“Your dad would be proud,” Bradley said as he turned my way.
I shrugged under the praise I was unaccustomed to. “He always told me not to follow my dreams, but to chase them down and wrap my arms around them nice and tight. I might have taken a couple of wrong turns, but I eventually caught ‘em.” Bradley ruffled my hair like one might do a dog. I tried to dodge the brotherly affection, but he wasn’t having it.
“So,” he threw an arm around my shoulders and drew me into his side, “I have one best friend that I need to pay someone to beat up, and I need to pay someone to teach you how to throw a decent punch. I also heard you need a new accountant.”
My jaw dropped. “You already know what happened?”
He shrugged. “Between the gossips you live next door to and Decker’s mom, I think I’ve figured most of it out. There are a few holes, like how you ended up outside a club in the middle of the night sucker-punching some schmuck accountant?”
Bradley waited for an explanation I wasn’t going to give. “Fine, whoever I pay to beat up Decker will just have to torture the information out of him.”
I rested my head against Bradley’s sturdy chest. “Don’t mess him up too much, Bradley. This is as much my fault as it is his. I knew what I was getting into. Heck, Decker even warned me he’d never been in a real relationship. It’s not like I walked into this with blinders on.”
Bradley moved me aside so he could glare at me with those big brown eyes of his. This was the closest I had ever seen him come to a really good scowl. It was still a little pained looking, but I could tell he was serious and I didn’t want to laugh at him in response.
“Don’t do that, don’t protect him. What kind of bullshit is that? He warns you he’s going to fuck up? That’s not cool, Andi! Decker knows the damn difference between right and wrong, and if he didn’t think he could get it right with you in the first place then he damn well shouldn’t have touched you!” Bradley shook his head in frustration. “It was the same with your dad. You were forever defending him, yet he lived with his head in the clouds and barely acknowledged your presence.”
A little growl rumbled from my chest and I pushed Bradley, hard. He stumbled, but it wasn’t like it was hard to make Bradley stumble, he was your consummate lover not a fighter. He more than likely has never even clenched his fist let alone hit someone.
“Don’t bring my dad into this,” I snarled.
Bradley had the good presence of mind to look ashamed as he held up two hands in a surrendering gesture. “You’re right. That was low. I’m sorry.” He picked up his coffee. “About your dad, not Decker.” Bradley grimaced as he took a sip. “Decker has issues. He’s never really connected emotionally to a woman before and that can’t be good for your mental stability. Any man that can fuck women for money has to have a Pandora’s Box full of baggage.” He cast me a nervous sideways glance. “Sorry.”
I shrugged. What could I say? When he put it like that, I had to agree, but during the short time I had spent with Decker, I never thought of him as emotionally stunted. Our connection seemed real and effortless. His smiles with me were real, the laughter he created was honest. He looked at me with such wonder and awe. God, he looked at me like he loved me. The way our relationship had ended didn’t make sense; it left me missing the closure I needed to move forward. I felt bewildered, lost, and I missed Decker so bad it hurt. Much like I had been Decker’s first real emotional connection to a member of the opposite sex, he had been mine. My adult relationships had numbered three and each of them had been disasters in their own right. Decker was the first man I could honestly see a future with, the first man I dared to dream of a future with. What was I supposed to do when the very person who broke my heart appeared to be the only one who could fix it?
Chapter 22