I Want You Back (Want You #1)(77)

Nolan gaped at me. “How in the hell do you know all of that off the cuff?”

I sighed. “Margene. She likes me. She likes to gossip. She loves to brag on Gabi because according to her, Gabi is the one thing that Lakeside has going for it.”

“Well, watch yourself with her.”

“Why?”

He looked at me like I was an idiot. “Because Gabi’s got a crush on you, Stonewall.”

“Right. She basically told me I was an entitled prick the first time I met her. Only thing she wants to crush is my skull.”

“Lucy had the same reaction to you, if I remember correctly.”

Lucy. Jesus. I still had to deal with that tonight.

I stood. “I’ll fetch Mimi. And you get to go to Lucy’s place with me.”

“Pass.”

“Nope, you have to come.”

“Why?”

“I’ll need you to accompany my body to the morgue after Lucy kills me for Mimi’s hockey injury.”





Fifteen





LUCY




Once again Jax would catch me lounging in my robe, drinking.

But it’d been a stressful week and I deserved a drink to unwind.

Think that’s how it started with him? One drink to relax turned into twenty and next thing you know . . . you’re an alcoholic?

That caused me to reevaluate pouring a second vodka tonic.

How stressful had my week been anyway? Sure, I had plenty on my design plate. I had mock-ups to finish with Jonna, team leader for social media brand, and Annika had asked me to pull ad campaigns from a decade back just to make sure there weren’t similarities to the upcoming project.

Now people sought me out for my opinion and I felt I’d earned my spot on the team on my own merits.

The only downside had been less time with Mimi. She seemed to be adjusting well to spending more time with her father—and not just at the ice rink. I knew Jax expected more out of her when she stayed with him, even assigning her simple chores. But when she was with me, she didn’t help out at all. In fact, she’d regressed a bit, acting bratty in the mornings before school. I’d decided to give it another week, and if she hadn’t changed, then I’d bring it up with Jax.

Which brought me to thoughts of Jax, who proved that he could follow my request of tiny baby steps when it came to advancing our relationship. Maybe I hadn’t believed that he’d follow through with it. I half expected he’d just bulldoze his way into my life like he always had before. My disappointment that he’d followed the rules for a change made no sense.

And I’d lacked courage to take that first step even when I’d been desperate for more physical contact after he’d had his hands on me. I’d relived the times he’d forced me to lie still as he mapped every inch of my body, first with his skillful hands and then with his even more skillful mouth. Even thinking about it now, desire unfurled in my core like a slow-blooming flower.

The door to my apartment opened. Before I moved off the couch, Jax came around the corner.

Alone.

His cheeks were flushed and he acted . . . nervous.

“Jax? Where’s Mimi?”

“Now, don’t freak out—”

I vaulted off the couch, demanding, “Where is she?”

Mimi stepped out from behind her dad and said, “I loth a thooth!”

Ignoring her grin, I dropped to my knees to take her face in my hands and saw the hole in her gumline next to one of her permanent front teeth. “What happened?”

“I thcored a goal! My very firth one ever in a hockey game!”

“But you didn’t have practice or a game scheduled for tonight.”

“Daddy took me to a different ithe rink! Whereths’ drop-in gameth.”

I pulled her upper lip back to inspect her gum for bruising.

“Ouchth!”

My stomach clenched at hearing her in pain. “It hurts?”

“Only when you pull like that. Thop!”

My hands fell away. “Where else did you get hurt?”

“Noplathe, and it didn’t bleed hardly at all. Wathn’t even blood on the ithe.”

“Omigod, that’s the takeaway from this? No blood on the ice?”

Stay calm.

I studied Mimi’s sweet face. Her lip was swollen from the impact she’d taken. In that moment she looked so much like her father that I wanted to punch him in the mouth so they’d have matching swollen lips. This was his fault.

While Mimi chattered on about her goal and the game, I only half listened as my brain was otherwise engaged in where I could hide Jax’s body once I finished with him.

I noticed a pause and found Mimi, Jax and Nolan—how long had he been here?—staring at me expectantly. I mustered up a fake smile for my daughter, and my stomach clenched at seeing that gap in her answering smile. Yes, she would’ve lost that tooth eventually, but the fact it had been forced out of her mouth made it worse.

Nolan’s hands landed on Mimi’s shoulders. “You know what, short stuff? Show me how to use the fancy security system your dad had installed in the elevator that goes up to the new apartment. Then you can give me the tour.”

Mimi looked at me. “Can I thow him, Mommy?”