my heart that Rooster does and leaving him is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.
“There, there,” he says patting me awkwardly as I hug him. “It’s going to be okay. You’ll be back with friends,” he says trying to comfort me.
“It won’t be you,” I sniffle.
“Ole Rooster sure ain’t much, Angel. You need to follow your own path in life,” he says, and I force myself to pull away.
“Rooster, I need you to do me a favor,” I tell him, trying to stop my tears and to look at the man that I’ve truly let into my heart.
“What’s that?” he says, coughing again, the sound making my heart tighten in my chest.
“I have the apartment rented for the next two months. I had to prepay. I need you to stay there for me.”
“If you have the place rented then why are you leaving?” he asks, and he’s definitely irritated—and I think with me.
“I just told you. I have to.”
“You don’t have to do a damn thing in this life, Angel, except live and die.”
“Rooster, you’re just making me feel worse here,” I cry, frustrated. “I want to stay, but I—”
“If you want it so bad, then why don’t you fight for it?” he asks, as Gladys runs into the shelter, not wanting to hear us fight.
“That’s what I want to know.”
My head jerks to the right as I look to see Mike standing there, looking directly at me.
Suddenly my bad day is about to get a lot worse.
25
Mike
Violet doesn’t speak as we walk into her apartment—well, if you can call it that. The place is a shit hole. Pure and simple shit hole. Her back is stiff, and she doesn’t even look back to notice if I’m there. Tension is so tight between us that it goes beyond the old saying you could cut it with a knife. Shit, if she had a knife right now I’d be dead. I close the door behind me, feeling out of my depth.
Davis would get a kick out of this. I’ve never cared enough to carry on a real conversation with a chick. Now I have one that I would walk across hot coals to keep and she probably wants me dead.
How the mighty have fallen.
“That’s far enough,” she barks when I barely cross the threshold. She’s standing on the other side of the room, arms crossed and daring me to defy her order. I don’t for now, but I know this is going to be a major fight.
“Violet—”
“You need to leave,” she orders, her voice as cold as her face.
“We need to talk about this,” I argue, frustration pushing through me rapidly. I have an extremely bad feeling that Violet isn’t even going to listen to me as I try to apologize.
“You either leave, or I call the law. I imagine the school would find you consorting with a stripper and breaking the law on the seedy side of town a violation of their morality clause too.”
I smile. Jesus, Violet is so damn hot when she sasses. She’s also clueless to how shit is done around here. They’d sweep it under the rug, hit dear old Dad up for another donation and nothing would be said. Christ, it’s no wonder I’m attracted to Violet. She’s the most honest person in my life—gorgeous too, but that’s a given. She’s real and she’s a million other things and only a small part of that is her beauty. Everything I find out about her makes me want her even more.
“Violet, I was an asshole,” I mutter.
“Wrong. You are an asshole, Mike Huntington. You thought you could put me where you wanted and control me. I called your bluff. Our dealings with one another are over. I don’t want to see you and I really don’t want to breathe the same air as you.”
“I wasn’t trying to control you.”
“The hell you weren’t. You were blackmailing me, asshole.”
“I only threatened to blackmail you, damn it,” I respond, wincing because that doesn’t sound better at all. It probably sounds worse.
“Get the hell out of my place.”
“This is not your place. You don’t belong here.”
She just stares at me. Her eyes narrowed, anger evident in everything about her—in everything she does.
“Look again, Mr. Rich and Fancy Asshole. This shack on the wrong side of the tracks is a fucking mansion compared to where I’m from. I belong here and in worse places,” she snaps.
“Bullshit. You’re so far above this place it’s not even funny. Hell,