Taking It Slow - Reese Knightley Page 0,6
parent, he wouldn’t have had to resort to CPS. The guilt over Wesley ate at Spencer. Spencer jerked out his wallet and tossed four twenty dollar bills on the trash-filled coffee table and walked out.
Wesley emerged from the front door a few minutes later, wiping at his face.
“What did she say? Did she hit you?” he raged, ready to go back in and bitch slap her.
“No!” Wesley sniffled. “I thought you’d left me.”
“No.” Spencer pulled Wesley close. “I’ll never leave you. Ever. I’ll always come back,” he soothed, trying to ease the worry from his brother’s stress-filled face.
Wesley searched his face, holding his gaze before he slowly nodded.
“Now, first stop is my place and then you want pizza?”
“Oh, hell yes.”
Spencer smiled for the first time, glad he’d held back one of the twenties in his wallet.
“Where’s Dillon?” Wesley asked after tossing his laundry bag into the bed of the truck and climbing into the passenger seat.
“Deployed, we have the place to ourselves.” Spencer shared the rent on a small, two-bedroom apartment with Dillon Thorne. Staff Sergeant Thorne was a member of Infinity, a Special Forces unit that occupied the same base where Fury was stationed.
The minute the apartment door closed, Wesley yanked off his dirty clothes, leaving a trail to the bathroom.
“Woot, hell yeah! Hot water!” Wesley’s laughed echoed from inside the bathroom.
Spencer chuckled with a lump in his throat. Scrunching his nose at the smell of stale cigarette smoke, he picked up Wesley’s clothes from the floor and the laundry bag before starting a load in the washer.
He stood staring at the water swishing around the clothes in the murky liquid and gently closed the lid. His spine hit the wall when he took a step back. A tightness filled his chest and he rubbed at it.
What the fuck was he going to do? He couldn’t keep up this way, something was going to break and he had a feeling it might be him. He suddenly felt like he was running. Bending forward, he braced his hands on the washer and took deep, gasping breaths, willing the worry back into its neat little box. Right into the compartment where he placed everything that he couldn’t handle.
He took a long, slow breath and released it, and then another before he shoved upright and left the small utility room.
Reaching his own bedroom, he selected a pair of sweats, a t-shirt, and a clean towel from the hall closet on his way to the bathroom.
“It’s open,” Wesley responded at his knock.
He ducked inside. “I put some clothes on the toilet. And there’s a towel on the sink.”
“Thanks, bro.” Wesley sang out.
“I’ll order the pizza unless you want to go out.”
“In is fine, and a movie?”
“We can see what’s on Dillon’s Netflix,” he agreed, but lingered for another minute.
Wesley’s head poked out of the shower curtain. Spencer stared at his brother’s bright blue eyes so much like his own.
“I’m okay, Spencer. Really. I’m just starved.”
“She hasn’t laid a hand on you?”
“Nope, I swear. Her mouth is just as nasty as ever, but she hasn’t hit me since that day.”
Only because he had put the fear of God into her. The emotional abuse was still there, though. He could see it in the shadows of his brother’s eyes and it killed him. He wanted to hit something. He made a mental note to threaten her if she didn’t stop with the nastiness toward Wesley.
“And Carl?”
“Carl’s only around during the weekend and usually gets too drunk to stand up.”
“Okay,” he rasped, rubbing his chest. “You still hungry?”
“Hell yeah! Pizza!”
His brother’s voice was so excited, he didn’t have the heart to suggest the mac and cheese in the cupboard. He could eat on base as much as possible this month and save the cash.
“Pizza it is.”
“I’ll be out in a few.”
“Take your time.” He finally smiled and left the room.
Entering the small kitchen, he ordered the pizza and pulled down some paper plates.
His phone buzzed.
“Hey, Mad, what’s up?” He grinned, catching the phone between his chin and shoulder as he searched for a new roll of paper towels.
“Not much. Why didn’t you make it to the party?”
Shit. He felt a bit guilty he hadn’t gone to the general’s retirement party after finding out that Liam was going to be there.
“I was busy.”
“Cut the bullshit,” Maddox razzed him. “You didn’t go because the colonel was going to be there.”
“So?” He frowned. “He wants something I don’t.”
“Wait… I thought you told me he sent you an email apologizing