Worth It (Forbidden Men #6)(71)

Except all the responsibility his trust bore on me only made me panic more. What if I accidentally hurt one of his babies?

“What do you think?” Eva asked, pulling something from the first shopping bag. “I went with dark colors because they seem to suit you.” She turned to me and held up a navy-colored shirt as she came forward to measure it against my shoulders and see how well it would do. “I got a couple hoodies too. All sized extra-large. But we can take them back if they don’t fit.”

When she held one of those up next, I blinked in confusion. “You really bought me clothes?” I wasn’t even sure how to respond to that. “You didn’t have to do that.”

She shrugged and turned away. “We wanted to.”

I glanced at Pick. He shrugged too.

Well, shit. I owed these people more than they could ever know, and how had I repaid them? By wrecking Pick’s office. By pushing him against a wall. By giving one of his favorite employees a black eye.

Bile rose in my throat.

“It was nearly impossible to find long pants,” Eva went on, tugging a pair of blue jeans from her shopping bag. “But I’m not a shopping queen for nothing. I just hope these will be comfortable enough.”

She tried to come at me with them next, but Pick intercepted her. “Tink, maybe we could do this later. I need Knox to help me at the office with something for a while. Okay?”

She squinted at him as if she knew he was lying. But she shrugged and smiled. “All right. You guys have fun. See you later, love.”

After smacking him on the lips with a kiss, she took both kids from us and herded them toward the kitchen. “Let’s see what Daddy was making for breakfast, shall we?”

As soon as they were out of sight, Pick sent me a hard glance. “Let’s go.”

I followed him out the door, without a word. I had no idea what he had planned, but if he brought up Felicity, I wouldn’t be able to take it.

My fists would fly.

Once we were in his car and heading in the opposite direction from the club, I glanced over. “So where are we really going?”

I expected him to tell me he was dropping me off at the first curb he found that was sufficiently far away from his family. But he said, “I came up with an idea for you, a place I think you could go when you’re like this.”

My jaw clenched. “Like what?”

Damn it, could he tell? Did he realize just how close to the surface my violence was getting, when the rest of his family had been utterly oblivious?

“Don’t dick me around, Parker. I’m betting a hell of a lot on a gut feeling I have about you, and risking even more if I’m wrong. The least you can do is be honest with me. And you have the same look in your eyes as you did last night before you destroyed my office.”

Humiliation sliced through me. Gripping my fingers around my knees, I watched how white my knuckles grew. “I wouldn’t have hurt your family,” I muttered, even though I wasn’t too sure of my own claim. I wouldn’t have wanted to hurt anyone, but I wasn’t sure if I could control myself enough to stop it.

“Hell, I know that.” Pick sent me a dry look. “I know that better than you do. But it’s not healthy to bottle it in either. You need a venting system.”

As he pulled into a parking lot, I focused on the building he’d brought me to. It was a gym, boasting of boxing lessons in the window.

“I’m getting you a membership here.”

I glanced across the interior of the car. Had he lost his mind?

“And you don’t think this will only evoke more violence in me?”

“Fuck, no.” Pick laughed and slugged me in the shoulder. “Trust me, man. Seriously, what is with everyone not trusting me lately? I have f*cking awesome instincts. I know what I’m talking about.”

When he pushed out of the car, I did too, willing to try anything. My eyes about bugged out of my head when I realized how much he had to pay to sign me up to come here on a regular basis, though.

And when I tried to resist, he only held up a finger.

“Trust, my man.”

I shut my mouth but shook my head, tallying in my head everything I already owed him and would continue to owe him.

“Don’t even worry about it,” he finally said as if reading my mind. “Just pay it forward someday.”

I sniffed, not sure how I could ever give to someone what he’d given to me.

But I let it happen. I got a membership, and they set me up with a trainer, who wouldn’t be able to start working with me until Tuesday afternoon. But I was allowed to visit the weight room immediately. So I did.

Pick left me there, and I got started. My muscles were stiff because it’d been a few days since I’d worked out in the prison yard, but after some time on the leg curl, power rack, elliptical and butterfly press, I was feeling loose, and actually a lot calmer.

So maybe Pick might’ve been onto something. It made me want to hang out here all day. Except I hadn’t eaten since the night before, so I eventually returned to the Ryan apartment.

Eva fed me a late lunch, and the kids played around me on the floor until they fell asleep on me. Pick left in the early evening to get some work done at the club, and I headed out for a while, still uneasy about being left alone with Eva and the kids.

As I wandered through the city streets, breathing in my freedom and unable to believe I was really out of Statesburg for good, I thought of my woods. I missed the smell, the peace, Felicity. An ache grew in my chest.