Dirty Thoughts - Megan Erickson Page 0,80
here.”
“ ’Course,” Cal said.
“I hope I didn’t make you leave the party early.”
Cal snorted. “Nah, you didn’t.”
“Really?” Brent asked.
Cal waved an arm at him. “I’ll tell you later.” To Asher, he said, “Look, I called your mom so the hospital has your insurance information. She wants you to call her.”
Asher swallowed. “She’s not coming, then, I guess?”
Cal gritted his teeth. “Don’t think so, buddy.”
Asher shrugged, but it was forced.
Cal stood up. “Brent and I’ll wait out in the hallway. Why don’t you give her a call?”
After placing Asher’s phone in his hand, Cal followed Brent outside of the room, and then Cal proceeded to tell him everything about the fight with Dylan.
Brent’s eyes were huge. “So he’s just jealous of his sister?”
Cal ran his tongue over his teeth. “I think . . . it’s a lot about his pride. And that, for a man like him, is something he can’t get over.”
“That is fucking crazy.”
“Yep.”
“He actually smashed his own face against the door.”
“Yep.”
Brent started laughing.
“It’s not funny, Brent.”
His brother was doubled over, hands on his knees. He raised a finger as another gasp of laughter overtook him.
Cal crossed his arms and glared. Brent finally raised his head with watery eyes. “He smashed his own face! What fucking lunatic does that?”
“Can you stop swearing? We’re in a fucking hospital!”
And that sent Brent into a whole other gale of laughter. When Cal realized what he’d said, he began laughing too. Although he sobered quickly when he remembered Jenna scolding him for swearing in the grocery store.
When Brent caught his breath, he said, “What did Jenna do?”
That sobered Cal up quickly. “Believed him, I guess. I don’t give a shit.”
Brent frowned.
“It’s my word against Dylan’s, and it was in front of her whole company. What choice does she have?” His heart felt like it was being tugged out of his body, piece by fucking piece. He’d had her for a whole month. A month that had been the best of his life since she’d left him the first time. He wished he could go back to that time on the dance floor, when he told her he loved her, when he’d handed her his entire heart. “If she still thinks I’m just like that eighteen-year-old kid, then what the hell are we even doing being together, you know? Maybe I should have just punched him.”
“You think he’ll press charges?”
Cal ran his hands through his hair. “Shit, didn’t even think about that. I won’t let her bail me out this time. I can afford to defend myself.”
“Don’t worry about that now. Let’s get Asher taken care of, first.”
Cal pushed the MacMillans to the corner of his mind, back to where he couldn’t see them and where they couldn’t affect him, and he opened the door to visit his brother in the hospital bed.
JENNA’S WHOLE BODY felt numb.
Dylan was whimpering about how Cal had punched him in the nose. Her mother was fanning herself on a chair someone had brought over as she twisted her necklace nervously, eyes skittering around the room like a hunted deer. Her father was comforting Dylan, checking his eyes, nose, and teeth like her brother was a stud horse.
The employees who had heard the commotion were standing around talking in hushed whispers, trying to hide their pointed fingers and accusing looks.
This party had been perfect. It’d been the culmination of hard work and perfect planning and in one fell swoop, the walls had crashed down around her.
The country club employees were ushering people back into the main room, and Jenna could only hope that most of them had imbibed enough for this whole thing to be a little fuzzy.
She swallowed, took a deep breath, and walked toward her brother.
Her mother’s feeble voice called her name, but Jenna ignored her, her eyes on the two men in her life who screwed everything up once, but over her dead fucking body would they do it again.
She’d seen the blood smear on the bathroom door, but she wasn’t sure if her father had seen it or had chosen to ignore it.
She’d also seen the look in Cal’s eyes. The flare of defiance before a grim acceptance.
What she didn’t see were cut knuckles. What she didn’t see was the look of a Cal who’d lost his temper. Cal had changed. He wasn’t the same man he’d been back when he’d broken Dylan’s nose. He was passionate without the anger. He had more control. She had to believe that, because if not, they didn’t have