Misplaced Trust (Misjudged) (12 page)

Kissing me lightly on my forehead, he smiles the sweetest smile as he rolls off of me, pulling me into him. Resting my head on his chest, I can hear his
heart trashing inside as I place my arms around him.

Stroking my arm lightly, I feel him place another kiss into my hair, “I love you,” he whispers
.

“I love you too,” I say back to him, feeling as contented as ever at being back where I belon
g, with Brandon freaking Taylor.

“Mmm …” I let out
a moan of deep satisfaction as I remember what happened just before I fell asleep last night. Stretching my arms out, all I can feel are pillows and an empty space beside me. Feeling confused, I open my eyes and it’s then that my worst fear is confirmed when I don’t see or feel Brandon lying beside me.

Rubbing my eyes, I sit up and look around the room, moving
my disheveled hair away from my face as I try my hardest to get my eyes to focus.

Climbing out of bed, I tie my hair back and grab my robe, before making my way through to the living area. Although I’m feeling anything but awake,
and all I really want to do is go back to bed for a little while longer, I can smell coffee.

As I head through to the kitchen, I’m confronted with one of the widest and brightest beaming smiles I think I’ve ever laid my eyes on, “You were supposed to stay in bed,”
Brandon says, putting on a whiny voice as he wraps his arms around me, before kissing my neck tenderly, “How did you sleep?” he mumbles against my skin, his breaths causing my eyes to almost roll in to the back of my head.

“Like a baby,” I tell him, stroking my fingers up and down the back of his neck as he continues kissing mine, his lips skimming
up and over my earlobe, which sends a delightful shiver throughout my entire body.

“
Would you like to know how I slept?” he pulls away as he asks, grinning down at me with his beautiful blue eyes sparkling brightly into mine.

Nodding, I wait for him to answer me.

“Badly, really fucking badly,” he tells me, his face turning from happy to serious within a nanosecond. I feel my face drop as I study him. I’d really been hoping that he was going to tell me that he’d slept just as well as I had. “See, I have no idea who was making that God awful sound, but it was like I was sleeping next to a fucking p—“

Realizing where this conversation is heading, I put my hand across his mouth so he doesn’t dare
to even try and accuse me of snoring, “Asshole!” I say, not being able to stop myself from laughing as I keep one hand firmly over his mouth, while using my other to punch him hard in the arm a few times.

He bursts out laughing
and tries to duck away from my aim, but I refuse to give up without a fight. Eventually being able to struggle free from the hold he just had on me, I giggle and run back into the living area, knowing that he’s following closely behind.

“
Oh, you really wanna start something here?” he laughs out as he starts tickling my waist, making me shriek out and fall right into his arms, not that I’m in any way complaining.

The amount of noise
we are both making is bound to wake up the rest of the guys, and leaning his forehead against mine, we look into each other, smiling wide as we continue laughing and holding each other.

“
Am I interrupting something?” a loud voice scolds, and when I turn around, I see Alyssa standing and staring at us both, with an extremely worried expression crossing over her face.

That’s not who called
out my name just now though.

No.

It was the person who is standing right beside her by the coffee table. He looks exceptionally upset as he glances between me and Brandon, in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so displeased in all of my life.

“Beautiful, who is that?” Brandon
asks as he leans over and whispers in my ear. Turning my attention to him, he looks puzzled as he waits for me to answer him, his eyes glancing across the room a couple of times before bringing them back on me.

Dragging
my gaze away from him, I set it back over on the person who just practically yelled at me. I’m feeling really uncomfortable and saddened by the disappointment that’s now spreading over his entire face.

“Brandon,
” I go to answer, with my voice turning weak, “Meet my father.”

***

“Dad, please,” I beg, “Listen, I completely understand your reasons for being upset, but until you allow me the chance to talk and the time to explain, we’re really not going to get any closer to sorting this whole misunderstanding out.”

“Alex, you’re involved with a criminal!”
he admonishes me, the frown he’s been wearing ever since Brandon and I fell into the living area, is still visible over his entire face. “You’re dating someone who broke into my home, who broke into
our
home, having already spent time behind bars for criminal activity, and you don’t see why I should have a problem with any of this?”

Raking my hands over my face and through my hair
, feeling completely exasperated, I can see that there’s probably no way of him actually listening to a God damned word I have to say.

My father demanded to speak with me, in private, as soon as I introduced him to Brandon
, which was well over thirty minutes ago. He just won’t see reason.

The defeated look over Brandon’s face is still in my mind
, and it’s crushing me.

He stepped over to shake my father’s hand, and all my father could do was completely snub his politeness, and
instead, he looked at him as though he was something he’s just stepped in at the local park.

“What are you doing here anyway?”
I ask him, while waving my arms around in the air. If I don’t do something with them, I might be half tempted to pick up any random object and throw it across the room at him.

I never speak to my father like this,
I’ve never disrespected him before, but everything’s getting way too hard to deal with as of late. Everything that has happened lately has been like a rollercoaster ride, but it’s like one of the ones you do actually want to get off of, with the intention of never boarding it again in your life.

“Don’t be changing the subje
ct, Alex,” he responds dryly, “the first thing you should have done was contact the police and informed them of his whereabouts.”

“No! I would never
do that because he hasn’t done anything wrong!” I shout at him, not believing my father could actually be this narrow-minded.

Shaking his head and unfolding his arms, he stand
s up from my desk chair and reaches into his pocket, “Fine, well if you don’t,” he says, while tapping a few keys into his cell phone, before looking up at me and continuing to speak, “then I will.”

“No, please, you just need to listen—“

“Sorry to interrupt but you have a visitor,” Alyssa says, while poking her head around my bedroom door.

