But after this, I was going to ask him to stop doing that.
Which I knew he would.
“Come on,” Clem whispered as she backed into me, and then pulled me with her as they started across the room. “Let’s go to the bathroom. Let them settle this.”
Code for, let the menfolk handle the crazy motherfucker that wouldn’t leave.
I’d give them that.
When we arrived in the bathroom, both Sophia and Clem looked forlorn.
“Picking on a guy in a wheelchair doesn’t seem very sporting.”
I rolled my eyes at Clem’s words.
“Antagonizing and following a woman that’s been abused and held prisoner for a year isn’t very sporting either,” I found myself countering back. “Clem, it’s time to grow up.”
Clem looked shocked for a second, and all of a sudden, I couldn’t stand it.
“You’re a grown ass adult,” I told her. “Bad people come in good packages. Good people come in bad. And that man out there in his wheelchair made his own fucking bed. He can lie in it. I’m not sad at all that he was beaten up by his best friend. Want to know why? Because that dumbass tried to trade one of my good friends for me. She was pregnant. Do you have any idea of what could’ve happened had she not been rescued? She could’ve faced what I faced!”
And suddenly, I just couldn’t hold it in anymore.
I let Clem have it with both barrels.
Which, inevitably, probably wasn’t the nicest thing in the world to do.
But for now…
Well, now she’d opened the bottle. And I was going to see what was inside.
CHAPTER 12
Sometimes when I close my eyes, I can’t see.
-Ashlie to Will
WILL
Beau’s eyes were all for me.
“Toot, I’m gonna tell you one more fuckin’ time, and then I’m going to throw you out,” Haggard growled.
“Haggard,” Beau sneered. “You are, as always, charming and as eloquent with words as ever.”
Haggard crossed his arms over his chest.
“Or should I call you Thief, like my fiancée?” Beau questioned.
Charm eased through the words, and I wanted nothing more than to punch him in the throat for calling Cannel his anything.
“Sorry to break this to you, bud.” Haggard flexed his hands. “But you’re not her anything anymore. If anyone is her anything, it’s this guy. The first guy that she’s let hug her besides her brothers and two married men in a whole two years.”
Beau’s jaw clenched as he once again swung accusing eyes my way.
“Who. Are. You?” he snapped.
I tilted my head. “I’m the man that she trusts not to hurt her,” I said simply.
Beau/Toot gritted his teeth. I didn’t know how to address him in my head any longer.
Then again, funny enough, I wasn’t sure how to address Haggard now, and that was entirely his sister’s fault, too. Thief/Haggard and Beau/Toot. Did she give everyone a nickname? Would I get one?
Toot’s eyes narrowed on me, as if I’d just become someone very important to him, and not in a good way. Especially when I didn’t answer him.
“I repeat, who are you?” he grumbled.
“Already told you, Tootie.” Haggard started to come out of the corner, and it was then I saw that he’d been doing something in that corner. And it looked like…crochet? “He’s her man. He belongs to her. Unlike you. She’s moved on. Time for you to do that, too. Hopefully with a woman that you won’t give away to the bad guys next time.”
“I did not fucking give her away! I tried to get her back!” he hissed, rolling even farther into the room in his wheelchair.
Only, that wheelchair abruptly stopped when Madden stuck his foot out and stopped it’s forward progression.
“I’m asking you politely to leave,” Madden asked for a second time. “I know that you think that you’re allowed here because it’s a public gym, but that’s not the case. Please go back to your vehicle and exit my parking lot completely. This is private property.”
“Kick me out,” he invited. “Please.”
I looked over at Madden and saw his unwillingness to put his hands on a man that was handicapped.
I felt much the same way.
“I gave her time,” Toot directed at Haggard. “Almost two years to get settled. And I’m done waiting. I want my fiancée back.”
Haggard shook his head. “No can do, bro. I’m not lying when I say that she’s moved on. She’s got a job doing something that she enjoys. She has a man that thinks the world of her. And he’s a good guy, to boot. Trust me when I say, if she came back to you, that’d be a serious downgrade for her.” He paused, going in for the kill. “And she wants babies, Tootie. You can’t give her those anymore.”
Toot’s face went absolutely white.
“I can,” he halted. “I just can’t do the physical act.”
I tilted my head, unable to stop myself from saying what I said next. “Cannel is a beautiful person, inside and out. She’s struggling right now because the person that was supposed to be at her back, i.e. you, wasn’t there when she needed him most. She’s traumatized by your actions, has PTSD—post traumatic stress disorder—and she should’ve had someone to fall back on when she needed it. When things got too much for her,” I began. “Her brother came up behind her at a restaurant the other day and scared her accidentally. I had to spend twenty minutes on the bathroom floor talking to her without touching her because she didn’t know where she was. She was back there. With them…and you wanted to turn her friend into them. Making her suffer like she did.”