Page 99 of Parrish

Peeling my eyes away from his thick, colorful forearms, I glare at him. I’m sure I don’t look intimidating and even if I did, I doubt a man like him is scared of anything. Least of all a woman who has a big fat bandage wrapped around her head, a scowl on her face and can’t remember shit.

“Do you do that a lot?”

“Do I do what a lot?” he volleys.

“Say you’re gonna do one thing and do another?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks. His knuckles whiten around the footboard as his eyes narrow at me.

“I don’t know,” I spat, shrugging my shoulders. “I must be worse off than I thought. I not only lost the last ten years but my ability to judge a man’s character too. For instance, I took you to be a man of your word.”

Instantly I cover my mouth, hoping to shove the words back down my throat but, of course, they linger between us, like shards of broken glass. I have no idea where all that came from. So, he’s late, he’s still here, and he did bring me dinner just as he said he would.

“Fuck this,” he growls, releasing his hold on the footboard. Studying the hard ridges of his jaw, I open my mouth to apologize but the words don’t come. I’m not all that sorry and that confuses me more.

“Of course that would be your response,” I retort, rolling my eyes as I drop my arms to my sides.

When he doesn’t want to answer a question, he either replies with a question of his own or dismisses it altogether. To most people, Jack Parrish might be a difficult man to peg, but to me, he’s a book I’ve read a million times over. I can predict what he’s going to do, what he’s going to say before I even turn the page.

“If you’re not running away from me, you’re losing your patience with me. It makes me wonder how we survived this long. Tell me, Jack, do I ask questions and you decide what warrants a response? Is that how our marriage works? I mean, I’ll be getting discharged soon and I wouldn’t want to switch things up on you.”

Again, I wait for an apology to form on my tongue but it never happens. Fueled by my anger, Jack’s eyes darken as he sizes me up like I’m his opponent and not his spouse.

“There she is,” he murmurs. “I knew you were buried in there somewhere.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Threading his fingers through his hair, he shakes his head.

“It means you ain’t lost,” he growls. “For days everyone’s been telling me to be patient, to give you time to figure out who you are. My therapist, your therapist, everyone we fucking know has something to say—some fucking advice to give. I’ve been walking on eggshells since you woke up and looked at me like I was nothing. Now, I’m done. I’m done with the fucking masks. I’m done pussyfooting around my goddamn woman,” he shouts, fisting the ends of his hair.

“You think you’re lost, but the truth is, you were lost before I fucking met you. The woman you remember being, she’s nothing compared to the woman you grew to be. She’s strong, so much stronger than she ever thought possible and maybe loving me did that to her. Maybe loving me isn’t as bad as I think it is.”

The more he speaks, the more I realize I’m not the only one harboring anger and his runs deeper than mine. It’s laced with insecurities that I’ve planted in his head by forgetting him. By blocking his presence from my memory.

“Jack—”

“Nah, Reina. You want answers, well, I’ll give them to you. I’ve never run from a fucking thing in my life. Not my illness or the Devil riding my ass. I’ve been shot at more times than I can count, people have tried to blow me up and I fucking walked away from all of that. The cops, the feds, the fucking district attorney—they all want a piece of me. They can have me. They can lock me in a cage and throw away the key. My fucking head,” he trails off, pointing a finger to his temple. “This fucking head of mine. I might wind up in a padded cell with nothing but my maker to keep me company and even knowing that I still say, ‘bring it, motherfucker’. I’m living proof a man can live without his mind and that’s only because I’ve got heart. You’re my fucking heart. You are what keeps me going and you’re one hundred percent right, I’ve been running from you since you opened your eyes because, for the first time in my life, I’m fucking petrified of losing my heart. That my wife will realize I’m not worthy of her, that I’m her biggest regret and not her greatest love.”

Drawing in a deep breath, his nostrils flare with anger as he drops his hands to his sides. Tears sting my eyes as I stare at him with my mouth agape, trying to decide which part of his confession to analyze first. The fact the man I’ve married is basically a criminal who has cheated death and well, apparently the judicial system or the fact that his love for me has the power to bring him to his knees. He doesn’t give me a chance to decide and I swallow the lump in my throat as he dumps more truth onto my shoulders.

“I’ve been worried you’re going to remember the ugly before you get a dose of all the beauty we shared and it’s been driving me fucking mad. It’s the reason I shut down every time you ask me a question. It’s the reason I held a loaded gun to my head a couple of days ago. It’s the reason I’m fucking late tonight. But I’ve always been straight with you, Reina. From the day I met you, to the day you forgot me, I’ve never pretended to be something I’m not. Sometimes that truth is ugly, it’s harsh, and it’s downright vulgar but that’s me and guess what, you still fell in love with me despite it all.”

“Jack, please,” I whisper, unsure what I’m pleading with him for.

“No,” he barks, roughly shaking his head. “The first time you came to my clubhouse, you were carrying a cherry pie you baked for me. You had no fucking idea what kind of world you were stepping foot into but when you found me getting my dick sucked by some worthless cunt, you hightailed it out of there knowing I was not a good man and the world I lived in was horrific.”

The gasp flies past my lips before I can cover my mouth but it doesn’t faze him. If anything, he’s fueled by it.

“I ran after you, my dick still painted with another woman’s lipstick. You knew it and so did I and still, you opened your door and let me in. I got my first taste of you that night and I fucking knew…I knew there was nothing in the world that could ever compare. You were a sliver of heaven in my hell. A single fucking ray of sunshine in a world obliterated by darkness. That’s you.”

“Jack let me—”

He holds up his hand and commands silence.

“I’m just getting started, Reina,” he grinds out. “Danny mentioned that you sing to me. You know how that started? You found me in my son, Junior’s room with a loaded gun in my mouth, watching home videos of him on his birthday and before I could pull the trigger, you wrapped your fucking arms around me and started to sing. You had no idea how to talk a man off the ledge and it would’ve been a lot easier to shut the door and pretend like you didn’t see me but instead, you did what you always do. You gave me that light, that single ray of sunshine. A glimpse of heaven for a man destined for Hell.”

It’s all too much and yet it’s not nearly enough. He’s right. The truth is ugly. It’s brutal, harsh and so damn vulgar. Still, I can’t help but hang on his every word.

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