Page 34 of Yours To Keep
“Your girl’s mom is a piece of work, dude.” Everett says, reading the same bullshit we’re all engrossed in.
“What can we do here, Break? I’m really more concerned about this asshole trying to run Iris over in the middle of town,” Elijah asks.
“I’m not interested in whatever vendetta Aaron has against me. I can hold my own against a fuckin suit. But if he needs Magnolia to seal the deal, why wouldn’t he be trying to wine and dine her, convince her to fall for his bullshit?” I ask, and they all give me a look that makes me feel completely clueless.
“You really think that would be possible?” Everett asks, and Breaker scoffs out a laugh.
“I don’t know. A lot of women can be bought with the kind of money he’s flashing,” I say, knowing in my soul Magnolia isn’t one of those women.
“If you really think that woman can be bought, especially by a dickhead like that, then you don’t deserve her.” Elijah says. My friends have come to care for her over the past few years of her friendship with their wives, and I love that for her.
“I don’t deserve her. I probably never will,” I say, a smirk creeping across my face. “But that doesn’t really matter, does it? Any of you believe you deserve the women you ended up with?”
“Fuck no,” Breaker grumbles, typing aggressively on his keyboard.
“Exactly,” I say, rubbing a hand through my hair. Magnolia isn’t the cheap, shallow women I’m used to wasting time with. She's the kind of queen that knows her crown doesn’t sit on top of her head. It’s deep in her soul, in the blood running though her entire being, that makes her the most incredible woman I’ve ever known. She is the Persephone to my Hades, a true goddess I will never deserve who wandered into my underworld and madeherself at home in the darkness. Like Persephone, she climbed into my heart as if it were her home, as if she never lived anywhere else. To the world, I’m a playboy with an empty heart, a joke. But with her, I’m vulnerable and soft, yet strong enough to hold her love in my hands and never see it bruised or broken again. I would gladly sell my soul to anyone just to keep her in my life forever.
“I think their goal is to get rid of her father and then her. That’s the long game at least,” Everett suggests.
It makes sense. If Magnolia’s dad died, she and her sisters would inherit his company. If Magnolia married Aaron, then subsequently died, he would inherit anything she possessed if she never knew any better. What I just don’t understand is why her mother is so cold-hearted to all of this. Magnolia is her daughter, her flesh and blood. What made her so vicious against her own child?
The sound of a baby wailing upstairs breaks our concentration and Breaker groans.
“JASON!” Rory shouts from the top of the stairs.
“That ain’t mine,” Elijah says, laughing at the way Breaker’s brows pinch together as he pushes back from his desk and jogs upstairs. Everett takes Breaker’s seat, scrolling through several more lines of conversations.
I lock my fingers behind my head, the stress of the day settling into my muscles and making them hard as stone. Fuck, why can’t life take a day off from kicking me in the balls?
“Listen, it’s never easy. No matter the circumstance, relationships are hard work, Dalton. You think I wanted a fucking stalker when I fell for Ember? Hell no. You think Rory wanted to be kidnapped? We all chose these lives. You want her? This is the cost. Her family is obviously fucking crazy, and that’s a shitload of baggage. But if you carry it together, it’s not as heavy.” Elijah advises.
Since the twins were born, Eli has become some kind of perpetual father figure for every man in this group. Honestly, it’s kind of adorable. I’ve seen the man slit someone’s throat and dodge frag grenades. But as soon as his wife comes into a room, he melts.
“I don’t need easy. I just need people to stop trying to kill us every other week. The peace I feel when Magnolia is in my arms is indescribable, but it never lasts. I want something that will last, Eli. Something that’s mine, that no one can ever take from me.” Part of me feels like a petulant child, but I don’t think it’s that unreasonable to want someone to love the way Eli loves Ember, the way Kelsea loves Everett and Rory loves Breaker. I want to find a home of my own to cherish and protect, no matter what it costs me.
“Could you love her? I’m not talking cute school boy crush, Iris. I mean soul-shaking, life-altering love,” Everett asks, and deep down I already know the answer.
“I could. If she let me love her, I could. She has this idea in her mind that she’s not worth the trouble. But she just doesn’t see what I see. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do, no sacrifice I wouldn’t make, to love her the way she deserves to be loved,” I reply, and he smirks.
“So tell her that. I’ll tell you this, Iris. The moment I met Kelsea, I knew she was going to change my life. I may not have realized then how monumentally fucked I was gonna be over her, but I knew she was going to change me. After her attack, she felt worthless. Like she could never give me what I wanted in life. But in reality, all I will ever truly want is her by my side. And I make sure to tell her that. Every. Fucking. Day. Because if I don’t, somebody else might. And I’ll be a dead man before anyone steals that goddess from me,” Everett says, slapping me on the shoulder and heading back upstairs.
Since when did all my friends become relationship experts? Wasn’t it just last week we were all taking turns picking up random girls from the bars? Now, with the exception of Helo, they’re all married with families of their own. Is this the universe sending me a sign that Magnolia is the home I’ve been searching for?
I follow Eli back upstairs, none of our problems solved tonight. Yet.
I can’t unfuck this situation with Magnolia’s family tonight, but I can put an end to this back and forth between her and I.
seventeen
The men come upstairssingle file, each splitting off to their wives before Iris’s eyes find mine. A tiny gasp escapes my lips at the fire I see blazing there, wild and out of control. He is a predator zeroing in on his prey, and before I can question why, he picks me up and throws me over his shoulder.
“Dalton Murphy, what the hell are you doing?!?” I screech, but he doesn’t falter. He walks towards one of the bedrooms without stopping, even with Everett’s teenage cat calls following behind us.
He drops me onto the bed and I land with a bounce as he kicks the door shut behind him. I’m almost embarrassed by how much his shows of dominance truly turn me on. If he asked me to rip my own heart out of my chest right now, I would without hesitation. But I’m too curious to know what caused this display to wonder about anything else right now.
“Listen to me, Magnolia. Hear me, right here and right now. You don’t believe I mean it when I say tell you that you’re mine, do you?” He questions, and heat floods my face. I hate how transparent my insecurities are around him.
I don’t answer, looking anywhere but his crystal blue eyes. I want to believe the beautiful things he tells me, really I do. But a lifetime of being told no one will ever want me for me has convinced me that is reality. Every time I showed even the slightest interest in a boy, my mother pointed out all the reasons he would never be interested in me and I believed her. Then she criticized me for never finding a boyfriend. She destroyed my wings before I could even truly stretch them and punished me for not knowing how to fly. The damage she’s done may never be fixed.
