Page 11 of Brandishing Betrayals
“I told him to be home by five,” I answered. I steeled my spine, waiting for him to say something…anything.
“Right,” he finally said, nodding.
I frowned, watching him. I’d never seen him look so defeated before, so… lost.
“I guess I should have called him,” Marcos said softly.
Again, I just waited, while I had thought it as well, I wasn’t going to tell him that. He would say I was being uncooperative, then we would argue about me keeping him from Luke again. I was sick of the arguing, sick of the accusations. I needed them to stay away fromme, not Luke. So I kept my distance.
“Alright,” Marcos nodded again and turned away, not saying another word.
I watched him climb in the truck before I looked over at Jason. He was still standing next to the truck, staring at me. It was a little unnerving. His stormy gray eyes locked on mine, but I didn’t move, and didn’t back down. I wasn’t afraid of Jason “Stone” Langford—he may be an asshole, but he’d been mine at one point.
Finally, he turned away without a word and climbed back into Marcos’s Silverado.
I waited until they pulled out of the driveway before I turned back to the mower and started things up. I had shit to do and waiting around on men who couldn’t get their heads out of their asses wasn’t one of them.
Marcos
I shifted in my seat, as I drove away from Maya. “Fucking shit,”I groaned, and tried to adjust my very hard dick, without being too obvious about it.
“Yeah,” Jason grunted, also shifting in his seat. “She’s gotten more defiant.”
I frowned. Was that it? “She still as stubborn as ever,” I said.
“To think, we had trained that out of her at one point,” Jason sighed.
I didn’t want to think about the past. It only made me angry and upset most of the time. We’d had a great life together back then, the four of us. We had been extremely happy back then. The guys and I had talked about inking Maya with our mark and even marriage as a possibility…until she left.
Now there was this impenetrable wall between us and her, and we were finding it impossible to break through it. She stood firm on the other side, not budging.
I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. I couldn’t afford to think about the past, all I could do was think about the future. Or present. Right now, I was going to drive down the street to where the creek was and look for the spot that Luke had shown me, where he hung out with his friends.
I pulled over on the side of the road when I saw Luke down the ravine next to the creek. He was throwing rocks into the water with a group of kids. I recognized a couple of the boys, but the girls I didn’t know. One girl in particular was standing closer to Lucas than the others. She had blond hair down to her waist that looked smooth and shiny.
I got out of the truck and slowly walked down the ravine, not wanting to startle any of the young kids. “Hey Luke, your dad’s here,” one of the boys called out—Jaxon maybe?
Luke turned to look over his shoulder and smiled when he saw me. He turned around and slowly made his way toward me. I was a little surprised he wasn’t running and jumping into myarms like every other time he saw me, but I shrugged it off. “Hey, Dad,” he greeted with a smile, as he neared.
“Hey buddy, I was just in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by and see if you wanted to hang out?” I held my fist out for Luke to pound knuckles; pretty positive the kid didn’t want to hug his father in front of his friends.
Luke frowned and he hit his fist against mine, and briefly glanced back to the girl by the creek. I had to fight my smirk at the fact that my son appeared to have a little crush, until Luke said, “Sorry, Dad. I’m hanging out with my friends today. Maybe we could do dinner tonight? Mom said to be home at five.”
I felt my heart breaking. The kid was nine and he was already brushing me aside to hang out with his friends. I nodded easily, though, not wanting Luke to see my disappointment. “Alright buddy, I’ll talk to your mom. If not, I’ll give you a call tomorrow and we’ll set something up for this week.”
“Sure, sounds good,” Luke nodded, looking for all the world to see, a cool kid, just making plans.
I plastered on a grin and let the little dude impress his friends. “Alright bud, I’ll see you later.” I held out my knuckles again and Luke pounded them once, before he turned back to his friends and walked back to the girl near the water.
I headed up the ravine, not looking back before I lost my nerve. Goddamn, things were not going my way lately. Depressed, I climbed back in the truck and started driving away, before Stone could comment.
“What was that about?” Stone asked a moment later, when we turned the corner.
“He has plans,” I sighed. “I should have called him.”
There was a long pause in the truck before Stone spoke up. “Stupid how shit turned out. She never should have left.”
I shook my head not wanting to get into it with him. We’d argued about it a lot in the last six months since Maya hadreturned and as many times as I had questioned Maya, she refused to answer me. “We need to find out why she did,” I finally said, driving slowly through the neighborhood. I was lost in his thought, wondering what I should do now that my plans with Luke were canceled.
