Reaper's Stand(26)

“You going to let me in?” I asked.

“No!” she yelled. “You can go to hell! You have no right to tell me what to do! I’m an adult!”

My blood pressure rose. “My house, my rules. Open the damned door.”

“Fuck you!”

I growled, sliding the tiny screwdriver into the hole in the knob, popping it open easily enough. Wasn’t the first time I’d had to break into her room.

I opened it to find Jess glaring at me by the light of a candle. “I asked you not to burn things in here,” I said, even more frustrated than I’d been before. She’d nearly set the place on fire a couple of months ago. “I don’t want to die in my sleep because you like candles.”

“Fuck. You.”

“No, f*ck you,” I snapped back at her. Jess froze, because I didn’t cuss. Not that I couldn’t—I’d just made a conscious decision when I first took custody of her not to set a bad example with my language. So much for that. “I’m about done with your shit, Jessica. You think you’re an adult? Fine. Starting this month you pay rent. You follow the rules or you’re out on your ass. How’s that for treating you like an adult?”


She gaped at me, then quick as a snake she grabbed a picture frame off her dresser and threw it at me. I ducked as she started screaming, darting out of the room and slamming the door behind me.

What the hell had just happened?

Another crash hit the wood behind me and then another. The kid must be tearing apart her room. I heard yet another shriek, then the door flew open. Jess stood there, bag in one hand and her phone in the other.

“You can go f*ck yourself,” she hissed, pushing past me to stomp down the hall. “I don’t need you.”

I followed her, a detached part of my brain observing that she really needed to expand her vocabulary.

“And how—exactly—do you think this will play out?” I asked her, crossing my arms in determination.

Jess ignored me, jerking open the front door and marching out across the porch. Then she started down the driveway, frantically texting as she kicked the occasional rock out of her path.

Just like her mother, I realized. I should go after her, make her stop.

No.

I should make sure that candle was out and then I should go to bed. Why keep fighting? She’d come home sooner or later. She wants to be an adult? Let her figure it out for herself. She just saw the doctor, she should be safe enough …

So instead of chasing down the girl I’d spent the last six years raising, I poured myself a glass of wine and drank it, pondering how I’d lost control of my life.

Nate. Reese. Jessica and Amber.

Right now I didn’t want to see or talk to any of them.

Defiantly, I poured a second glass, followed by a third. Then—feeling warm and giddy and relaxed for the first time in forever—I called my college roommate, Dawn, and we talked for two hours, laughing like we were still twenty years old. By three in the morning I still hadn’t heard anything from Jess, but for once I didn’t care. I just collapsed into bed, reveling in the peace and quiet.

It was fantastic.

You know, there’s a party game I’ve played before, where people try to decide where they’d go or what they’d do if they could travel back in time. Some people say they’d go back and meet Jesus, or kill Hitler, or talk to Albert Einstein … But if I could go back and change one thing, it’d be the fact that I went to bed that night without finding my girl first.

Instead, I’d use my time machine to smash that damned wine bottle and chase Jessica down the road. Stop her. Find some way to convince her that she deserved better—more—than following her mother’s path.

But did I do it?

No, I went to sleep and didn’t get up until nearly noon on Saturday. Then I went to the gym, following my workout up with a pedicure. I felt all empowered about it, too, because I knew she’d be back.

Only Jessica never came back.





CHAPTER FIVE


REESE

I spent my weekend horny and pissed off.

London’s mouth, her smell, those amazing tits … I wanted those lips wrapped around my cock, I wanted those hands buried in my hair, and I wanted my dick in her cunt. Maybe her ass. Hell yes. Then I’d f*ck her boobs because I wouldn’t want them to feel left out, now would I?

Instead I jerked off and tried to remind myself of all the reasons getting involved with her would be a massive mistake.

Then I’d picture her touching Nate Evans. Nearly sent me over the f*ckin’ edge, because I’d actually smelled him on her Friday night. Like gangrene.

Gave serious thought to killing him for touching what was mine.

But London wasn’t mine. The thought drove me crazy, because I had zero desire to claim a woman, at least not for longer than a night. Still, my gut insisted she should belong to me? which scared me shitless. Wanting someone like that leads to needing them, and loving them leads to … hell.

Heather died slowly.

I remembered everything about that day—worst f*ckin’ hours of my life. Her frail body, nothing more than pale skin stretched tight over bones gone brittle. Our daughters drifting in and out of the room, crying and begging while the light in her eyes faded. Then the beautiful girl I’d fallen in crazy love with my senior year of high school left me.