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“Let me just help you to bed.” He reached for me again, concern etched into his features but I shrugged him off. I wasn’t spiraling. I wasn’t acting out. I was unwinding after a stressful moment at my parents’ house. This hadnothingto do with Owen and even less to do with Ada. That overstepping bitch of a sister was really getting on my nerves.
Owen sighed, crouching by my knees. It was a submissive position but not one he had ever offered while we were together. I hated him looking up at me like that, trying to give me hope that he had changed. When his hand raised to sit on my knee, I scrambled to the other side of the couch, the devil’s juice giving me the courage to call Owen out on his bullshittery. “I will call the fucking cops if you so much as touch me. Ada had no right to call you and you were wrong for showing up. Owen-”
“Babe.” He cut me off and that’s when I realized that I was done. Unbeknownst to him or anyone else, if we hadn’t dated—if we hadjustbeen friends—I’d have gotten a restraining order against him a long time ago. Love made me blind to several things, mainly Owen’s uncanny ability to insert himselfeverywhere, even the places he didn’t belong. He always seemed to know where I was, what I was doing, and where I was going. At first, I loved his ability to provide for all my needs until I realized it was because he had fixated on me and my motherfucking project. “You need help. I’ll come back in the morning to-”
Oh, the absolute fucking horror… “You will do no such thing.” Owen showing up in the morning to cure a hangover was not my idea ofhelpespecially since I now knew that he was in cahoots with Ada. I took a deep breath before standing up and unsteadily ushering him to the door. He didn’t fight me, mostly because he thought he was going to waltz in here tomorrow to ‘take care’ of me. He turned around to say goodbye as he stepped outside, leaning in for what I assumed was a kiss but fuck that.
Slamming the door in his face had never been so fucking satisfying in my entire life. For good measure, though, I grabbed a chair from my kitchen table and stuffed it under the handle. I had seen it done in movies, so it’d help, right?
Two seconds later I dialed Ada, hoping that she’d still be awake. “What the fuck, Ada?”
“Nice to hear that you got home safely. We’re worried about you and-”
“No, you’re not. You want control. You don’t like the fact that I’m different…”
She cut me off. “Rhys, are you drunk?”
“That’s none of your concern.” She seemed to forget that I was almost 30, that I was a grown adult with my own house and my own life to live. Sure, I was still in school but the advanced degree with a dissertation could very well change statistical analysis as we knew it. But because I was the baby of the family, I always would be.
“Babe, you’re spiraling.”
Why did everyone think that?
I fumbled around for the right words before ultimately settling on three. “Lose his number.” Then I hung up, eyes drifting to the TV and realizing that it was time for a different kind of stress relief. I grabbed the whiskey off the counter and stuffed another danish in my face before turning on the stereo and blasting Metallica.
More healthy reactions to this adulting thing. I was killing it.
Chapter eight
RHYS
Fifteen minutes went by and I realized the pent-up aggression and adrenaline were only heightening as I tried to dance it off. Instead of it being a stress reliever, I was finding that the combined stimulation of my favorites was making everything worse. I shut everything off, eyes wide as I stood in the middle of my living room, half-naked, and half a danish dangling from my mouth.
My gaze landed on the phone in my hand, somehow traded with the unopened whiskey bottle on the floor. I stared horrified at the device, an entire speech typed out and ready to send to Owen about how much of a terrible person he was. 90% of the words I had put in that box would get me killed as I hurriedly erased it and swiped out of that message, only to see additional texts from Gianni and another one from Liam.
I messaged Liam that I was still alive before running through Gianni’s. They became progressively more worried, the last one threatening to check in on me because I hadn’t answered. That had been nearly thirty minutes ago so I called him back, knowing that I was in no state to talk to anyone. “Heyyy,” I drawled, Gianni chuckling at the slur to my greeting.
“Thought we’d drop by and change out the lock with something a bit more high-tech. You’re home, right? I see your car.”
I didn’t answer him, wondering why I wasn’t creeped out with Gianni hanging around the same way Owen had. Many of Gianni and Owen’s actions were the exact same—watching me, providing for me, checking in on me. The difference was that I craved Gianni’s attention and I was madly in love with him.
Well, shit.
Alcohol definitely made it easier to act on thoughts that shouldn’t exist and if he was going to waltz in here tonight, there was a very real chance, I was going to end up confessing to him.
“Hey, Rhys. You good? Don’t make me pick the fucking lock again.”
“It wouldn’t work anyway,” I mumbled as I made my way to the door and pulled the chair out of the way before unlocking it. Gianni pushed his way inside, frowning at both the lack of clothing—apparently, my shirt had disappeared at some point—and the device I had used to keep Owen from barging in again.
“Two questions and I’ll start with the easier one.” Gianni filled the fucking doorway, his expression darkening as he pointed to the seat. “Why the fuck is a chair there? Did Owen come back?” I shrugged as if it was no big deal but then Gianni’s hand was around my throat, his other hand trailing the dark bruise on my shoulder. “And this? Where the fuck did this come from?”
I swallowed, unable to meet Gianni’s gaze as he backed me into a wall, his touch soft but firm.
“Tell me this wasn’t Owen.” When I didn’t answer, he pulled away, a thick growl on his lips. His next words weren’t for me to hear but they warmed my poor little heart. “I’m going to fucking kill that man one day.” His fists clenched at his sides before surveying the bit of chaos I had unloaded on my living room.
This was a side of me that Gianni hadn’t seen yet—the part where I let myself unwind on my own terms and fully experience the adulting part of life that would have consequences in the morning. Gianni moved toward the coffee table, trying to hide his chuckle. “Tequila, really? I thought you might need a pick me up after your family dinner and thought I’d drop off some chocolates while we changed out the lock for you.”
I greedily wiggled my fingers, ignoring the ‘we’ part of his statement. I was rewarded with a small box that I immediately tore into, groaning when the first truffle hit my tongue. Gianni’s eyes heated, silent promises of what he wanted to do me hanging between us. My cock throbbed in my pants, making me painfully aware that I was standing in front of him half-naked.
