Forbidden Desire
Page 81
I switched it off and settled down in bed, pulling my girl into my arms, which is now the only way I can sleep through the night. Tomorrow promises to be a beauty, and I need to be well-rested. Just a little while longer, and I can put this mess behind me and concentrate on our future.
In the morning, I had to do some fast-talking before leaving the house so early on my own on a Saturday. “You can tell your girls that I’m already taking care of that thing, so they don’t need to worry.” She was standing in the doorway, seeing me off with a look of distrust on her face.
“I promise I’ll be back soon; I just have to take care of something real quick, half an hour to an hour tops.” She let me go after one last kiss, and I hopped in my ride and sped out. It only took me ten minutes to get there, and I made sure to park out of the way before walking over to the aquarium.
A look at my watch showed that I had less than three minutes, so I was sure they were both inside already. The place opened at eight-thirty, so I’m sure they’d had no problem getting in. I waited for exactly nine to call Sherry’s number, and things went pretty much how I expected.
“Tyler? Where are you? You said you wouldn’t be late.” I hadn’t even said hello, but I did hear what I needed to coming from behind her. “You bitch…” That’s all I heard before the screams started. I took up my place on one of the little benches they have outside the front of the aquarium for visitors and waited.
The cops in this burg aren’t worth shit. It took the first squad car twenty minutes from the first scream to get here, followed by an ambulance. I made sure to stand in a place where Kevin could see me when he was led out in handcuffs a few minutes later. I thought at this moment that I’d be wearing a smirk, but all I felt was rage, too much rage to crack a smirk.
Sherry didn’t see me from her place on the stretcher; he’d knocked her cold it looked like, right after beating her face in. Ask me if I care. I called Penny on my way to my ride. “Hey Pen, did you hear the news?”
“What? What news?”
“Apparently, Kevin attacked Sherry, and she’s heading to the hospital. You know what this means, she’s going to play the sympathy card, and no one’s going to remember what she did a week ago. ”
“My ass. That bitch isn’t getting away with trying to sell me. Dad…” She hung up the phone in my ear after screaming for her dad. Good, let her sink her teeth in this shit and stop trying to get my woman involved in fuckery. I stopped off at the florist to get my girl some flowers and headed back home. Two lives destroyed in less than half an hour, I do good work.
Lora
“What’s my son up to?” I almost jumped out of my skin at the sound of Eric’s voice as it came from my open bedroom door. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him standing there and the first time since Tyler and I went public that he’d spoken to me directly except in a family setting.
We’ve never really talked much come to think of it, except for mundane things here and there. Maybe because in the beginning I was still stinging from what my dad had done to mom and I. Maybe I had trust issues then too and was waiting to see what damage this new man was going to bring into our lives.
Though it hadn’t taken me long to realize that Eric was not at all the same kind of person as dad turned out to be I’d still found it easier to avoid any contact. I was a teenager after all and no longer in need of a father figure. The whole thing just seemed too awkward at the time and even more so now, now that his son and I were…
“Uh, nothing, he’s not up to anything that I know of.” Is it really bad to lie to him after he’s been so good to mom and I? Maybe, but there’s no way I’m throwing Tyler to the wolves. Not that I know what he’s up to anyway. I can’t very well tell him what I don’t know even if I do suspect that Tyler is up to his eyeballs in something.
He gave me a look that was almost an exact replica of his son’s when he’s just shy of calling me on my bullshit and I didn’t dare even swallow or look away or he’d see the guilt written all over my face just like Tyler does.