Blacklisted (Loveless, Texas #3) - Jay Crownover Page 0,94

hips and regarded her with a bored expression. I let out a very real yawn because I was tired and, even more so, tired of all this. Being the good guy was so not my bag. It took far more patience than I was blessed with.

The woman frowned at my apparent disinterest and sat up on the edge of the bed. “She took something that was rightfully mine, so I took something that was hers. Only I got in trouble for making things even, and nothing bad happened to her. Nothing bad ever happens to her. I came back to see her because I deserve an apology. I deserve a lot of things.” She reached for the buckle on my belt just as there was a knock at the door.

We both turned to look in surprise. For once her shocked expression didn’t seem fake. This wasn’t part of the plan. Mine or hers. I’d barely got her talking. We weren’t anywhere close to a confession.

Assuming it was Kody, back to chew my ass out, I walked to the door and yanked it open.

And was pinned in place by a pair of accusing green eyes. Only, they weren’t Kody’s.

I knew things looked bad.

I was naked from the waist up in a motel room with another scantily clad woman. There were discarded clothes all over the floor and I was sure I had lipstick smeared across my now slack mouth.

Unlike Kody, who raged and exploded without thought, Presley simply looked at me like she could see into my very soul…and couldn’t find anything there worth loving anymore.

Chapter 20

Presley

I knew I needed to apologize to Shot.

I knew that I’d shut him out, both figuratively and literally, burying myself in work instead of dealing with my complicated and confusing emotions. It was all just a misunderstanding, but there were deep-seated issues lurking under the surface of it all. I cared about Shot more than I’d planned on caring about anyone after losing my mother. I trusted him. I relied on him. But I was realizing that as long as we were together I would never come first in his life, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I told him he couldn’t be the center of my world, so did it make any sense that I was starting to want to be the center of his?

I had to give him credit, though. While I was hiding from everything that felt like it was going wrong, he’d made the effort to make sure I was doing okay. He texted me good morning and good night every single day, and still reminded me to eat and take a break while I was at work. He told me he was going out of town with the club, but I still had a scary biker escort to and from work every single day. He was giving me the space I asked for and respecting the boundaries I told him I would protect with everything I had, which made me feel terrible. He was supposed to be as clueless about relationships as me. But he seemed so much better at all of it than I was.

I called Kody a few days after the dustup and asked her to meet with me. I needed someone to talk to. Someone who would give it to me straight. She’d already warned being with Shot would never be easy, but I needed someone to assure me if I decided to put the work in to be with him, it would be worth it. I also needed to hear that I was worth it. That eventually I’d hold as much importance in Shot’s world as his club and members did. Really, I needed Kody to talk me off the edge.

When Kody answered, she was clearly groggy and almost incoherent. I forgot that she tended to get off work super late and had probably just lain down to go to bed. She mumbled her way through a few sentences before I cut her off and apologized for calling so early and out of the blue. I told her I would call her back at a more reasonable hour and went back to pacing my apartment and trying to figure out how to mend the fence I’d purposely kicked down in a panic over my unchecked emotions.

My phone rang as I was finishing up getting ready for the day. I was pinning the top part of my hair back and away from my face