Page 62 of Back in the Saddle

Did you haul your ass over to her house after eleven at night to comfort her?

Did you hold her in your lap against your chest in her bed?

God, I wanted him so bad,so fucking bad, Ineededto ask what was going on here.

But I couldn’t because I was scared shitless about his answer.

“Do you cry when you’re upset?” I asked.

“I cried when my mom died.”

“You were thirteen.”

“It didn’t happen at the time, but when I got home and I was alone, I cried because my father showed up at my graduation from the FBI Academy so drunk out of his brain, he had to be ejected.”

Oh god.

I hated that for him.

The only way I could express the depths of that hatred was to mumble, “Yuck.”

Lame.

But there it was.

“They were angry tears, and they didn’t last long,” he carried on. “But I shed a few when one of Tim’s baby mommas called me, asking me if I knew where he was and telling me he was behind six thousand dollars in child support. This was more of an issue than it normally simply was, because my nephew just got out of the hospital after getting his tonsils out, and not only did Tim not pitch up to visit his kid, she didn’t have the money to pay the co-pay.”

“I’d cry about that too,” I noted. “Let me guess, you sent her the money.”

“Of course.”

Of course.

“I’m not the kind of girl who schleps around, pissed about shit I have no control over,” I informed him.

“That doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to have a reaction when that shit bites you in the ass,” he returned.

“True,” I mumbled.

Eric started stroking my back.

It felt like…

Everything.

Man, I was in trouble.

“Tell me about him,” he murmured.

“He’s funny. He’s sharp. It’s weird, because he’s kinda like Harlow. When things are going well, he’s always in a good mood. Life did him dirty, and still, that’s Jeff.”

“Look forward to meeting him.”

The idea of Jeff meeting Eric…

Shit, Jeff would totally dig Eric.

He’d dig all the guys.

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