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So fucking unprofessional.
“Thanks,” she said, tearing off her apron and hanging it on one of the hooks as she came around to the half door that separated the customers from the work area. She opened it and Adam stepped through like he owned the place. “I’ll give you five minutes.”
Deon shuffled on his feet, his brown eyes issuing an apology he couldn’t voice. She’d always liked him, felt almost as sorry for him as she felt for himself. She was free of Adam some of the time. Deon had to ride around with him all day every day.
She pushed through the swinging door that led to the supply room and passed through the narrow path between boxes of paper cups, lids, coffee, and syrups.
Having Adam on her heels was like having a wolf at her back. Every nerve ending in her body screamed danger, the desire to run urgent and primal. It was all too easy to remember when she’d felt this way every day, tiptoeing around the apartment, analyzing Adam’s voice and mannerisms for signs that she’d displeased him, made a mistake, gone too far.
She pushed the bar on the emergency exit and stepped out into the alley, reflexively looking around for witnesses.
It was empty. Dammit.
She’d had to choose between potentially making a scene by talking to Adam in the coffee shop, putting Henry in an uncomfortable position if things went south in the supply room, or taking it outside and hoping someone was around to keep Adam in check.
She’d chosen the alley, and now she was alone with him.
Panic tried to claw its way up her throat, and she forced herself to breathe, the way her therapist, Samira, had taught her.
I am safe in my body, I am safe in my body.
“I told you not to come here,” she said, purposely staying away from the building’s brick wall. The urge to run around her ex-husband was familiar because it had been necessary in the past. It was safer not to give him an opportunity to trap her against a wall.
“And I told you not to ignore my calls,” Adam said. “Especially when it’s about Olivia.”
“It’s not about Olivia,” Ruby countered, careful to keep her voice from shaking. Her fear was blood in the water to Adam. “It’s about transportation. I invited you to the show. Riding together isn’t part of the deal.”
His jaw tightened, his blue eyes spitting fire as he rubbed his smooth jaw. She could forgive her nineteen-year-old self for falling so hard for him. He looked like a blond god, and his clean-shaven protect-and-serve demeanor had sparked every fantasy she’d had about being sheltered.
About being safe.
She didn’t know then that sometimes the wolf came in sheep’s clothing.
“It is about Olivia,” he said. “She deserves to have both her parents together for the show.”
Ruby had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. The way he was talking, you’d think Olivia was opening on Broadway instead of participating in the kindergarten spring chorus concert at Truman Elementary.
But Adam’s parents had been married for thirty-five years, and their parents had been married at nineteen and were still married when Adam’s grandfather died of a heart attack two years earlier.
For Adam, divorce was failure.
For Ruby, it was survival.
“Olivia will be happy you’re there,” she said. “She doesn’t care if we ride together. That’s for you.”
As soon as she said it, her heart started to race. It was something he would have punished her for when they’d been married, and her body still didn’t trust that wasn’t still true.
Turned out, her body knew a thing or two, because his body tensed, an angry flush working its way up his neck. His hand rested on his weapon, and she tried not to give it too much attention, reminded herself that he’d never pulled his gun on her, that he wouldn’t, that it was a reflex, even though she knew plenty of cops — Deon included — who didn’t reach for their guns when they were angry.
“It’s for us,” he said, his voice low and tense. “That’s something you never understood, you still don’t understand. Everything I do —everything— is for our family.”
“It was for our family all those times you sent me to the emergency room? It was for our family when you broke my arm? When you fractured my cheekbone? When I lost my job because I couldn’t cover all the bruises and called out too many times?”
He looked momentarily stricken, anguish lighting his blue eyes, and she had to remind herself that this was his MO. That he would always besorrywhen faced with the truth of what he’d done, that he would cry and beg her forgiveness and swear it would never happen again.
For all she knew he even meant it, but the last part was never true.
“You know I didn’t mean that,” he said. “I said I was sorry, that I’d go to therapy.”
