“I’ll pay,” Malachi said as he started to withdraw his wallet.
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m paying. It’s my furniture.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You weren’t planning on getting a couch or another recliner today. I’m the one to add them to the list.”
I ignored him and swung my purse around to rest along my hip.
I looked around for my wallet and realized that I didn’t have it.
It wasn’t in my bag anywhere.
I looked again, just to make sure.
“Crap,” I said. “We’re going to have to go home. I forgot my wallet.”
“I got this,” he said as he pushed me aside with a bump of his hip, happy that he’d won the round. “The couch is mine, anyway.”
I groaned and crossed my arms over my chest, looking over at Grans who was making moon eyes at Oston.
My scowl slipped minutely.
That was until we got out to the parking lot after Grans asked Oston out on a date and Malachi walked in front of me to grab the door.
I, of course, couldn’t help myself. I looked down at his ass.
That’s when I caught sight of what was in his back pocket.
“That’s my wallet!” I cried out.
He all but hauled ass to the truck after tossing it to me.
When I finally caught up, he was holding my door open with a sheepish expression on his face.
He caught the look and had the decency to look chagrined. “Sorry?”
I climbed into the truck and got myself situated.
“Listen,” he said once he got Grans in, and then himself. “I have the money.”
I crossed my arms over my chest.
“There’s no reason to get upset over this,” he said as he shifted gears and pulled into traffic. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll let you pay for the next thing. I really do have plenty of money. It’s not going to hurt to pay for a couch.”
No, that didn’t make me feel any better. In fact, it made me feel worse.
“It’s a matter of principle at this point,” I told him. “I’m finally able to afford something like this, and I should be able to pay for it. End of story. And, to be honest with you, I don’t even know you all that well. Why would you want to pay for my stuff?”
There was silence for a few seconds as he tried to figure out what to say to make me not so mad.
“Tell me what to do to make this better,” he said after he processed my words. “I didn’t think what I did was all that wrong.”
“You’re a man,” I grumbled. “You wouldn’t understand.”
Being an independent woman was important.
“Did you know that Malachi is the one that provides that anonymous donation every month to the police department, VA Hall, and the military veterans support group in Kilgore?” Grans piped in. “He’s actually not like all the rest. I raised him up correctly. That’s why he’s getting all my money when I die and not his father.”
I looked over at Malachi in surprise. “You were the one to donate all those Kevlar vests to the new baby cops?”
He sighed, as if having to talk about this was painful to him.
“I did it, yes,” he said. “But I felt bad that I was easily able to afford one and not have to wait. They couldn’t afford it. So I paid.”
“He also sponsors all those local races they have. Each time you see one, he sponsors it,” Grans continued as if not noticing her grandson’s obvious discomfort. “He’s just giving my money away like it grows on trees.”
She wasn’t upset about this. In fact, she was happy.
She had a large smile on her face and she was looking as if she’d raised a grandson she was extremely proud of.
“Thank God for you,” I teased as I turned around and looked at her. “Where would he be right now if he had his parents as his only source of nurturing in his life?”
When I got home later that day, I was feeling all sorts of things that I wasn’t sure that I should be feeling for a fake relationship.
After we’d gone couch shopping, he’d taken me to a parking lot where he expertly taught me how to drive his truck.
He didn’t get mad at the grinding sounds like my brother and dad did. He didn’t get frustrated or raise his voice in frustration at all, to be honest.
It was… confusing.
The whole damn day was confusing.
The things that we’d done were all make believe.
So why the hell was I feeling more in a fake relationship than I had in all of my real ones combined?CHAPTER 12Goest and Fucketh Thyself.-Coffee CupMALACHIGabriel,
Today I learned—or tried to learn—how to drive my dad’s five-speed truck.
We get to the parking lot where he’s going to teach me, and get started.
It lasts for all of fifteen minutes, then my dad can’t take the grinding of gears anymore and declares me a ‘lost cause’ and takes over. So my brother, thinking that he would help me out, goes out and does the same later that afternoon.