AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Anna rolls her eyes and jabs me in the chest teasingly, and I have to grind my jaw to keep myself from shoving her away.
I’m not rough with women—ever—but I’ll be damned if the touch of this bitch doesn’t make my balls want to crawl up inside my body. Instead, I circle the wrist of her hand she’s left on my chest and toss it back in her direction.
“I don’t know why you have to be so rude, Rhett,” she contests, ignoring my gesture of displeasure completely. “I just came to say hello.”
“Oh, I know, sweetheart. You’ll just have to excuse me for not jumpin’ for joy and shit. After all, hello is the furthest you ever take it. Three seconds later, you’re flyin’ out of town without so much as a wave.”
“Why’re you so angry all the time?” Anna asks, so out of touch I can’t stand it. “That’s what I wanna know.”
“That’s what you wanna know?” I challenge. “Well, I wanna know how a woman can be so cold she doesn’t even give a shit about her own flesh and blood? That’s what I wanna know.”
The ice that must run in the veins of someone who can’t acknowledge their daughter is something I doubt even reaches Utah. It’s so fucking glacial, I imagine it only exists in the arctic.
“Hey, kids,” Chase says as a means to intervene. I can feel the vein in my forehead bulging and pulsing with every beat of my heart, but the rage for this woman burns so deep, it feels nearly impossible to stop it. “How ’bout we shelve this conversation for now in the name of not havin’ a domestic right in front of the rest of the guests?”
I glance to my left to see the crowd of incoming guests is congregated around the dining room table, still getting their room assignments, and force myself to take a deep breath.
I don’t want to back off. I want to put the screws to this woman and then some. I want to finally give her the tongue-lashing she motherfucking deserves for deserting my Joey.
But she isn’t worth it.
She isn’t worth the thought, the time, the effort—not when all of that is better spent with the girl she won’t even acknowledge—the center of my world.
My Josephine.
Eventually, I assent to Chase with a curt nod. Even though I’m finding the strength it takes to put all this shit from the past to the side seems to get harder and harder to muster every year.
“Come on, guys,” Chase directs. “Let’s go back over by the exhibition, set up, and eat some lunch before we have to get warmed up and shit for the run-through.”
Anna rolls her eyes and then smirks, lifting her hand in a wave just to mock me before turning to sashay away. I grind my jaw so tight I nearly bust through my own mouth, but Chase reaches up and places a calming pat to my chest.
“I’ll keep her away from you from now on,” he guarantees. “When she started in this direction, I didn’t know this was where she was headin’.”
“What’re you doin’, Chase?” I ask in a heated whisper, now that Anna, Cutter, Lynn, and Bo are all out of hearing distance. “Fuckin’ her? Can’t y’all find any other pussy on the goddamn planet earth?”
Chase shakes his head and holds up both hands in a defensive salute. “It’s not like that, Rhett. I swear. I know Anna just as well as you do, and she could have a pussy made of gold and I’d not dip my shit in there. Swear it. Same for the other boys. They all respect you more’n that, I promise.”
“Then what in the hell are you doin’, traipsin’ around with her? Standin’ right behind her while she ambushed me like that? Goddamn.”
“We’re just keepin’ her out of trouble. Keepin’ her distracted. Last thing I want is to see her break your sweet kid’s heart over and over again.”
“I don’t even know why she’s gotta come back every year for this fuckin’ event. She knows damn well I don’t want her here.”
“Because she knows damn well she’s gonna get an emotional rise outta you, bud. She loves the attention, you fuckin’ know that. Don’t matter to her if it’s positive or negative, just as long as you’re thinkin’ ’bout her.”
I roll my shoulders back and sink the grip of my hands into the back of my neck. I know Chase is right, and still, I can’t seem to help myself.
Finally, I nod, and he pats my shoulder. “Not one of us boys blames you. We know how tough this shit must be. But I reckon’ the day she’ll stop fuckin’ with you is the day you stop givin’ a shit, ya know?”
I’m not so sure she’ll ever stop tormenting me, but instead of saying as much, I nod.
