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“It isn’t just the tattoos, Royce. It’s how they all act like they’re entitled to a piece of you. I should never have looked at your phone, but those damn pictures and videos are burned into my brain, and they’re acts that you won’t get from me. How can I ever really know if what we do is enough for you?”
I get frustrated at not being able to express myself in a way she’ll really understand what I mean. Hell, I’ve seen Gunner say stuffto Riley that makes her get weak in the knees, it shouldn’t be this hard.
“I don’t want someone I can do anythingto,” I insist, though I know I’ve lost, so I turn around and yank open the door to the bakery. “I want someone I can do everything with,” I say, without turning back to her.
Shoving my sunglasses over my eyes, I hurry by all the people mulling about. I’m in no shape to drive right now, so I walk to The Garage. Connal is there, working on inventory; he takes one look at my face before he walks back to his office and returns with a bottle of whiskey.
Chapter 17
Molly
After Royce leaves, I lock the door. I’m still standing there with my hand over the bolt when a group of women with shopping bags walk up and try to open it.
I slowly shake my head at them, registering the concerned look on one woman’s face, before I turn away. Making it just past the counter, I sink to the floor and hug my legs to my chest.
‘I want someone I can do everything with.’Those words replay over and over in my mind.
Isn’t that what we all want?
That one person who becomes a true partner. Who calms us when we’re out for blood or lifts us up when we’re down. In his own idiotic way, I know that Royce was actually showing me that he had my back when he sent all that food to Gwen’s studio.
The argument rages in my mind, exhausting me and it’s hours later when the feel of Bree’s hand wakes me up.
“Rough day?” she asks, the concern I see on her face is nothing compared to Flint’s.
He’s standing just beyond her, his keychain clenched in his hand like a weapon.
“I don’t know what to do,” I whisper, as tears start to fall from my eyes again. “I love him, but I don’t know how to deal with everything…” I wave my hand in the air, incapable of summing up Royce in a few words.
“I can kill him,” Flint offers, the glint in his eyes telling me that he’s serious.
“Not while his mom is in town, dear,” Bree’s voice is laced with sarcasm as she rolls her eyes and gives me a little smile.
“I wish, I just wish it could be easy. Like it is for you two,” I sob out, trying to catch my breath and looking from Bree’s surprised face up to Flint’s when he starts chuckling.
She looks up at him, then the two of them start laughing so hard that Bree slides back onto her butt and Flint looks worried.
“I’m alright,” she assures him, still snorting at my comment when he helps her stand up.
“Why don’t we go grab a bite to eat?” Flint suggests. “And I’ll tell you about the goddamn chase Bree led me on.”
Now I’m the one who’s surprised. They always seem so copasetic.
The restaurants in town are overflowing, so we end up back at their house. Joe joins us, and the shame that covers his countenance is plain as day when their story touches on how they met him.
Bree reaches over to squeeze his hand and I barely make out her words to him. “It brought you to us, and that’s all that matters.”
With that simple sentence, I know that Flint is, uncharacteristically, sugar coating that part of the story, but the look on Joe’s face when he once again looks up at them tells me everything I need to know. In their own way, they rescued him, and he’ll never forget it.
Taking a cue from Joe, I suddenly understand how lucky I am. Maybe my birth father wasn’t like this before meeting Bree, but I’m sitting around a table made up of family.
The fact that I’m actually related to Flint has no bearing on any of it. The three people around me are, from the stories I’ve heardto date, far from perfect. They have all loved, hurt each other and themselves, and messed up in any number of ways.
For the first time since my mom died, I am filled with the happiness I felt when she, Grandma, and I would bake, sing, and laugh in the kitchen.
“You aren’t perfect,” I say to myself before looking up at the family in front of me. “You aren’t perfect.”
Bree tilts her head to the side, her eyebrows scrunching together. “Of course not. But I for one, am pretty fucking happy regardless.”
