Page 35 of Stone
“Good. Right, I’ll let you get going so you can try and win your wife back. I’ll go suck up to mine too,” he says, and I snort as he finishes, “I’ll see you in two weeks.”
He hangs up, and I shake my head as I throw my phone on the table, then lean back on the uncomfortable fucking couch that I have slept on for four nights with a sigh.
I knew I wasn’t going to get a warm welcome. I knew she would try to kick me out, but fuck, I didn’t expect her heartbreak to kill me as much as it did.
After she went to her room, I waited half an hour. I looked around her bare apartment before I went after her. Determined to have it out with her, knowing if we waited, she’d close herself off from me. The shock of me being here would be gone. I went in her room a found her asleep on her floor curled up in a ball with tear stains on her cheeks.
She didn’t stir when I picked her up bridal style and placed her on the bed. Didn’t even bat an eyelid when I changed her into the t-shirt I was wearing. Despite it being my only other clothes here with me before she curled back up into a ball, gripping my shirt, which fuck, it did something to me.
I groan as I lean forward, running a hand through my short hair, before wiping the beard I’ve got going on at the moment.
Four days and Rose has said fuck all to me, not one word, fuck, she won’t even look at me, but I know she’ll crack, she has to.
I pull the collar of the shirt away from my neck with frustration, the material a little tight.
I had a bunch of clothes delivered, knowing I couldn’t leave her apartment, not without the worry of her locking me out. Now I’m stuck with fitted fucking t-shirts because of course, I ordered the wrong ones.
I eye my wedding ring, the one I most likely shouldn’t have held up with pride until I told her we were married, groaning again, and dropping my head as I mutter, “I’m such an idiot.”
“No complaints here,” a sweet voice replies, and I look up as a tired-looking Rose shuts the front door, and I can’t help but smile.
She’s in sweats, her dark red hair is in a messy bun, and fuck me does my heart skip a beat at how beautiful she is. My wife, myeverything.
“How was work, red?” I ask, and she sighs, dropping her head, and I try not to smirk, knowing it will piss her off.
I ask the same thing every day, and every day she ignores me, and this has to be the first time she’s made a reaction.
I can see my phone lighting up, an incoming call coming through, but I ignore it and keep close attention to Rose, knowing she’s about to crack.
“Don’t you need to get that?” she confirms without looking at me, hoping for a distraction because she knows it’s time to talk.
I deny, “Nah, it’s just my dad wanting to know where I am.”
Rose finally looks at me in confusion before she shakes her head and goes into the kitchen, and I sigh.
I really fucking hoped that had piqued her interest in speaking to me.
Dad calls several times a day, along with Mama and Selena, demanding to know where I am. Doc’s ‘it’s club business’, not good enough for them when, for Dad, it should have been. The fucker disappeared for weeks on end, sometimes when we were at war with the Cartel, before we became allies.
The last message Dad sent explained that James wanted a family meal to discuss when Elsie and I were going to look into surrogacy, you know, because she apparently can’t have kids and I told him to go fuck himself.
He told William shit about Elsie and me knowing it would get back to Rose. He was hoping to wreck my marriage.
“If you don’t talk to me, Rose, I’m going to the hospital and I’m killing that fucker,” I threaten, all other options just not working and I’m fed up with the silent treatment, but I frown when she pauses for a second, mid getting a bottle of water from the fridge, like she’sthinkingabout it. What the fuck?
I raise a brow when we lock eyes, and she winces before she stands straight and admits, “I found Mark screwing the waitress in the bathroom afterIpaid for our meal because he had apparently forgotten his wallet, and then he tried to kiss me.”
Red-hot lava fills me, and I declare, “He’s a dead man,” but Rose shakes her head as she walks over and sits on the chair next to the couch, something she hasn’t done in the time I’ve been here.
Normally, she’ll go to her room, trying to ignore the fact that I’m here, that I’m not willing to leave until we talk.
Rose chews her bottom lip as she picks at the label on the water before she looks at me and confirms, “We talk and then you leave, right?”
I nod and confirm, “Just after I kill the fucker for trying to kiss you.”
She rolls her pretty green eyes and reminds me, “You’re married, Cage, remember, you have a wife.”
I nod and admit, “I do have a wife, yes, I’m not denying that, just like I didn’t deny getting married in high school, I just didn’t knock anyone up like you believe.”
