wasn’t right. How did Rocket know Keva? And why was he calling her Annabel? The only Annabel I knew of was Rocket’s kid sister.
Oh, fuck.
My gut clenched tight, and I blew out a strained breath. There were some lines you never crossed with your brothers and I’d just trampled right over the very thickest of lines with my dick out.
Rocket’s gaze took in Keva from head to toe before swinging back to me with thunder and lightning and clear understanding tearing across his face. His meaty hands balled into fists, and I knew they itched to pound my face.
I pointed at Keva, making sure to step away from Rocket. “You said your name was Keva.”
She put one bare foot on top of the other and folded her arms across her chest, which was a good idea considering her nipples were poking through the thin cotton. “My name is Keva. Keva Annabel Mooney. And this is my brother Boston. How do you two know each other?”
Boston took a step toward me and I didn’t back away this time. I’d slept with his baby sister my first day in town. He and I both knew you fucked the first willing girl on leave and never thought about her again. No amount of telling him how much I liked Keva and wanted to keep seeing her would change his mind.
I deserved whatever I had coming.
“He was my Staff Sergeant and now my roommate.” Rocket ground out between his clenched jaw.
“Oh, shit,” Keva whispered, finally grasping the gravity of the situation.
Oh, shit was right.
Rocket’s arm cocked back and I winced, refusing to even block him.
Keva screamed and then pain bloomed across my face.
Chapter Three
Keva
“Look. I don’t want to talk about him anymore. I just want to forget about him. He doesn't exist in my world. Okay, Jenika?”
I shoved my cell phone between my ear and my shoulder as I ran around my tiny apartment above Coffee on Main Street. I’d lucked out getting to rent this place when I came here two years ago at the tender age of eighteen. I think the owner took pity on me and gave me the place just because I was so pathetic with my story of woe. Dead parents, a nasty uncle who had custody of me for exactly eight months before I aged out, and a big brother off in the military. I’d made the seven hundred square feet a home though and Miss Lucy had given me a job at the fertility clinic I’d come to love.
“I thought you said he ruined all men for you after your one day together,” Jenika reminded me, doing what best friends do: call you on your shit.
I snorted, pulling on a pair of black pants that looked mostly clean. “He did ruin me for all men, just not in the way I thought.”
Jenika snickered and then shouted at me to hold on while a train went by. I took the twenty seconds to toss the phone on my bed and pull a blouse over my head. A quick dash of lipstick and I was ready to head out the door. Oh wait. Shoes. I grabbed the phone, shoved my feet in my favorite black flats and headed out the door in the hopes of grabbing a cup of coffee before walking to work now that my car had died for the last time.
“Okay, I’m back,” Jenika said.
I rolled my eyes and trampled down the stairs. “You really need to move out of that place. A train every hour on the hour? Just move here already. I promise you’ll fit right in with these weirdos.”
“Hey!” Dante, the hot guy my age running the cash register downstairs in the coffee shop, handed me a steaming cup of coffee just the way I liked it. I lifted on tip toes and kissed his cheek. He winked and I knew he wasn’t mad about my weirdo comment. Hell citizens thrived on being weird. They wore it like a badge of honor.
“Actually, I was thinking of moving once my lease is up next month.”
I squealed at that news and then darted behind the corner of the diner when I saw a familiar head of hair getting out of a parked truck. My heart raced and I held my breath.
“Hello?” came Jenika’s voice in my ear.
“Hold on,” I whispered, daring to dart a look around the corner a moment later and letting out a sigh of relief when Linc wasn’t anywhere to be found.