Playing Fate (Endgame Series Book 1) (14 page)

“Stick with me, Saylor. We need a shopping day.” I’d love to accept her offer but her idea of shopping and mine are different. I have a budget; she has carte blanche.

“Uh, maybe.” Her eyes roll, and she leaves. I know she’d like to play dress-up Barbie, but we come from different worlds. I hurry and grab my lounge pants, the ones that make my non-existent ass look existent. And perky. And tight. I wish I had ten pairs of them. I’d wear nothing else. I pull them up as I hop across my room—I don’t need a search party looking for me.

The smell of barbecue hangs in the air, and my stomach rumbles. All conversation stops as I walk in the living room. “For fuck’s sake.” Deacon’s voice bites, and I guess my girls aren’t a welcome diversion.

“Ow.” Caden and Mason yell in unison.

“Stop staring.”

“She’s displaying,” Mason smirks. He gets slapped on the head . . . again. “Ow. Stop fucking hitting me, Deacon.”

“Stop acting like you’ve never seen tits before. Both of you,” his eyes dart between the guys, “now,” he warns. They listen to him and avert their eyes. “Nice. Please go put on a sweater. Or a fucking muumuu.” Julie stirs in her car seat, and he can’t get her fast enough. Mason picks her up and settles her against him—goading Deacon silently, shamelessly using Julie as a shield. I roll my eyes at Deacon’s caveman tactics and Mason’s antics.

“Normally that would be a turn-on. With any other girl that move would have her ovaries exploding.” Lee Lee stares at him. “This girl—not so much. We aren’t fucking later.” I choke on the roll I was eating and everyone else laughs.

“Language!” I could kill all of them. Fucking idiots. At least my cussing is in my mind.

“Easy, Shortstop. We’re practicing.” Deacon chuckles. “She’s too young for it to matter, but I have told them.”

“Practice harder.” I chastise them. Her first word is going to be fuck.

“She said harder.” Fucking Mason. Shaking my head and shooting him looks that should cause a massive heart attack, I get up to get a drink. Their voices are hushed, but when I take a seat on the floor and look at this crew, Mason and Caden look embarrassed. And properly chewed out.

They both hand me an envelope and to say I’m wary is an understatement. “We’re sorry about the sunflower seeds.” Caden won’t meet my eyes.

Deacon throws Julie’s burp rag over my cleavage. “Is that better, Caden?” He’s gonna have a stroke.

“Ah, they’re green,” Mason kids in regards to the color of my eyes. He’s such a shit-stirrer.

“Y’all are ridiculous. What about the sunflower seeds?”

“Killing the washer. This is the money for washing our clothes and fixing the washer.” They sit down and start eating. I meet Deacon’s eyes, and I want to be mad, but I can pay off the credit card I used to pay the repair bill.

“It’s early to be paying me for the month. I’ve washed your clothes once.”

“Yeah, we aren’t allowed to let you wash our stuff anymore.” My blood boils. I can feel it bubbling, begging to melt my skin and explode all over Deacon.

“Take Julie in the kitchen, please.” My voice is strained from keeping my cool. “All of you, minus Deacon.”

“Someone is in trouble.”

“Mason!” I can’t deal with his childish ass in this moment. How dare he do this? I’m going to commit my first crime, and it’s a felony. Premeditation and all. Let me count the ways I’m envisioning killing him. I wonder if I’ll get sent to an all women’s prison. I don’t know. Will the punishment be worse for killing an affluent kid? A father? I don’t care; I’ll take my chances.

They scurry like cockroaches, and I face the object of my anger. “How dare you?”

“How dare I what?”

“You can’t tell me what I can and can’t do.”

“I didn’t. I told them.” I push off the floor and stomp to him.

“Same difference.” I poke his chest. “I appreciate,” poke, “you making them,” jab, “pay for the repair,” push, jab, poke. “But that is part of,” both hands on chest and shove, “running a business.” I wipe the sweat from my forehead, I’m boiling. “Paying for overhead.” Point my finger, “I don’t need charity.”

“It’s not charity. Their shit broke it, they pay to fix it.”

“You can’t take my customers. I’ll go to the dorms and get new ones.” I smirk at him. Mr. Control Freak doesn’t like that one bit.

“No way. You don’t need to be someone’s maid, Saylor.”

“You don’t know shit, Deacon.”

“I know you don’t need the money, your parents have more than enough to pay for school and housing, but you have a scholarship.”

“My stepdad has money, not me. Not my parents.” I glare at him.

He whips his shirt off and tugs it down over my head. “Saylor, quit being stubborn for one minute and listen.”

“No, you listen! You can’t waltz in my life with your cute baby and six-pack abs. Your chiseled chest and divine ass. You can’t control me.” I’m panting, and I’m not making sense. “Why’d you put your shirt on me?”

“With your damn tits bouncing with every word you speak, all I can think of is burying my face in them, biting, licking, and sucking your nipples in my mouth. When I have you squirming under me, I want to shove my hard as steel dick in your cleavage and fuck your mouth. It’s fucking distracting.”

Holy. Shit. I open my mouth to counter his argument. Close it. Open. Close. I can’t come up with anything to say because my eyes are staring at his chest, the same one I let my tongue roam weeks ago. The same one that has me salivating for a repeat performance. “You’re barbaric.”

“You’re obtuse.”

“You’re an ass.”

“You’re fucking beautiful.” He doesn’t fight fair. My legs circle his waist, my ass in his hands, my lips sealed over his, and my fingers tugging his hair. Our tongues are dueling in each other’s mouth; our chests are mashed together, our moans swallowed between us. His heart is pounding against mine, his cock pressed up against my stomach, his touch calming this madness flowing through my body.

