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My teasing is innocent yet the look he gives me isn’t. Hunger flashes in his eyes, and he stalks toward me. “I’m a bastard all the time. But when you walked out that door and I didn’t have eyes on you I lost my shit until we tracked you down. I can’t go through that again.”
“I can’t either.”
“I promise I won’t treat you that way when I’m mad.”
I sigh. People don’t change. Men like him are what they are. “I appreciate it. I really do. But it’s not enough Titan. I have to know I can trust you. That we’re permanent. Not just good enough until you get angry. I deserve better than you accusing me of being a gold digger and tossing me out.”
“You’re right. You do deserve better than that. I will do that from now on.”
“I don’t think you can. I know you want to mean it, but you can’t. I’m sorry.”
Surprised he doesn’t argue with me, I don’t antagonize him anymore by keeping the discussion going. It’s pointless.
I easily slip past him and head to the door he didn’t demolish. “Stay as long as you want to hang out with Pete. I’ll see you around Titan.”
I pull the knob until the latch clicks and then jump off the porch, running down the sidewalk to the road. Sprinting is unnecessary. He’s not chasing me. I ignore the sense of disappointment welling inside me.
This is for the best.
For him.
For me.
For Pete.
For all of us.
Addie
Iglance at the bottom right of the screen. Almost two hours have passed. Surely, Titan’s gone by now. The thought of never seeing him again stabs at my chest. Although breaking up—if ending things can even be called that after what we’ve been through—is the right thing to do.
I ignore the pain of already missing him and focus on the four jobs I’ve applied to. Two office admins, a home healthcare aide, and a daycare center. All of them include benefits which is great, but the babysitting is within walking distance which makes it easy to go home at lunch and let Pete out. Plus playing with a bunch of little kids all day will be fun. Most of the time anyway, I think. I hope.
I’ll have to come back tomorrow to check my email and see if any of them want to interview me. Nothing I can do until then but wait. Anxious to get back to my dog, I hop up, thank the librarian again for her help, and head out into the heat. The humidity feels like I’m breathing in a fog as I jog down the concrete steps. God, I hate this part of summer.
A huge black SUV idles on the street in ano parkingzone. The vehicle trails me as I start toward Devon’s place. I want to walk slowly so I don’t get overheated, but the Suburban creeps me out. The effort is fruitless anyway as beads of sweat already start to roll down my back, so I go ahead and pick up my pace. I’m going to have to figure out somewhere to take Pete if the house is unbearable.
The triple beep of a big truck backing up clangs in the otherwise silent air. Then a rumble shakes the ground before the honking resumes. There aren’t any construction zones that I know of in this neighborhood densely packed with shotgun houses. No one would be able to squeeze another one in if they tried.
I sprint to figure out what’s going on only to stop in my tracks when I round the corner.
What. The. Fuck.
An excavator attacks Devon’s house, slashing off the roof with a vicious shred through the warped brown shingles. A bulldozer rolls over the demolished remains of his porch. The crawler pushes the pile to the edge of the property.
Rotted wood and crumbling bricks crunch under the weight of the blades. When he backs up, the bucket swings out again tumbling the kitchen wall for him to shove into the growing heap.
Titan stands on the sidewalk overseeing the annihilation with Pete sitting obediently at his feet watching the destruction. Until my dog catches sight of me and bolts over, doing his happy dance once he reaches me.
Words can’t seem to form. Where do I even start to try and understand what the hell happened in the one-hundred and twenty minutes I was at the library.
“Oh good. You’re back. Did you accomplish everything you wanted?”
The triumphant smile beaming on Titan’s face as he waits for my answer proves once again, he’s a manipulative, conniving demon.
He’s accomplished exactly what he wanted.
“What did you do?”
