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I jumped when Cannon’s voice came from directly behind me.
Whirling around, I pressed a hand to my chest and hissed, “Shit. Where did you come from?”
He didn’t offer an answer. Narrowing his dark eyes, he widened his stance. “I tried calling you last night. About once every hour until midnight.”
Shoulders relaxing, I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. I kind of figured he’d blow up my phone, which was why I’d temporarily blocked his number when I’d been in the back of my truck last night, leaving Dandridge Hall behind. Which reminded me, I really needed to unblock him now.
But I wasn’t about to tell Cannon that. Furrowing my brow, I said, “Did you? Sorry. I turned my phone off.”
“Mm-hmm,” he murmured, his tone telling. He was pissed. “So, what’d you end up doing with Nicholl’s girl?”
My jaw worked and teeth clenched, because God, I hated that term. Nicholl’s girl. It didn’t even roll off the tongue right. Besides, she wasn’t Nicholl’s anything. Not any longer.
“You already know what we did,” I said, glancing away. “No one knew where else to take her, so Izzy drove us to my place.”
“Did you ever get hold of any of her family or friends?” he prodded.
I don’t know why I was so hesitant to tell him what happened. Probably because I already knew he’d grow judgmental and lecture me if he knew the entire story. So I continued to let him pull everything out of me one question at a time.
“Yep,” I said, turning to start back toward the business building. “Her parents came for her.”
“Ooh, already met the parents, huh?” he teased, sidling up beside me so he could bump his shoulder into mine, even though the acid layered behind his tone told me the joke wasn’t very light-hearted. “Wow. Moving kind of fast there, aren’t you?”
Fed up with all the ice wafting off him, I jarred to a halt and spun to glare at him. “Is there something you want to say to me?”
“Yeah,” he growled, his brown eyes flashing with heat as he stopped and swung around to face off with me. “What the fuck is wrong with you, getting yourself tangled up in their lover’s quarrel? Are you for real right now? Do you actually want your life to turn into a shit storm because you know that’s what’s going to come from this, right? Nothing good can come from messing around with that girl.”
“Jesus,” I cried, scowling back. “You sound as if I planned this and we actually did something tawdry and wrong together. I didn’t have a choice, man. She ran into me, not the other way around. And all I did was help her get away from him.”
“Right,” he said slowly, clearly not believing me. “She ran into you, out of all the people on the entire fucking planet. It had to be you who helped her.”
“Just what the hell are you implying, Jamaal?”
“Nothing, nothing,” he started, lifting his hands in surrender and taking a cowed step back, though I seriously doubted the tone in my voice or the fact that I’d used his given name like some kind of scolding mother had intimidated him in the least. And clearly it hadn’t, because a second later, his eyes flashed and he pointed at me. “I just think it’s awfully coincidental, you know, that you were the one who was there for her at the exact moment things between her and Nicholl went south.”
I shook my head and ground my teeth, glancing away, before coming back to say, “Well, I don’t know what else to tell you, because that’s the honest-to-God truth. Stop pissing me off with your accusations. I stepped out of Izzy’s room, and there she was, plowing right into me. The girl needed help. What else did you expect me to do, kick her out? Or open the door and let Nicholl just have at her? She was an emotional wreck; he would’ve ripped her to shreds.”
Cannon merely shook his head, his jaw going hard. “Not your problem, man. She was not your problem. You just opened a whole can of worms with him that I know you’re not going to be able to handle.”
“Wow.” I took a step back and shook my head at him. “You know what? Fuck you very much for having no faith in me. I saw someone in need so I helped her. End of story. I’m not the bad guy here. And I’m not going to feel bad about what I did.”
“And you’re sure she was in need?”
“I don’t even know what the fuck that means. You saw her for yourself. She needed help.”
Cannon merely shook his head as if disappointed. “Except that’s not even what this is about,” he said softly. “It’s about the fact that you put your nose where it didn’t belong, right in the middle of Nicholl and his woman’s business. Hell, I bet she probably just caught him cheating is all. But now it’s sticky and complicated because you had to get involved.”
I shook my head. “You didn’t see the look in her eyes. You would’ve helped her too.”
“The fuck I would have. I wouldn’t piss on that female if she were on fire.”
I pulled back, shocked by the venom and hatred in his voice. “Don’t be that way,” I warned softly. “Don’t act like she’s the bad guy here. She never did anything wrong.”
“Whatever.” He sniffed and glanced away. “That clueless bitch spread her legs—”
“Hey,” I growled shoving him in the chest. “Don’t.”
This time, Cannon really did look contrite when he lifted his hands in apology. “Sorry, sorry,” he said, only to sigh out his disgust and revise, “That nice young lady spread her legs for evil incarnate for three years straight. If you ask me, she nev
