Page 28 of The Betrayal

CHAPTER NINE

KEATON

The whole drive home, my mind replayed last night over on repeat. I couldn’t get her out of my head. Was it as good as my mind was portraying or were we like drunk teenagers who sloppily fell into bed with each other.

Titus was going to kill me.

Never had I thought of Arizona as anything more than my best friend’s daughter and yet, here I am, racing home because I need to make sure she is okay. I need to make sure I haven’t fucked us up.

Look at me using us.

There is no us.

I moved her in with me while Titus was working away. Now, well, somehow, we are this messy, complex and fucked up situation that I have no idea how to navigate. I made the first move. I was the one who made the mistake. Not a mistake though, not in my eyes.

Shit, see, I am so fucked up over this.

I’ve forgot what right and wrong is, even though deep down I know how wrong this actually is. Of course, it is wrong. It’s hardly right, yet I can’t seem to stop wanting it to be right. Begging for it actually.

She is all I want to taste. All I am craving. She is all I want to touch, to feel her caramel silky skin under my fingertips knowing she is forbidden. Forbidden is always more fun, right?

Just not when I have a six-foot four best friend who would knock me the fuck out. I’m kidding. He would fucking bury me.

He wouldn’t hesitate.

Bam.

Dead.

Gone.

No one would know. They would be told I had gone to live on a farm or some shit, bit like the spin you tell kids when their dog died but you don’t want to tell them that their dog died.

“It’s okay little Jimmy, Fido went to live on a farm far, far away with all of his doggy friends.”

Never got it myself.

Suppose I never had to.

Never had a dog.

Pulling curb side my phone vibrates and I see a message from Lucy.

Fuck it.

Cutting the engine, I snatch my phone out of its holder and read the message.

Luce

Still on for dinner tonight? Looking forward to that promise you made me a few weeks back.

Scrubbing my face, agitation ignites inside of me.

Me

Might have to take a rain check, shit loads of work.

A lie.