Cocky F@#ker (Tangled Desires #3) (10 page)

“Mace Hadley.” I can barely say his name. It gets caught in my throat, coming out not much above a croak.

“I found it.” She raises the can in victory. “Hadley, huh? Why doesn’t that surprise me? At least now I understand why you didn’t even stick around to finish your date with Deni’s brother. Are you going to tell him?”

“Deni’s brother? Why would I do that?”

“No. The daddy. You’re going to tell him, right?”

I drag myself up off the toilet and toss the test into the top drawer, slamming it shut. Tell Mace Hadley he knocked me up? Oh my God, could this day get any worse? He’d do the man thing and tell me I had to marry him, again. I’d never get another moment’s peace in my life. And I can’t do that. I can’t end up trapped with him out of nothing more than a ridiculous notion of responsibility. It would be too hard to be so close to him and know it’s only because we did something stupid.

I’d be stuck with him in my life, in my bed. The idea warms me far more than it should, but he may already be done with me. We’ve never had a repeat performance in the same year before, and I won’t tie myself to a man who I can never be sure about. Not again. Not like this. “Not yet. I have to be certain. I have to decide…”

“If you’re going to have it?” She lays a hand on my shoulder.

“No.
If
this is real, I’ll handle it. Mom did. With the two of us. I can, too.” I exhale. “I don’t know how he’s going to take it. I don’t know if I’m ready for that conversation.”

“You’re going to have to tell him.”

“Eventually.” I turn my back on the drawer. The one holding the biggest secret of all. At some point I’m going to have to explain to Mace that he’s going to be a daddy, and I’m going to have to explain to Tom and Claire that I made a huge omission when I told them their brother broke my heart. And I’ll probably have to tell Rush, because he’s sacrificed his relationship with his brother for me for far too long. If we’re going to get through this it’s time for him to come home.

Somehow I’m going to have to mend the rift between them. I should never have let Rush lie for me in the first place. No matter how much I needed Mace to stay far the hell away from Reverence, from me, I should have been strong enough to deal with him on my own. But I let Rush get involved when I shouldn’t have. And now I have to find a way to undo the damage I caused and get everyone talking to each other again, if I don’t want to cause an even bigger fallout in the Hadley family when I explain there’s a new Hadley on the way.

I’m just not sure I can deal with it right now. I need a few days to get my head around it first before all hell breaks loose.

***

“Come on. We’re going to play mini golf,” are the first words out of Mace’s mouth when I open my front door to find him standing on the porch. He actually looks pretty pissed, his arms crossed over his barrel chest as he stares down at me.

I guess it’s to be expected after I did the mad dash in the middle of the night and haven’t talked to him since. To be fair, I haven’t talked to anyone since I found out about the Hadley bun in my oven, other than a doctor who was glad to reassure me that I’m definitely pregnant. Damn him for being the bearer of that news.

News I now have to share with the man in front of me. And I have no idea how to drop this bombshell on him. “I don’t really feel like playing with a stick and balls.” I shrug. “Maybe you should find someone else to play with you.”

He snorts, one side of his mouth twitching. “Where’s the fun in that? I much prefer when you play with my stick. Now get your shoes because whether you like it or not your friends are starting to wonder why their stray has suddenly gone AWOL.”

“Fine.” I close the door in his face, leaving him standing on the porch.

I don’t know if I thought he would go away when I shut the door on him, or if I was hoping to put something solid between us while I gathered my wits and found my shoes and purse. Because right now I’m feeling anything but solid, and that feeling leaves me shaky when I finally lock the front door behind me. Which is why I don’t say anything as I follow him to his bike and hop on behind him, weaving my arms around his waist.

For a moment I think he’s going to say something. His back rises as he pulls in a breath, but then he exhales and kicks the bike to life.

I want to tell him that my slipping out in the middle of the night was different from what’s come before, but I don’t because there’s too much involved in that conversation, and he wouldn’t hear it over the roar of the bike as we ride to meet the others.

“It’s only been a couple days,” I say, sliding off the back of his bike when we get to mini golf. I can’t keep my mouth shut forever. It isn’t fair to not even talk to him. “Surely, you can all survive without me for that short period of time.”

“It’s been four.” He presses his hand to the small of my back and urges me forward. “And maybe if you answered your phone they wouldn’t think it so weird that you fell off the face of the planet after your first date, in what, a decade?”

“Really? It’s been four days?” I’m surprised by that, but I haven’t exactly been keeping track while I watched reruns of old TV shows, my head spinning as I tried to work out how to deal with the mess I’ve found myself in. “I guess I’ve been busy.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t catch the first plane out of here.” He holds the door of the kiosk open for me.

