thinking or not, I best get the fuck over it.
“Do you mind if I join? You two sure look cozy. Unless, of course, this is a private conversation. In that case, I don’t want to butt in,” Joanna suddenly said, startling us. Then she wiggled her barely covered ass audaciously, making it hard not to snort and roll my eyes at how annoyingly obvious she was being in her attempt to get Brody’s attention. Knowing how he was with women, I was certain he noticed everything that was on offer, bikini and all.
A part of me wanted to pity her. She was just going to end up heartbroken like I was, but another side of me became jealous and territorial, leaving me more annoyed than before.
Addressing Joanna, I directed a glacial look at her. “We’re just talking. You and your butt are both more than welcome plug in to our conversation.”
Joanna giggled, feeling as if invited, even though all I wanted to do was to scratch her eyes out. At this rate, there was no point in hanging around, because I was sure this woman would try to get Brody’s undivided attention. I wouldn’t even put it past her to offer a skinny dip in the ocean so she could freely bounce her boobs as she splashed herself against the waves. It was a typical move, one I had tried before.
Weighing my options, I decided to watch them interact. Like any normal man, Brody liked the attention he was getting, most especially since she seemed to be giving off the green light. I mean, seriously, Joanna was basically waving a white flag, ready to be saddled up and taken for a good ride.
Much as I liked to hate on her and her direct approach when it came to men, I couldn’t help feeling insecure that she could easily do whatever she wanted without shame, while it took me years to have the gall to even flirt with Brody. That was the difference between women like her and myself—the go-getter and the no-confidence, insecure type. Women like me would always lose because we didn’t have the balls to go in for the kill.
With that realization in mind, watching them interact made me nauseas. I felt as if my stomach was being fueled with gasoline before someone decided to light the match and blast it on fire.
Then my phone began to ring, breaking through my dire thoughts. Reluctantly taking my phone out, the least person I had expected to contact me had seemingly come out of the woodwork just to fuck up my night.
Hey, sweets. Wanna party tonight? The fun is on me as long as you bring your sweet lips.
What the fuck! How fucking dare Rob? I seriously wanted to hurl things at him, hurt him, and gut him alive. Did he not know the kind of shit I had to go through after he took advantage of me? And here he was, texting me as if nothing horrible had happened, as if everything was fine. What the flipping fuck!
My eyes blurred as I shut my phone off, unwilling to receive any more shit from Rob tonight. On the verge of tears, I made a quick excuse to leave, but Brody wasn’t having it.
“Where are you going, Amber?”
“Somewhere,” I mumbled out, loathing the fact that he seemed to want to know where I was going most of the time these days.
“Wait up a sec—”
I didn’t wait. I couldn’t. Everything was blotted out, and all I could see was Rob and hear his scratchy voice ringing in my ears as I tried to sprint my way out of there. I was desperate to be alone, away from prying, dark eyes that took in whatever I did, as if he could see through my shaky barriers and the façade I was portraying, as if he could easily see through my lies and faults.
Chapter Nineteen
One thing I realized was that I couldn’t be anywhere that people knew me too well since they would suspect something was amiss. Try as I might, I couldn’t escape the demons that constantly plagued my mind. I was suddenly back there, on that night when everything crumbled and I was left defenseless while that pig of a man took advantage of me.
Almost running up the stairs, taking two steps at a time, I reached the safe confines of Carter’s room before hastily locking it, as if Rob was chasing me, as if he was there, in this house, laughing