Page 8 of Playing With Danger

I did my best not to fidget in the silence but when Hayden broke eye contact and glanced down to my wringing hands in my lap I knew I failed miserably.

“You know,” he started conversationally with a hint of disdain. “I blame your mother for this.”

Of course he would. He blamed her for everything.

“Hay—”

“No, listen to me, Sophie. I’m serious.”

He didn’t just look serious—he looked ser-eee-ous.

Damn.

“I’ve been around your mom a lot, been around you longer. Knew you when you were with Oak and I was friends with him then, so I heard all about her before I met you. Pretty much the only thing I’ll side with that douche on at this point is how he felt about your mom. She’s cold. Not only that, she acts like you’re an inconvenience while at the same time she inserts herself in your life in unhealthy ways. She has no respect for the boundaries of others but she’ll butt her nose into whatever she wants. So, I get it, why you wouldn’t call me while I was at work, tell me what happened. Because you knew I’d bag work and get my ass home to make sure you were okay. She taught you that. She taught you to make yourself small so you wouldn’t bother her if she was otherwise occupied. That’s not just fucked-up, that’s the very definition of fucked-up.”

I had nothing to say; he’d pretty much summed up my relationship with my mother. Which was another reason why Nathan marrying my mother was a crime against nature. They didn’t fit. Not in the slightest. Something I never understood. Though since she’d gotten together with him she had changed—a little. So, as right as Hayden was, he didn’t know she used to be worse. I didn’t offer up an explanation for my mother’s behavior, mainly because I never understood her or why she did and said the things she did.

“I’m pissed as shit,” he went on. “That last night while I was working at the bar, slinging drinks, you were at home alone freaking out.”

I hadn’t told him I’d been freaking out. But he knew me, so it was a good guess.

“It also pisses me off you were attacked by an armed?—”

“I don’t know that he was armed,” I cut in. “I never actually saw a weapon, and after when I was questioned by the police they didn’t say if he was or wasn’t.”

That got me a deep scowl.

Eek.

“The part that doesn’t piss me off is that you kicked his ass.”

Well, that was something.

“Don’t get too excited, Soph. I’m back to pissed you didn’t go to the hospital.”

“It’s a scratch. Delilah the Devil cleaned it and taped me up. I didn’t even need superglue. Though I will admit sometime in the middle of the night it started to throb, then the rest of me started to ache and my calf muscles cramped so bad I now have to tell you you were right and I should’ve gone to the gym with you all the times you asked because…damn, I’m out of shape.”

I took in a big breath and focused on my friend. “I was scared. Not during but after when I realized what had happened and how much danger I was in.”

“Christ,” he grunted.

“I actually think it was good it happened.”

Hayden gave me an incredulous look that clearly said he didn’t agree.

“It shook something loose,” I rushed out. “When faced with the possibility of becoming a hostage with an uncertain ending I realized I didn’t like my life all that much. And that’s what spurred me on to attack. I didn’t want to die thinking about how unhappy I was.”

“Sweet—”

“I’m quitting my job on Monday,” I announced. “You know I don’t like it much; what you don’t know is I hate it. My boss is an asshole. The women I work with are catty and grown-up mean girls and I only put up with it because I’m afraid if I stand up and state my opinion they won’t be my friends.”

“How exactly is Henry an asshole?” he asked.

Another reason to love my best friend. The dude was not only protective of me but had serious issues with men being assholes to women.

“The kind I can handle. He’s a run-of-the-mill asshole who has to remind everyone he’s the boss. And he has to do that because he sucks as a boss and no one respects him. I don’t like the work I do, so quitting to rid myself of him isn’t a problem. I have plenty of money saved so even if it takes me months to find something else I got my half of the bills covered.”

Hayden’s eyes narrowed into slits.

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