I should have expected him to say something like that. I get it, especially since I ran out on him. Again. But still it stings.

I arch a brow. “You’re aware we don’t have an airport, right? That we have to go to the next town to catch a plane.”

I march past him up to the cashier and organize our games. We used to do this a lot when we were younger. All of us together. It’s not quite the same now.

“It’s a turn of phrase.” He comes up behind me, leaning into me. I can feel the heat of him, the subtle murmur of his body so close to mine as he speaks in my ear, “But you’re running like your ass is on fire.”

“Maybe because I realized we made a
huge
mistake.” Massive. Enormous. And now is not the time to clarify that I’m not talking about the other night. That maybe if we’d had time to see whether we could work out our issues before a gigantic curve ball threw itself at me I wouldn’t be freaking out as hard as I am. So I leave it alone, which is what I should have done with him— left him damn well alone— and I get my balls and putter while he gets his.

“Is that right?” he says, not quite managing to hide the fact he’s offended behind a leer while he lowers his voice so only I can hear. “Because it didn’t seem to me that you thought it was a mistake when you fell asleep in my arms after you finished cumming on me.”

“That’s because you were for a minute there being sweet and not a gigantic pain in the ass.” I huff, stalking away from him.

“Fine,” he grumbles. “Have it your way. But unless you’ve got a brilliant excuse for why you disappeared off the face of the earth I suggest you come up with one of your little white lies you’re so fond of telling my family before they come up with their own ideas.”

When we push through the doors to the course, Tom waves at us from where the others are gathered. “Where have you been, Chelsea? I’ve been trying to call you for days.”

Wrapping my head around the fact there’s going to be another Hadley. God, I hope it’s a pink one. Another girl to balance out the overdose of testosterone the Hadley men produce.

But I don’t say any of that. My step falters at the idea of telling them. I’m so not ready to deal with this yet. Because I can’t change the fact that my closest friends don’t know me like they think they do. Or that I’m scared of everyone’s reaction when they find out the truth. Instead, I whisper to Mace, “Do you think we could try to get along while we’re here?”

“I’ll do you one better.” He smirks, stalking ahead of me. “I’ll pretend we’re nothing but friends.”

Mace

“Do you know if Chelsea’s coming around tonight?” I ask Tom as he lays steaks out on the grill.

I don’t know why I’m asking. It’s clear she’s avoiding me. My texts for the past week and a half have gotten monosyllabic answers. Ever since the night we fucked, she’s barely spoken to me. And making nice when she’s around is getting harder. Especially when all I want to do is touch her, or whisper all the things I would do to her if I could get her in my bed again.

“No. She said was having dinner with her sister.” He lays out some onion on the hotplate, and my mouth waters as they start to sizzle.

The fact I’m disappointed by her evasion only adds to my irritability. And it’s already too high after I found the pee-stick in the back of one of the drawers in the bathroom when I was looking for a new bar of soap this morning. I don’t have a clue who it belongs to, other than it’s one of my siblings.

I don’t know why seeing that stick has done such a number on my head. Only that one of my siblings has managed to get themself into trouble, and I don’t know which one. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t heave a sigh of relief at the fact it isn’t me. That’d be some big ass wrench in the works, since I’m still only starting to get my shit together.

I thought I’d be more settled by now. That I’d have gotten a handle on my situation. But I’m still treading water, still trying to find my way. Sure, I’ve put the steps into place, gotten work lined up in Reverence and tried to find a way to deal with not going back to the life I thought was all I’d ever have. I wish I could just forget what happened the last time I pulled the trigger, but I don’t think I ever will. That girl is going to stick with me for the rest of my life. All I can do is try to work around it and build myself a new life, a new path.

But I’m not moving on. I’m not really getting anywhere while I’m preoccupied with Chelsea. Especially since she’s making it abundantly clear my attention is unwarranted.

I count to ten, try to settle the agitation that flits through me at not having a clear path or goals. Yeah, an accidental pregnancy would be the worst possible thing to add to my already uncertain future. But it’s not any better for any of the others, and I’m worried about how any of them will be able to handle it.

I toss my empty bottle in the trash can and yell out to Tom as I slam through the back door to the kitchen, “We need a few more beers.”

Or hell, at least I do.

Because Razer has my sister bailed up against the wall. I mean, fuck, she’s practically draped around him, and he has his hands on her ass while he gives her mouth-to-mouth. I wish I could believe it was for CPR purposes, but I’m pretty sure my suspicions have just been confirmed.

