with them.
Two more days. I just needed to get through two more days and things could go back to (somewhat) normal.SixShooterThe knock came about fifteen minutes after I heard Amelia leave for her meeting. A part of me thought that maybe it was her, coming back to tell me why she had shut down on me after the best fucking kiss I'd ever had. And, let me tell ya, I'd done more than my fair share of kissing.
But I knew better. So there was a coiled knot of trepidation in my guts as I made my way to the door and pulled it open.
Only to find Alex and Breaker standing there, looking travel-weary and heat-miserable. True, we had summers up in Jersey. But the heat there had nothing on the heat in the south.
"All I know is Alex better be right about you needing some friends by your side or I am gonna be fuckin' pissed at being in this bumfuck town. I mean, where the fuck is the grocery store?" Breaker asked, his light eyes looking downright uncomprehending of the concept of small towns.
"Two towns over is a Super Wal-Mart," I said with a small grin. It was good to see them. It meant something that they would do the exact opposite of what I told them I wanted just because they were worried about me.
"Jesus Christ," Break sighed, looking around.
"We thought you would be back by now," Alex said, shrugging. "When you didn't show up, I decided we needed to come down. You know... just in case you needed us."
My slightly sour mood sweetened with her words. See, the thing about Alex was, she had been on her own since her mother offed herself when Alex was just sixteen. She bounced in foster care for a while before she got herself shot of that and lived out on her own, slowly learning skills as a hacker as a way to bring down the man she held responsible for her mother's suicide. Until Breaker found her, she had been reclusive and introverted, afraid of getting close to anyone, terrified to be alive. So the fact that in just a couple of years she went from that sad, lonely girl to a woman who loved Break and me and Paine so deep that she would hop states in the blink of an eye when she thought one of us might need her, yeah it meant a lot to me.
"I always need you, pumpkin," I said, booping her nose and moving out of the way so they could move inside.
Breaker looked around, lines forming between his eyes like something wasn't making sense to him. "You're dad was living here?"
Knowing him for as long as I had, I read more into that than just the words. He meant it seemed like a pretty nice place for a fall-down, pass-out alcoholic. "Apparently he has been clean for two years," I said, closing the door.
"No shit?" he asked, his head tipping to the side, watching me.
"Oh look at you!" Alex said, sounding excited and I turned to find her moving toward Millie who was perched at the end of the counter.
"Babe, I wouldn't..." I started, but even as I said it, her hand moved out to pet her head and Millie's paw moved out and scratched down her arm.
"Ow!" she yelled, snatching her arm back as Breaker chuckled. "What's your problem?" she asked the cat, sounding genuinely offended.
"You got a cat now?" Breaker asked, smiling up at me as he pulled Alex's arm close to inspect it.
"Seems like it. She only likes men, Al honey, don't be offended."
"Well," she said, snatching her hand from Breaker's and looking at me. "How is that gonna work?"
"How's what gonna work?"
"With the revolving door of chicks in and out of your apartment?" she asked with a teasing smirk.
