Thick Love (Thin Love, #2)(95)

“What? Was I supposed to save myself for you?”

I glared at her wanting to scream yes. “What the f*ck were you doing back here with him?”

“I came in here to…” She stopped, crossing her arms. “You know what? It’s none of your business.”

“None of my…how the hell do you figure that?”

She stepped right in front of me. “I didn’t ask you for any promises. You didn’t offer any and then, in case it slipped your mind, you told me to back off. I did. And before you say it, calling me Fred doesn’t damn well count.”

“It f*cking should!”

“I don’t even know what that shit means! So maybe you can explain to me how any of that shit gives you the right to get pissed about my ex…whatever he was, trying to kiss me.”

“You know it’s not like that.” My voice went low and I knew she probably heard the warning in my tone.

“Really? You think I should just wait around for you to stop your damned moping?” The insult bit even though in the back of my mind I knew she was right. Aly had every right to be angry at me for all the bullshit I’d given her these past months. Still, I wasn’t used to anyone calling me on my shit like she did, not now, not in the heat of the moment when I was all jacked up. I didn’t like it and I guess that was what made me step closer, a threat I knew I’d never follow through with. Aly challenged me with a cock of her eyebrow, not backing down.

Finally, when I let myself calm a bit, when that rage I felt had tempered to mere anger, I stretched my neck, moved my head to the side probably looking like an * who didn’t care about her at all. “I guess I’m just trying to figure out how you can f*ck me and then try to jump on him tonight. Shit, Aly, didn’t realized you moved that fast.”

“What the hell did you say to me you f*cking bata?” She pushed me then, her own anger peeking into her flushed cheeks and I blinked, my jaw working.

Again she tried pushing me, seeming even angrier when I didn’t answer her, but I caught her hands on my chest. “Don’t f*cking push me again.”

“Then don’t you damn well piss me off! You honestly thought that I was trying to jump him? You could accuse me of that? Really? Ala de traka!”

It was her rage, the quick rush of her emotions moving her features and how quickly she blinked, as though she was fighting the urge to cry that had my anger dimming. “Aly…”

“Non, modi, Ransom I’m done.” I let her shove me again before she stepped back, head shaking like she couldn’t believe she’d let me get under her skin. “I am so done with this bullshit. You want me, you don’t want me, you need me, you don’t need anybody and you say I move fast? You wanna talk about all the girls you’ve serviced?” I started to leave, walked to the door, but Aly jerked me around. “What? Was I too much for you? Did I not stick to your rules? Guess I did, you knew my name. That broke rule number one, right?”

I had no idea what she’d heard about me and was sick that she knew just how I’d managed to get through the noise and guilt in my head. I was embarrassed, I was ashamed, but my jacked up pride wouldn’t give in to that. Instead, Aly knowing what I’d done, precisely what I’d done, only pissed me off.

“Yes, you f*cking did!”

I wanted to kiss her and shake her at the same time, and from the way she pushed against my hold when I grabbed her arms, I knew she probably had the same contradictory feelings.

“Ransom! Ransom!” Leann’s voice was panicked, loud and broke the anger heating the room as she screamed at me.

We both turned, out of breath, as Leann ran into the dressing room, her cell clamped between her fingers. “Get to Lakeview,” my cousin said, her eyes somewhat wild although it was obvious she was trying to stay in control. “Keira’s on her way to the hospital. The baby’s coming and it’s…something isn’t right.” I started to move but Leann stopped me. “Take Aly with you. Kona needs you both.”





23





If there hadn’t been worry, Aly’s attitude might have bugged me more than it did. But there was worry, a lot of it as we sped down the interstate in my Mustang. Leann had no real details, only mentioned her husband Will picking up Koa from the neighbors and that my parents had left the lake house in an ambulance.

Dad wouldn’t answer his cell, so that worry I felt when we left the recital had clotted into something tangible, something that felt much more like panic by the time Aly and I parked and ran through the large, dome-shaped awning of the hospital’s main entrance.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have any information for you. She was taken in for an emergency C-section. That’s all I know, sugar.” The woman behind that long, wooden desk wasn’t a nurse. The badge hanging from a turquoise lanyard around her neck told me as much.

Elizabeth Dunning, Welcome Desk Hostess.

That had to be the stupidest job title I’d ever heard of, but then at the time, I wasn’t thinking about help that wasn’t helpful. I could only worry about my mother.

Luckily, Aly wasn’t the sort to wait on someone else to get her where she wanted to be. I damn sure hadn’t had experience with that, so it was Aly that walked away from that desk and Mrs. Dunning’s forced, plastic-looking smile, guiding me to the maternity ward waiting area.