Claire goes red, tomato red, when she spots me. If they haven’t been fucking around then I’m the Delhi Llama. Which right now I am anything but… Because that means my sister is fucking pregnant, right? By my best friend, my brother from another mother. By a guy who has spent more than two decades being her brother.

A guy who has only ever used women for fun, which wasn’t a problem, but now that it’s my sister, it’s a big fucking deal. How could he care so little for her, for our family, after everything we did for him? “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Mace, calm down. Let’s talk about this.” Razer lets go of Claire, stepping between us like he’s protecting her from me. Like I’m the asshole here because I’m not exactly at ease over finding them like this. In fact, I’m positively bristling.

He’s fucked around with my sister. Knocked her up.

And he’s leaving tomorrow. That’s what he told me last week when we were talking about the security work I’m setting up. He’s knocked up my sister and he’s just going to walk away. Fucking bastard.

“You want to talk?” I can hear my voice getting lower, growly, as I grab Razer’s shirt in my fist, dragging him outside with me. I don’t relax my hold on him as I stalk toward the wooden steps that lead to the lawn. He has a chance right now to turn all this around. To prove me wrong and show he’s worthy of my sister, his sister, although I can’t think of them like that anymore. Why couldn’t he have had the balls, the loyalty to come out and tell me instead of sneaking around like she’s some dirty little secret? “No fucker touches my sister.”

He doesn’t try to stop me from dragging his ass out the door, doesn’t put up any fight at all. He has to know that I never wanted to be in this position with him. One of our own, my family. But he should have told us. They shouldn’t have hid it, shouldn’t have been sneaking around. Maybe, I could have respected him coming out and telling me to my face about this thing between him and my sister, and then I wouldn’t be wishing I didn’t have to do what I’m about to. But we, all four of us boys, made a pact that we’d test any man who thought he was good enough for our sister. And that has to go double for one of our own. But it should be Tom or Rush who deals with this now, not me, not when I’m still trying to get a handle on how easily my emotions come to the surface.

“Get your ass over here, Tom,” I bark as we hit the steps.

“It’s none of your business, Mace,” Claire yells at me, yanking on my arm and trying to stop me, but she doesn’t understand that this is going down no matter what.

If she’d gotten any closer to marrying that fucking asshole, Henley, it would have been him I’d be dragging out onto the lawn. So much for karma. She deserves so much better than either could offer her. Neither of them loyal enough for her. I bet she doesn’t even know Raze is leaving tomorrow. That he doesn’t give a damn about dealing with responsibilities. "Stay out of it, Little Bit.” I brush her off me. “This is between me and him."

"It's okay, sugar." Razer says. He’s not even bothering to try and get out of this. And the way he calls her sugar…
Sugar
… like she means something to him. But it’s only a bit of fun for him. He hasn’t considered the consequences, or the fact she might fall in love with him, and that he’ll hurt her. He’s not the guy who thinks that far ahead when it comes to women.

Tom lands both hands on Claire’s shoulders, effectively keeping her from following me and Raze down onto the lawn, which is good because the last thing I want is her getting in the way, getting hurt. Tom will tell her this has to be done. That Raze knows this is how it has to go.

The damn dog is going nuts, jumping about and barking nonstop like she wants to get in on the action. It’s distracting, and it sets me on edge. My jaw is clenched while my hands ball into tight fists.

“Don’t you wail on him, Mace,” Claire yells at me while I roll up my sleeves. “Don't you dare.”

Ignoring her, I put up my fists and circle my best friend. The man who I always thought had my back, not was going behind my back. What the hell happened to us that he didn’t have the guts to tell me he was feeling that way about my sister again? But then, he never did tell me the first time. I only know because I’d found those letters of his after I realized he hadn’t talked to her in years, the one’s he’d written to her and never sent.

He doesn’t put his hands up to block at first. Just stares at me with this pained expression on his face. Then he sighs and puts his fists up in front of his face. “I don’t want to fight you, Mace. You and I never did fight well against each other.”

No we didn’t. We were too evenly matched. Relief floods me at that realization, though I’m still going to hand the fucker his own ass. “I think we’ll do just fine, now that you’ve slept with my sister.” I snarl, diving toward him. “She’s too fucking good for you.”

He blocks me easily, and I’m grateful. I’m far too wound up to be handing Raze his beat down, but I’m not going to let him get away with treating Claire the way he has.

"Tom, what's the hold up?" I holler.

"All right. All right. Don't get your panties in a twist, dickhead." Tom calls out, thumping down the stairs. "Look at it this way, Little Bit. You can nurse his boo-boos later."

He joins Razer, and I on the lawn to referee, while Lucky runs circles around us.

