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Chapter Three:
One Night Only
At least eighty percentof me wanted to crawl under the porch and disappear, but I kept my spine straight as I rang the doorbell for the third time. I’d chickened out two days in a row and I wasn’t about to go for three.
“Come on,” I mumbled, rocking on my toes a little bit. “Just open the door. No one wants this over more than m—” the door opened and I forced a half-scared, half-surprised smile “— Destiny, hi. Remember me?”
“Oliver.” Her eyes widened and she glanced around us nervously, almost as if I was wearing a neon sign that blinked “Scorned Ex” above my head and her neighbors might see. “This is a surprise. Come in.”
She moved aside and held the door open while every instinct inside of my body screamed to run.
“Uh ... yeah, okay. Thanks.” I stepped inside, fighting the urge to reach out and touch her as the scent of her perfume hit my nose. “Angel here?”
“No, he’s working. Is everything okay?” She made her way to the kitchen and handed me a bottled water, not bothering to ask if I wanted it or not.
“Define okay,” I muttered, chugging half the damn thing in one go just to distract my mouth. “It might honestly be better if I come back when he’s home.”
“You haven’t changed; bad news always made your upper lip sweat. Just spit it out, you always feel better after you get the words out. Don’t worry about my feelings, okay? We’re past that.”
Don’t worry about your feelings ... you never fucking worried about mine.I dropped my gaze and wiped my lip self-consciously, but something about her words had me determined to do what I came to do. “I need you guys to either buy this house off me or find a new place to live. I don’t really care which one and you’ve got thirty days to work it out, but yeah. I need to sell this place.”
Destiny sat back on her chair with a small thump and sighed. “I guess I should have expected this would come someday.” She didn’t look angry or shocked or any of the emotions I expected to see, she was just ... there. “Okay, thirty days. We’ll move. Angel just bought a boat, but we can make it work. Were y—”
An angry little child ran into the room screaming at the top of her lungs about her baby brother being a butt, and they spoke in Spanish for a moment as her giant brown eyes stared at me skeptically before her mother sent her back to watch her brother. I felt something a little like physical pain in my chest as I realized she was the child I’d once thought was mine — that could’ve been my angry little spitfire of a daughter.
“Yeah, great,” I said finally, awkwardly, turning back to Destiny and standing up. “I’m sorry about this, for what it’s worth. I saved this house for last because I didn’t wanna do this.”
“You were always too nice for your own good. Thank you for letting us get on our feet here. We wouldn’t be where we are if it wasn’t for you, so I want to apologize for how everything went down.” Yet she didn’t. That was all she was offering, and in Destiny’s book, I guessed that was growth. “Do you want to see Angel? I can tell him you’re in town or something.”
I shook my head with a small, pinched frown. “Nah. I’m sure I’ll see him at some point. If you need help moving or if you guys decide to just buy the place, let me know. Thanks for the water.” I tossed the bottle into her recycling and headed for the door faster than I cared to admit, but I slowed to a stop when I got to the porch. “She’s beautiful, by the way. Your daughter? She looks just like you, but she’s got Angel’s dainty chin. It works for her.”
Destiny’s laugh was low and unsure, but I could tell she was proud of her children. “I’ve told him that actually and he grew a beard after. Guess he didn’t want to be called ‘dainty.’ Do you still have the same number?”
“Yeah.” I melted a little looking at her — the way motherhood had softened her, both physically and metaphorically. She looked breathtaking like this and far less evil than I’d built her up to be in my mind. “Just let me know if you need anything.”
“You’ve done more than enough, Oliver. Don’t worry about us here, okay?” She eyed me warily, then asked me something she didn’t have the right to know, but she’d always been nosey and territorial when it came to the men around her. “You with anyone?”
“Nah,” I said honestly. “Figured out a long time ago it’s better that way. Did you and Angel get married yet?”
She nodded softly, holding out her left hand to show me a rock worth more than the whole fucking house. “You trained him well. Work has been going really good for him.”
“Good.” I rubbed the band of the ring lightly with my thumb then dropped her hand. “You look good, Des. I’m happy for you guys.”
“Thanks, you look good too. Too good to be single that’s for sure. Stop breaking hearts and settle down already.”
Fucking hilarious.“Tried that. Turns out she wanted my best friend.” It was out before I could stop it, so I smiled cheekily and waved as I waltzed my bruised ego off that porch. “Bye, Destiny. Let me know when you’re out of my house!”
She didn’t respond, not that I expected her to. There was nothing she could say anyway because she deserved that and deep down she knew it. I heard the door shut right as I was getting back in my car, and I felt free for about fifteen seconds.
What she did sucked. What Angel did sucked. The way I’d handled it sucked, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that now. All I could do was drive away and fight that desire to lose control — that desperate, itching, growing need to take a risk that paid off for once, to feel the highs that came along with winning a bet or wallow in the lows of losing one.
I needed that, the adrenaline rush. To make the blood inside my veins race my fucking heartbeat and see which one came out victorious. To feel something other than this, even if it was only brief.
But Sterling’s words, the loss of the jet, Zeppelin’s fears when her man had left the house to come rescue me with a gun in tow — they all reminded me that I had a lot to lose and I couldn’t be throwing the progress I’d made down the drain.
It wasn’t like I had a sponsor that I could call for help, though, so I did what I always did when I felt like I was about to drown — I called Sterling.
“Ollie, did you do it?”