Letting out a deep sigh, I’m about to head o
ver to see who it is, but Alyssa begins to shake her head at me and instead points over to my father, “Not you, Alex, your father.”

My
father has a visitor? I wasn’t even expecting to see him here so who the …? Shit no, not the cops. Un-fucking-believable!

My blood reaches
boiling point when I realize that this was the one and only reason why he came all the way over to Seattle. I’m guessing Detective Bitch called and told him about my relationship with Brandon.

I need
to make sure that Brandon’s okay and plead with them not to take him away.
Away from me.

Striding over to my doorway, I practically barge Alyssa out of my way as I
head through to the living area, stilling when I see Brandon casually sitting up at the breakfast bar, though standing as soon as he sees me approaching him.

“Hey, hey come here,” he says softly, “are you okay? Did you manage to sort things out with him?” holding me
, with his hands placed on my shoulders, his eyes are searching my face as concern filters into them.

“The cops, are they here yet?” I ask, glancing around the room, but all my eyes land on is a woman standing over by the main door
, looking extremely nervous, “Who is—?”

Brandon tries to gain my
attention, grabbing my chin between his thumb and index finger as he turns me back to face him, “What are you talking about?” he looks almost terrified, “are they coming?” his eyebrows are knitted tightly together, and the brightness that was visible in his eyes is beginning to fade.

“You must be Alexis,” the woman from over by the door says, stepping forward and throwing me a small smile, “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Alex,” my father enters the room. Flickering my eyes between my father and the woman, I wait for him to formally introduce is. “We were in the neighborhood, this is why we didn’t call or make any plans in advance,” he clears his throat as he goes to stand beside her.

I watch as they glance
at each other for a split second, and see small smiles appearing over both of their faces, before they direct their attention back over on me.

“I’m Diana,”
she introduces herself, “I live next door to your father.”

“Okay,” I say, feeling confused as to w
hy my father would just be in the neighborhood in the first place, least of all with one of his neighbors.

Diana. Her name rings and bell, and that’s when I remember
. My father mentioned her when Neil and I went to stay last weekend. She’s the neighbor who was helping him take some of my mom’s belongings to the charity stores, while he went ahead with his vacation.

Reaching out for Brandon’s hand, he takes a hold of mine and squeezes it, hard, “We need to go,” I tell him, knowing that it
’s only a matter of time before the cops show up.

“Alexis, beautiful,” he tugs on my hand to stop me from walking away, and when I look to see what’s
going on, he stands closely in front of me. “I have a feeling that your father was here for something else, besides what’s going on with the cops.”

I really have no idea what Brandon’s talking about, until I see them
both over his right shoulder.

The
way they are towards each other. The way my father is looking at her, and she at him. It can’t be. No, that’s completely absurd, there’s absolutely no way on this earth that he would even contemplate it.

No.

No way.

Shaking my head as I feel the tears prickling into my eyes, Brandon clutches hold of my cheeks with his hands, “Hey, come on, I know this must be …”

Shrugging him off of me, I see the sadness in his eyes and a deflated look crossing over his face, “No,” I say sternly, stepping around him before walking right over to them.

“No, no … you can’t dad, I won’t, I can’t …
” he can’t move on, he just can’t. There’s no way he could be over my mom so fast, no fucking way!

“Please, Alex, calm down so we can—
“ my father’s voice is quiet, and I notice the worry etching over his face as he places his hands out in front of him, as though he’s trying to calm me down.

“It’s time, that’s what you told me, that’s what you said!”
I scream at him, the anger and upset entering my voice. “My mom’s things … What? You shipped them out so you could move hers in?”

I feel Brandon placing his arms around my waist, and watch as my father speaks quietly with Diana, seeing her
nod as though in understanding before she goes to take a seat over on one of the couches.

My father gives me a pitying look, taking his eye contact away from me as he walks through to the kitchen,
with his hands placed on either sides of his hips.

“Let’s go and talk,” Brandon whispers softly in my ear, and that’s when I feel him removing his hands from around my waist.

Following him into my room, he kisses me softly on the lips, before I throw myself back on my bed. Coming over to join me, he lays down and rests his chin in his hands as he leans over me, watching me and listening intently as I describe to him everything I’m thinking and feeling about this whole thing.

“
It’s too soon …” I whisper, feeling a tear sliding down the side of my face. “My mom hasn’t been gone that long … How could he get over her so quickly or even think about being with somebody else?”

When I fix my eyes on him, he looks as sad as I’m feeling, “Brandon?” sitting up and mirroring his position, facing him as w
e lay on our sides and opposite one another, I see him slowly closing his eyes, his face slightly twisting. “What? What is it?”

“Beautiful, for once, I can’t agree with you on this one,” he answers, his voice laced with what sounds like regret, hurt, and pain.
“I’m sorry.”

Sitting himself up and turning his whole body away from me, he hangs hi
s legs over the side of the bed and places his head in his hand as his shoulders slouch low, “You think that what he’s doing is acceptable?”

“Alexis, how would you feel if those words, those exact same th
ings were said to me about you? What if I’d have listened if someone had told me it was too soon to move on from Holly, and too soon to fall in love again?”

“What?”

Lifting his head and turning to face me, gripping my hands in his, he continues to speak, “Your mom died not so long after Holly did … I moved on, I moved on and found love again, I found love and happiness with you, Alexis,” he explains, his voice sounding hoarse, “don’t you think your father deserves to find someone? It doesn’t mean he’ll forget your mother, he wouldn’t, I know he wouldn’t, but at the same time, he deserves happiness too, just like we all do.”