He followed me silently from the store, the cabinetry pulls forgotten, and when I climbed in the truck, I didn’t bother looking at him. I wanted to cry, and I didn’t know why. I wanted to yell, and again, I couldn’t quite rationalize it. I suppose it had something to do with the fact that we both knew Jake, always had, and there wasn’t a single person on this planet who wanted to hurt Jake. And yet, Kane had hurt him—even if Jake didn’t know it. That was a hard pill to swallow, and it made me angry.
It also terrified me. Because there were simply no limits for him—none I could see at any rate, and that could hurt me—just like it did Jake. And perhaps just like Jake, I would never know.
We were silent on the way to my house, and when he pulled in, he left his hands on the steering wheel, still refusing or too afraid to look at me. I sat there for a moment, contemplating saying nothing and simply climbing out. I reached for the door and pulled the handle.
“Please don’t go,” he whispered.
My chest tightened, and it hurt. I stared at the dashboard, but I could see Kane’s hand out of my periphery, gripping tight on the steering wheel, twisting against it.
“Am I just another…?” I contemplated finishing that sentence but then decided it required nothing more.
He turned to me, but I refused to look at him, staring straight ahead at his dashboard.
“Another what?” he asked.
I did look at him then. “Another anything. Another fight, another fuck, another coping mechanism.” My lips trembled.
“What?” he looked furious for a moment, but then his face fell, and he looked away shaking his head. “Is that what you think?”
I looked at him. “Am I wrong? I mean, that is what we’re doing here, right? You want to fuck me.”
He shook his head. “Not fuck. The only thing in the world I want is to be close to you.”
I finally pushed the car door open, tears flooding my eyes. “That doesn’t require sticking your dick in me—”
“Yes, it does!” he snapped loudly. “It’s not fucking… I need… I need…” he stuttered. But he couldn’t seem to figure out what he wanted to say.
I climbed out, pausing with my hand on the door as I brushed a tear away. “What you need could hurt me.”
He stared straight ahead, and when he closed his eyes a tear ran down his cheek. I closed the door and walked away.
The second I entered the house, I sank against the door behind me and let my body slide down it until I was sitting in a heap on the floor. I reached up, clicking the deadbolt into place.
“Fuck,” I spat out as I gripped my forehead in my hands.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Kane
I laid on the floor of the living room staring at the ceiling above me. The room was empty, but the floors were finished. I stared up, focusing on the old popcorn texture.
“Fuck,” I muttered. Why the hell hadn’t I scraped it? I’d noticed the fucking ceilings, but at the time, I’d not wanted to deal with it, so I’d ignored it. Now the room was nearly finished, and it looked nice… All that is except for the motherfucking ceiling. “Fuck,” I muttered again.
I took a shower when I finally tired of staring at the ceiling. My phone was ringing when I stepped out, and I answered it quickly, assuming or maybe just hoping it was Hell. It wasn’t.
“I could come over,” Lisa said in way of greeting. “Jake had to go see a parishioner about some … spiritual crisis or something… I just…” She sighed. “That woman seems a little stiff for—”
“Shut up,” I snapped at her. “You don’t know her.”
“So that’s it then. You’ve been fucking me for months, and now… You’re just done?”
“Yeah.” I shut up then, giving her no reason to think this conversation was going anywhere.
“What do you think my husband would say if I told him?” Her voice had this pathetic juvenile threatening tone to it.
“Tell him,” I said. “He’s your husband. Your infidelity is your problem. I’m sorry I played any part in it, but I can’t fix your marriage for you.”
She scoffed angrily. “How dare you—”
“Don’t call me again.” I hung up on her. She didn’t deserve my anger, but giving her my sympathy would be too ambiguous, and I needed to make this final in her mind.
I stumbled to my bedroom, threw on a pair of jogging pants, flopped down on my bed, and stared at the motherfucking popcorn on that ceiling too.
It was the middle of the night by the time I fell asleep, and when I woke the next morning it was after only a few hours’ sleep. I powered my way through the day, busying myself scraping the fucking popcorn, and I worked at a ridiculous and exhausting pace, giving myself no time to think. But when there was a knock on the door, I practically sprinted to get it. It needed to be Helene. It wasn’t.
Instead it was the city inspector. “Problem is,” he said as I followed him around the side of the house. “The three-season porch was built without a permit. It was clearly a patio at one point in time, and apparently your father decided to close it in without getting the proper permits to do so,” the man said smugly.
“I’m so shocked my father would do such a thing,” I retorted sarcastically. “So, what does that mean?”
“Well, you’re going to need to get a permit in order to—”