"Did you think you could touch her and not get pounded?” She was supposed to be family to him. They weren’t supposed to fall for each other. “It’s fucking disgusting. She’s your sister.”

“No. She’s
your
sister.” Razer says, in that deadly serious way he does when something’s important. “There’s nothing disgusting about me and her, not that it’s any of your business.”

I hope he means it. I hope she is important. But if she is, why didn’t he come straight out and tell me they were together, or at least be around long term before he knocked her up?

"Of course it's our business.” I hurl myself at Razer, taking him down to the ground. “I found the pregnancy test, asshole.”

There’s a sudden punch of silence accompanying the quick snap of my fist to Razer’s nose. Blood spurts down his mouth as his gaze locks on my sister. There’s confusion in his eyes, the pain making him wince.

He didn’t know.
He was going to walk out of here unscathed, without any thought to the consequences and leave her to pick up the pieces. Leave us to deal with his fuck ups.

But he can’t walk away from his fuck ups.

He can’t do the kind of damage he’s done without it following him.

I can’t simply forget that girl’s face. I can’t unsee it. I can’t go back. My fists are flying, connecting with hard flesh. The taste of copper fills my mouth, heat filling me as I rally again and again against someone. I’m no longer sure of my surroundings, tunnel vision blinding me as I throw another punch.

My face. My eyes staring back at me. My mistakes.

I’m the one who got to walk away. But she followed me. She’s never going to stop following me. I pulled the trigger on a kid. I did that.

I can’t fight the truth of that. I can’t fight the repercussions. The guilt I get to live with every fucking day.

I’m the one who always gets to walk away. I’m the one who leaves my mistakes in the dust, but they chase me, haunt me. I can’t get free of them. I can’t undo them no matter how much I want to.

“Get off him, Mace. Get the hell off him.” Claire is screaming, it’s getting louder.

I can feel her yanking at me through the haze, her voice a blur of pain. “Stop it. You’re hurting him.”

I bat her away. I can’t deal with seeing her face every night when I shut my eyes. I can’t handle the fact that I don’t fight harder. I take the option out every damn time. And for what? I still have to live with myself. I can’t get away from me.

“Tommy.” She jumps on my back, screeching in my ear, digging her fingers into my arm, one arm tight around my neck. “Please, you have to help me.”

I try to shake her loose, but she’s denting the fog, bringing my focus back to the real world. I’m always losing. My mind, the life I thought was mine, my best friend. And I will lose him if he isn’t serious about my sister. If he hurts her. I’ll lose another part of myself I can’t afford to let go.

Like I did with Rush. And with Chelsea. I chose to give up over fighting for what I wanted.

Razer is staring past me, to Claire. “It’s okay, sugar, I deserve it. ‘Specially if you’re pregnant. I had no right.”

“Don’t call her sugar, like you give a damn, you fucker.” I snarl, trying to shake her loose again, but not as hard as I was before. Maybe I’m wrong about him. Maybe I’m confused, clouded by my own issues. “You don’t screw with family.”

Then Tom grabs me and hauls me to my feet, screaming in my face and trying to get through to me.

I’m already seeing things clearer, but it’s too late to change the fact that I just laid into my best friend the way I did. I can’t believe how badly I lost it.

“I’m so sorry.” I hear Claire sob, and dart a glance at her where she has Razer’s head cradled in her lap.

Razer squeezes her hand, keeping it in his against his shoulder. “I knew the cost. Told you…” His eyelids flutter closed.

“Don’t you dare be sorry for him.” I push at Tom, spinning toward them. I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused them both. I fucked up. Another regret to add to my list. But right now I need her to understand that her obvious feelings for him won’t be reciprocated the way she wants. That he is leaving her behind. He’s packing up his things and leaving tomorrow.

But Tom doesn’t let me go. Instead, he somehow manages to get me into a choke hold I can’t easily get out of. “Calm your fucking farm, Mace. Jesus, you’re losing the plot.”

“I think he’s unconscious,” Claire snaps at me. “You’re a bastard, Mace. How could you do this to him? He’s your best friend, your family.”

There’s a metallic taste in my mouth where I bit into my cheek, and I spit the blood from my mouth. I struggle with the fact he let me do this to him. He could have stopped me. Surely, he could have at least blocked. But that doesn’t stop me from being pissed off at his duplicity. “He’s nothing. Fucking piece of shit. We welcomed him into our family. How many years did mom and dad treat him like one of us, and this is how he repays us? By fucking with my little sister, knocking her up.” I shake off the anger, letting the tension roll off me. I’m partially numb and reeling at the scene in front of me. “You know he’s not going to stick around, right? He’s using you.”

“You don’t know that,” she says quietly, staring me down.