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I swallowed thickly and tried to ignore the way Deacon’s eyes devoured me as he ate up the distance separating us.
Those same eyes held so many unspoken questions when he stepped close to me, but before he could voice any of them, or I could ask him to leave, the doorbell rang.
“Whoa cool! Mommy! Did you hear it?”
“I did,” I said uneasily as I wondered who could be at the door. “Get under the covers, buddy, I’ve gotta go—”
“I’ve got it,” Deacon murmured, cutting me off.
“It’s my house.”
“And it’s for me,” he argued gently, and stretched his hand out behind him to hold me back.
It worked. I was so terrified of what I would feel the second he touched me that I nearly jumped away from his touch.
I still followed a few feet behind him after shutting Keith’s door, and listened intently when he answered my door.
After a minute, he shut the door and sent me a challenging look as he stood there holding a pizza box. “Knew I wasn’t going to make it in time to help, and figured if you let me in at all, you were going to kick me out as fast as you could . . .”
“And you think pizza will stop me from doing that?” I asked when he didn’t continue.
“No, but I’m hoping it’ll help.” I would have expected him to look smug then, but he was just standing there waiting. His expression showed that he was waiting for me to make him leave.
I grabbed the box from him and turned to walk to the kitchen. I didn’t look back at him, but I knew he followed me. “I find it incredibly convenient that you didn’t show up until Jagger was gone tonight, especially considering I didn’t know you were coming at all.”
“Graham asked me to come help, and, like I said earlier, I got caught up at the garage.”
I glanced at him from over my shoulder and forced a smile as I dropped the box on the kitchen island. It felt like a sneer. “Did you?”
“Fuck, Charlie . . .” He grabbed my forearm and turned me around, his shoulders now sagging with the weight of some invisible stress as his large hands moved up to grip mine. “I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry.”
The depth of his apology stunned me, but it didn’t change what I saw. What I’d felt and let myself believe . . . how he’d lied to me and forgotten about me. My head shook, but he continued.
“I fucked up, I know. I have never been more aware of anything in my life than how much I’ve messed up with you. I got stuck at the garage tonight, I swear to God.”
“I’m sure you can understand why I don’t believe you,” I bit out, and hated that my eyes burned with unshed tears.
Deacon Carver hadn’t deserved my tears then, and he most certainly didn’t deserve them now. Not when he could see them, not when he could get a glimpse into how much he’d hurt me.
“Give me a chance to make it up to you.”
“No!” I huffed sadly and shook my head furiously. “You told me exactly what you thought of me. You forced me to stand there so you could apologize and somehow got me to agree to let you make it up to me. And then you made me look like an idiot because I so stupidly let myself believe for one second that you might actually care about someone other than yourself! Because I believed that you would actually show.”
“Charlie, I do, and I meant to,” he ground out. “I nev—”
“No, you don’t get to try to tell me how you intended to be there for me after you finished screwing someone else.”
His large hands tightened around my shoulders, not uncomfortably, but like he was pleading with me through his touch alone.
But I wasn’t finished.
Deacon should know better by now. If I thought about something long enough, if I imagined how a conversation would go in my mind enough times, once I finally started talking about it I wouldn’t stop until I said every last word.
“And now look where we are . . . with you forcing me to stand still so you can apologize and ask me to give you another chance.” I forced a laugh from my chest, but it sounded wet from my tears. “How many times can you make me look like an idiot before it stops being some sick, hilarious joke to you?”
He flinched as though I’d slapped him across the face. “You think I find this funny? You think this is a joke to me?”
“What else could it be?”
