Chapter 28

“Maybe the neighborhood is on fire and it’s an evacuation,” I say. Every bad thing imaginable crosses my mind and there’s no way I can ignore it any longer.

“It’s probably just Sam coming to check and see if our curtains match the couch,” Deacon teases.

“Don’t ever mention your brother when we’re having sex,” I say. “I didn’t think there was anything you could possibly do to turn me off, but you might’ve just found the one thing.”

He laughs and smacks me on the butt.

“Please, I need to go check,” I say. “I can’t focus on us until I do.”

Deacon sighs. “All right. I’ll go check it out.”

“No,” I say, climbing off of him and wrapping my robe around me. “You stay and keep that thing hard for when I come back.”

He smiles at me and takes hold of his massive cock, stroking it.

I wink at him and smile. “Good boy.”

I wrap my robe tight around me and tie the belt in a knot. I jog into the living room. When I open the door, I’m not sure what to expect, but it definitely not the person standing in front of me.

The woman doesn’t say anything to me at first, just scrutinizes me, looking up and down from my mussed up hair to my bare feet. She’s a bit older than me. In her thirties. Closer to Deacon’s age. She has bleached hair with long dark roots. Not the kind that’s fashionable right now, but the kind a woman gets when she neglects to keep her salon appointments. She wears an oversized hooded sweatshirt and jeans with boots, and too much makeup. Her thin lips and the harsh set of her mouth make her look severe.

“Can I help you?” I ask.

“Where’s Deacon?” she says bluntly.

I hear footsteps behind me. I turn. Deacon is standing there with only a pair of sweatpants on. “Who is it?” he asks.

I open the door wider for him to see. His mouth falls open in surprise, then closes, his eyebrows coming together in an angry look. “What the hell are you doing here, Karen?”

Karen? This woman is his ex-wife? I remember her being prettier than she is now. I was so jealous when she came into the picture. She’s not ugly, really, just … harsh. Like someone who is scraping through life by the skin of her teeth. Deacon says she’s a drunk and a party girl. I wonder if that includes doing drugs as well, because that’s the vibe I’m getting with her.

6 Deacon I haven’t seen my ex since she walked out on me and our child nearly six months ago. Not a phone call. Not a text. One night she drained both our bank accounts, gathered all of her possessions—and some of mine—and disappeared with a note that simply said, “I can’t do this anymore”.

Now here she is.

At my new house where I’m building a new life. One that was supposed to be Karen-free.

She looks much older than the last time I saw her. Her skin is thin as parchment, hair dry like straw.

She looks rode hard and put away wet, as people say. A typical bar fly. All that partying has caught up with her. Not that she was ever stunning to begin with. It wasn’t her looks that attracted me to her, it was her confidence. The way she walked right up to me and said, “You’re taking me on a date.”

I almost said no that day. I should have. But I hadn’t been on a date in a long time and I thought, what the hell. I’d never been attracted to women so outspoken and so confident before. I thought it would be a nice change from the girls I usually dated. I quickly learned that just because something is different doesn’t mean it’s better. But I had my blinders on. Honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking. Looking at her now, I can’t remember a single thing that attracted me to her at all.

“How the fuck did you find me?” I demand.

Remy starts to back away from the door. She didn’t sign up for this. I don’t blame her for not wanting to be part of my drama. Karen isn’t the type of women someone as sweet and innocent as Remy would want to confront—and she shouldn’t have to. Karen is the type who would smile at her face and as soon as she dropped her guard, yank her back by the hair. I’ve actually seen her do that once before when she was drunk at a club. She did it to one of the bottle girls who she thought looked at me wrong.

It got us kicked out and permanently banned from the club.

She was always crazy-jealous. It wasn’t like she actually cared about me. But she sure as hell wasn’t going to allow anyone else to flirt.

“Sam gave me the address,” Karen says.

Remy looks completely shocked. She probably thinks Sam betrayed her after they were becoming so close. But I know that’s not the case.