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He cocks an eyebrow. “You really want to talk about this? Your face is saying no.”
Seething anger mixes with hot adrenaline and rages like a housefire through my veins. “Did you fuck her without protection?” I bite out.
“Yes,” he states unapologetically. “Not the first time, but after that I decided to so I could get myself tested. She’s still saying she wasn’t raped, and I still don’t believe her. I think for whatever reason, that’s what she wants us to believe. Maybe she thinks we’ll look at her differently. Maybe she just can’t bring herself to admit it. I don’t know. But I don’t believe I got there in time, and I sure didn’t see a condom wrapper anywhere when I entered that bedroom. She wouldn’t let me take her to the hospital, so I figured this way I’ll find out for myself. If I have anything, it’s safe to say she does because I always wrap it up, so then we’ll have to reason with her and get her some treatment, but… one step at a time.”
I’m too fucking stunned to speak.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he says, pointing at me.
“Have you lost your fucking mind?” I ask.
He shrugs. “It was the best way I could think of to check with her avoiding the hospital.”
“Forget fucking… diseases. You could have gotten her pregnant!”
“I took her and got her Plan B this morning. She already took it, we should be fine.”
“That doesn’t always fucking work,” I explode, launching up from the counter.
“Well, I did what I could with the tools I had. Fingers crossed, I guess.”
Fingers crossed?
Is he fucking kidding me right now?
“Look, I don’t know the exact right way to deal with all this, all right? I’m doing the best I can,” he states.
“Maybe your dick isn’t your most useful fucking tool, Jonathan.”
He shoots me a look as he turns around. “While I’m gone, maybe you should think about how you feel about her—how youreallyfeel. I know we haven’t talked about this yet, and I know you’re pissed at me. I fucking get it, but this isn’t about you or me, and this isn’t the time for it. I’m truly fucking sorry if I hurt you. I’m not trying to hurt anybody, but she needed something you couldn’t give her last night, so I gave it to her. I had about three seconds to make a decision, and you know me, I’m pretty fucking decisive. I believe I made the right call. I’m sorry if you don’t like it. We didn’t have some fucking romantic night, she was just trying to work through some shit and she needed help. I was willing to be the replacement bad guy for her, and you weren’t. I know for a fact if you would have been willing to do it for her, she wouldn’t have turned up outside my bedroom door, so honestly, it’s on you.”
That’s a bold fucking statement, but he doesn’t stop there.
“Whatever her reasons, it happened. It’s done. Decide if that’s a deal-breaker for you because if you’re not on the team, I don’t have time to deal with you right now. Kennedy needs support. I think some of the shit I said to her before may have made all this worse for her, and I’m trying to… make up for the damage I inflicted. If you love her, great—fucking prove it. Set aside your bruised ego and help me take care of her in her time of need. Love isn’t always easy, isn’t that what Mom always said? If you love her, then help me. If she was just a hot lay you enjoyed for a while and now you’re done with her, so be it. Just stay out of the way and let me try to get her over this.”
My brow furrows for a lot of reasons. Reasons I don’t even expect, like, when the fuck did my son become such a grown man? I’m reluctantly impressed with him for standing up for her the way he is, even if it’s me he’s standing up to.
But mainly it’s the fact that he still seems to think I fucked Kennedy.
Kennedy was a virgin. If he slept with her last night, he should know I didn’t.
He looks at his watch. “I’ve gotta leave. Can you play nice?”
“Of course I can play nice,” I mutter, mildly aggravated by the question. “I don’t need you to police my interactions with Kennedy.”
“And I don’t need you pushing her over the fucking edge with some possessive bullshit she doesn’t need right now,” he says, heading for the stairs. “I’m running this up to her and then I’m leaving. Make sure you keep an ear out for her.”
I sit back down at the island and mull over the shit he said. It’s not all new information or thoughts that haven’t already passed through my own head, but some of it is.
It’s irritating that Jonathan seems to think he was 100% right, and I was 100% wrong because my way would have protected her much more effectively. His way indulged her most destructive instincts. He did nothing to insulate her from the damage she’ll do to herself if she’s left to her own devices in an apparently compromised mental state.
Left alone together with her self-destructive tendencies and his fucking cockiness, these two are going to create a colossal mess even I might not be able to clean up—if they haven’t already.
Plan B as fucking birth control.
This is why the inmates can’t run the fucking asylum.
I try to focus on getting some work done while he’s gone, but my mind won’t stop traveling down roads I don’t want us all to go down. I’m picturing Kennedy pregnant with my son’s baby and all the ways that can be a fucking disaster. I consider her coming out of this on the other side but with him because he’s the only one she could see being there for her when she needed someone the most.
