Page 53 of Cruel Debts
Would I have given up on Keehn, too, just like my parents and his friends, if I hadn't run into the man masquerading as him by accident? Would he be forgotten now, a memory and nothing more?
Would I have made the same choices as the rest of them, if not for the false Keehn?
I wasn't sure I wanted the answer.
My thoughts swirled the drain like the water and bubbles, and I stared off against the wall for a long time, wishing thingswere different. Wishing Keehn hadn't left on assignment to the military to escape our parents. Wishing I'd stopped him the last time he walked out the door, that I'd asked him to stay.
Wishing he were still here.
This was the kind of problem my brother had always solved for me, not the other way around. And now, it was up to me to bring the truth to light, who put the pieces together and made sense of it all. Even if that answerwasn'tthe one I wanted, it had to be done.
I would do it, for him.
I didn't hear the door to my bedroom open and shut; I was too focused on my racing thoughts, the jumbled mess in my head. But I certainly heard the swear when someone in my room who shouldn't be found something he shouldn't.
Hawke stood in the center of my room, seemingly undisturbed when I entered it wearing nothing but a towel around my body and a scowl on my face. He held in his hands a simple black diary—not the one I wrote my escape plans in, thankfully, but still a bad one.
I called it myfuck these men and their bullshitdiary.
In it was every complaint I'd amassed since I came here, every single offense they gave, every time I'd wanted to strangle them bare-handed, or with a garrote, or in a noose.
And here he was, reading it like he was entitled to my innermost thoughts.
And from the looks of it, he was not happy in the least bit.
He turned a page, reading aloud for my benefit now. "Liam is a prick. I bet his dick is tiny as shit, because only a man with an inch-long pecker would do what he did to me. I was locked in that room so long, I thought I'd have to pee in my water bottle and start knocking on pipes." His eyes flicked up to mine, and he grinned. "I'd chop his dick off, but I'd need a pair of tweezers and a magnifying glass to find it."
I refused to let him make me feel bad. Embarrassed, sure, but bad?
Never.
His brows rose as he read on, this time in silence. When he got to the end of the page, I lunged forward in an attempt to wrestle it from him, but he dodged at the last minute, holding the book above my head.
Damn these tall ass men.
"Just a side note, sweetheart, but I can promise you that Liam's packing more than you'll ever be able to handle."
I grinned at the joke he'd opened himself up for. "Oh, you spend a lot of time admiring it?"
He rolled his eyes, but then they fell to my unclothed body, and froze there. "Mature, Tee-Bird."
"I learned from the best," I sassed back, still irritated by the earlier incident. "Give that back, you asshole."
"Why, so you can write me in here, too? I'm sure there's a page for me somewhere in this chicken scratch you call handwriting." He began flipping through the pages, and I ground my teeth, trying to think of a way to get the notebook away from him.
Drastic measures seemed the most successful option. So I dropped the towel and stood there naked, waiting for him to notice.
It didn't take long.
When his eyes fell on me to make another joke, they slowly crawled over my form, and I could see the short-out in real time. His hand holding the notebook fell to his side, and I took the opportunity to yank it away, turning on a heel to stuff it all the way under my mattress. I could feel his eyes on me the whole time, and it only served to infuriate me more.
"Got a staring problem, Hawke?" I taunted, knowing damn well he'd hate to know I saw right through him.
He might hate me, but he was a man, and sometimes, they thought of only one thing when a woman was naked around them.
Sex.
Not that I'd say no to sex with him on any other terms. But I was still mad. I had to maintain the anger, or I wouldn't be brave enough to take the chance when it popped up and leave. So I turned around, crossed my arms over my tits, and scowled right back at him.