“Who needs to buy porn when we can watch for free.” Damn it, Mason. I disengage myself from his body. He grabs my hand, halting me from moving. We link fingers and weather this onslaught of gawking.

“I’m still washing their clothes.”

He sighs. “No underwear.”

“No deal.”

“Hell yes. We can have clean clothes and go commando. You get all the good girls, Dawg.” Mason is staring down at Julie as he makes the situation less tense.

“No more sunflower seeds.” I look at Mason and Caden and see their smiles.

“We good?” Deacon whispers in my ear.

I nod. “Yeah, we’re good.” I make no effort to move from him. He squeezes the hand he’s holding, and I lean my head back against him. We’re fucking great. But for how long is the question.

Great didn’t last long. An hour, maybe. And that’s being generous. My idea of baby steps was his idea of reverse. He didn’t understand when it was time for him to go home—it would be alone.

“You said we were good?” He stares in shock when I walk him to the door, kiss him and Julie goodnight.

“We are.” I stare and draw my words out for emphasis.

“Why aren’t you coming home with me?”

“Deacon, we don’t know what we are. I agree to quit fighting this, but I don’t agree to jump in headfirst. I want to wade in. Test the waters.”

“I know what we are. You’re mine. We try this thing. You are going to stand there with one foot out ready to run.”

“No, I won’t. I’m not going to have this conversation with you at this moment when your focus needs to be elsewhere.” I nod my head towards Julie.

“She’s six months, Saylor. An argument isn’t going to send her to therapy.”

“She needs to be in bed. Stick to her routine.”

“Be careful. You sound like you care.”

And here we are. It’s been three days with glares, grimaces, grunts—his communication is very mature. “Men are such babies.” Avery giggles as we witness his latest attempt to show me how displeased he is. I wink at her.

Deacon is sitting in his yard watching Julie roll around her blanket under the tree for shade. “Hey honey!” I call to him. Glare with a head nod. “Good day?” Grimace with silence. “Want me to come over in a bit?” Grunt with head shaking. I laugh as I follow Avery in.

“You are going to send him to an early grave.” Avery winks at me.

“Who?” Lee Lee asks digging in the refrigerator.

“Deacon. He has it something bad. I’ve never seen him behave like this.”

Lee Lee drops the bottle of water and gives us her attention. “Like what?”

“Like he’s forgotten to be a human. It’s hilarious.” Avery is finding the same humor in his petulant behavior that I am.

“He loved Adriane. He was crazy in love with her.” Emberlee could have poured ice water over my head and gotten the same reaction.

“No, he didn’t, Lee Lee. Retract your claws. Deacon isn’t hers, was never hers, and you know it.” She takes my hand, pulling me into my room. “Don’t listen to her. She has this fucking infatuation with Adriane that I don’t understand.”

“It’s okay. She’s Julie’s mom.” I have a hard time forcing those words out.

“No, she isn’t. She gave birth, signed the papers, left. She was discharged from the hospital before Julie was.”

“She didn’t see her?”

“Yeah, she did. She stayed in town for a few months. Finished school. Graduated. She didn’t spend time alone with Julie but would come visit when her parents forced her. She had no interest in her.”

“I told Deacon that I don’t understand a mother doing that to her own baby, her flesh and blood.”

“Adriane is conniving. Always has been. It drives me crazy Lee Lee looks up to her, and she uses that to her advantage. She’s missing some kind of chip—it stops her from being human.”

“You hate her?”

“Pretty much. We grew up together, but that girl and I never got along. We tolerated each other for the sake of our friends, but if she took a long walk off a short pier I wouldn’t have shed a tear.”

“Damn, Avery.”

“Yeah, I can be hard core if it’s warranted.”

“Boss ass bitch.”

“You know it.”

I start laughing. “It may be believable if you didn’t have pastel blue paint across your forehead.” Avery is a painter. She paints every chance she gets . . . and she’s pretty fucking amazing.

“Really?” She’s rubbing her forehead.

“No.” I laugh at her facial expression. “But I have an idea.”

“What?”

“I love that Deacon’s basement is finished. We could do ours for minimal money. I know how to lay tile and hardwood floors. All it needs is paint and some flooring. Cheap furniture, and we’d have a finished basement. Our parties could be moved down there, so our house wouldn’t be trashed.”

“I love it. I want to do a mural.” I smile at her excitement.

“But we’re renting.” Her eyebrows furrow. She stares at me for a minute, and Emberlee shouts for her, and as usual—Avery goes.

I head over to see if the burr is out of my man’s butt. He hasn’t talked to me in three days but hasn’t given me the cold shoulder. He’s texted me good morning and good night after walking over here and giving me a kiss first. He legit walks in, kisses me, walks out, and my phone dings. I’m ready to beat him with his bat.

He and Julie are still outside, and the sun glinting off her mostly bald head shows sprouts of hair coming in. The exact shade of her dad’s. Her eyes—those baby blues—melt my heart. “Hi.” I’m trying to be upbeat. Silence. I sigh, “Deacon, if this continues, I’ll stop trying here.”

“I didn’t realize you ever started.” My eyes roll on their own accord.

“Let’s go in and get her taken care of, and we’ll talk.” He doesn’t speak, but gets up and starts picking her stuff up. As he passes me, he pauses to assault my mouth with his and then continues his stride.

“You coming?” No, I want to shout. And you’ll never make me again if you don’t quit being an asshole.

“Yes, dear.” I smile sweetly at him and follow him inside. I get her bottle ready and warm up her nasty ass baby food. “Go take a shower, I’ll feed her.”

It’s become a routine. Even before I declared we were good—which apparently in his mind is code for shacking up—this was our routine. Now, there should be an added benefit, but there is none. I’m getting none of the Delicious D . . . and that needs to happen sooner rather than later.