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“And… I ate the last of that last night,” Haven admitted before covering her eyes with her hands in regret. “Sorry.”
“Apples?” I asked the kid.
He brightened. “With peanut butter?”
I cringed. “Uh, no. I don’t have any peanut butter.”
“Really?” Bella asked dryly. “Apples are the most kid-friendly food you have in your apartment? And you live with Haven?”
As everyone snickered, letting me know my new roommate possessed a healthy sweet tooth, Haven scowled. “Hey. I just haven’t had time to go shopping for myself yet.” Grabbing an apple from the basket on the counter, she found a knife in the drawer and began to cut it up for Braiden.
“Honey?” the redhead asked her son. “Why did you want to see Wick’s room?”
“Because Dad said if someone was really your enemy, you need to find out where they sleep.”
My eyebrows shot up in surprise, and everyone pulled back with similar shock.
Gracen was the first to speak. “Why the heck do you want Wick for an enemy, though?” he asked as he stole an apple slice that Haven had just cut.
Braiden blinked big blue eyes as he glanced around the room. “Because he hurt Haven,” he finally answered logically. “Didn’t he?”
“Oh, sweetie,” Haven said, going to him to cup his face in her hands and kiss his cheek. “Thank you so much for supporting me, but Wick’s not the one who hurt me. He helped me. Topher’s the one who hurt me. Don’t you remember Topher?”
Braiden squinted as if trying to remember Topher before he said, “The guy with the glossy, poofy hair?”
Haven sniffed out a laugh and then nodded. “Yeah, him.”
“Oh,” the boy said. Then he glanced at me. “Sorry. My bad.”
I lifted a hand, forgiving him. “’S all right.”
“Topher smelled funny,” he told me. “I’m glad you don’t smell funny.”
I knew exactly what he was talking about. Nicholl liked to lay it on thick with the cologne. I thought the shit he put on smelled funny too. Nodding to the kid, I fully agreed. “Me too.”
He bobbed his head back at me as if grateful we were on the same page and bit into an apple slice Haven handed him. “You got Fortnite here?” he asked.
“I do.” It was one of Cannon’s favorites. “You wanna play?”
“Yes.” He started from the kitchen as if to lead the way, only to call back, “You wanna play too, Mason?”
Gracen hurried after us. “Hell yes, I wanna play. Don’t you two dare leave me alone in that kitchen with all the females. And I’m Gracen, by the way. My dad’s Mason.”
“Oh,” Braiden answered. “Sorry.” Then he sent me an eye roll and whispered, “Like I can keep all their rhyming names straight.”
20
Haven
You know what I never got? I never understood how someone could just keep going after they fucked up so badly that not only they knew what they’d done wrong but the entire freaking universe they lived in knew it, too.
Like now, for instance. I didn’t want to be here, exposing my stupidity to these four amazing women I’d grown up admiring and wishing I could be like. I didn’t want them to see how awful I was at picking gu
ys. Heck, I wanted to call it quits on this whole being alive business altogether. Because I failed at living.
Like hard-core failure.
That’s honestly how it felt at the moment, that nothing I’d ever tried in my entire life had been worth the effort. I had to be the most clueless idiot on the planet for not realizing what Topher had been doing throughout our entire relationship.
