see her every night if I wanted. I worked late some nights, and driving an hour down just didn’t make sense.
“Just promise me you won’t see him.”
“Excuse me?”
“I don’t want you seeing him.”
She stared at me for a moment and then turned back to her packing, shoving things angrily into her suitcase.
“Anna, promise me.”
“No.”
“What?”
“I said no.”
She wouldn’t look at me, so I grabbed her by the arm and forced her to turn and look at me. “Why the fuck not?”
“Because you demanded it.”
“And you would do the same if you saw some woman hanging on me.”
“First off, Carter hasn’t been hanging on me. Neither of us has seen him since Thanksgiving.”
“Because you’ve mostly been here.”
“And I barely saw him before Thanksgiving,” she shot back. “It’s not like he and I met regularly for coffee or anything.”
“So, you’ll have no problem dropping him now.”
“I’m not dropping anyone,” she snarled. “If you don’t like it, you’ll just have to deal with it. We’re dating, Robert, but that doesn’t give you the right to have any say in who’s in my life.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t believe she was going to still see him. “Anna, I’m serious. I don’t want you seeing him. He wants you. He made that clear at Thanksgiving.”
“And I made it clear that I didn’t want him.”
“And you think he’ll just leave you alone now? Anna, you’re not the type of woman that a man walks away from.”
She tilted her head and glared at me. “You did.”
I gritted my teeth and held my temper. I was already losing the battle. I couldn’t say anything that would make her want to walk out that door for good.
She zipped up her bag and flung it over her shoulder. “I’m ready to leave.”
The ride home was uncomfortable to say the least. Anna refused to speak to me the whole way, and since she was angry with me, I chose to be angry with her, though I wasn’t sure for what exactly. I drove her to her house and when she got out, she didn’t even say goodbye before slamming the car door in my face and marching up to her piece of shit house. Angry, I shifted into reverse and tore out of her driveway, cursing myself for not paying attention to the potholes as I backed out.
Since I was down here, I might as well go visit my brothers. Hopefully, they were home and could help me figure out what to do with this crazy woman. When I pulled up, I noticed there was an extra truck in the driveway, and it looked very much like Derek’s.
I got out and strode up the steps of the front porch and walked in. Derek grinned as he looked up at me, though it seemed strained.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, walking around to give him a hug. He stood and patted me on the back before sitting back down. I nodded to Hunter, who was also sitting in the kitchen. I’d only met Derek’s teammate once, and it hadn’t been for more than a cursory glance since Lucy, his now wife, had just fucked Joe and she was dating, or sort of dating, Hunter at the time.
Derek scratched the back of his head and chuffed out a laugh. “We uh…just thought we’d come for a visit. That last job was rough, so,” he shrugged. “Just thought we’d take a break.”
“Yeah? What happened?”
He scoffed. “What didn’t happen. Lucy and Claire were almost taken.”
I looked around the table. Obviously I was missing something. “What do you mean?”
“I can’t say too much about it. We sort of got caught up in a gang war and…well, it all turned out fine.”
I frowned at his very brief explanation. “Are Claire and Lucy okay?”
“Are you kidding?” Hunter smiled. “Lucy is pissed and Claire is excited that she has another fantasy to play out.”
“But neither of them were hurt?”
“Nah, but it was insane and there was a lot of cleanup when we got back,” Derek said. “So, anyway, we thought we’d get away from work for a few days and see the family.”
I turned to Hunter and held back my laugh. “And you’re okay with being here?”
Hunter narrowed his eyes at Joe, who didn’t seem at all concerned with Hunter’s glare. “He knows to keep his hands off Lucy.”
“Hey, I would have known back then had your woman actually said that she was sleeping with you.”