Chapter 33
“He looks horrible,” Sara said on a bored sigh that Kasey chose to ignore as she shifted on the uncomfortable wood bench that she’d declared her desk over a week ago after she’d discovered how big of a prick Reese was.
“That’s nice,” she said, sounding bored as she stared at her computer screen, absolutely refusing to look at the jerk that she hated herself for missing so damn much.
“Are you ever going to tell me what happened?” Sara asked, popping a chip in her mouth as she sat down on the old bench that she should probably look into replacing, and sighed heavily.
When Kasey ignored her, Sara sighed again, shifted, which caused the bench to wobble and that splinter that had been poking her for the past hour to stab her in the thigh. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to focus on the recipe that she was working on and ignored her best friend bugging the shit out of her and the man that she really wished that she could honestly say that she hated as he continued to work on her house.
“Well?” Sara asked after a few minutes.
“Just leave it alone,” she said, shaking her head as she tried to focus on work, but it was difficult with Reese there, distracting her and the fact that she was exhausted made it nearly impossible.
“You’re still not sleeping?” Sara asked with a bored sigh.
“No,” she said, not mentioning the fact that the last time she could remember sleeping well, really well, had been that nap that she’d taken in Reese’s arms.
The bastard had ruined sleep for her, she thought with disgust.
“He looks seriously pissed,” Sara noted as she helped herself to Kasey’s bottle of orange juice.
“Good,” she said, glad that she wasn’t the only one.
“I don’t think I’ve seen him smile once in the past week.”
“Don’t care,” she said with a wistful sigh as she looked at her now empty juice bottle.
“He’s staring at you again,” Sara said, popping another chip in her mouth.
“Good for him,” she said, refusing to look, because she was done.
Absolutely freaking done.
She still couldn’t believe that the whole thing had been an act to get her in bed. Maybe she should be flattered that he’d been willing to put in so much effort to get her to spread.
No, she should definitely be pissed, she amended a moment later while she watched as the large tan hand that she wanted to slap, placed an ice cold apple juice in front of her. Then, without a word he was gone.
When Sara moved to grab it, she slapped her hand, twisted off the cap and took a deep satisfying sip, deciding that he owed her this for all the bullshit that he’d put her through.
Virgin her ass, she thought bitterly with a shake of her head and another sip of that refreshing juice that was making sitting out here in the hot sun somewhat more tolerable. Refusing to look at him, unless it was to glare, she returned to staring at her computer screen.
“You tell me everything,” Sara said with a pout.
“Apparently not,” she said, taking another sip.
“I thought you were friends.”
“So did I,” she said, starting to feel pissed again at the reminder that he’d played her so damn well.
“You’re not going to tell me what’s going on between you and Reese, are you?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, so then tell me what’s going on between you and Eric,” Sara said, trying to steal her juice, but a well-placed slap to the back of her hand had her rethinking that bad decision and pulling her hand away with a huff.
“I have no idea what’s going on with Eric,” she admitted with a sigh as she looked at her phone and shook her head when she didn’t see any new text notifications.
This was just super fun having two men pissed at her, she thought dryly as she returned her attention back to the recipe that she’d been staring at for the past three hours. She had no idea what she did to Eric to make him this pissy and right now she really didn’t care.
About a week ago when he’d decided to start acting like this she’d asked him what was wrong. He’d ignored her and stormed off and she hadn’t seen him since. He still went to Mikey’s practices, but other than that, she had no idea where he’d been staying or what had his panties in a twist and she didn’t really care.
“So, then back to Yummy,” Sara said around another chip.
“Don’t call him that.”
“Okay, you really need to tell me what’s going on,” she said, shifting on the bench so that she was facing her.
Shaking her head, she admitted on a grumble. “He lied to me.”
“About?” Sara asked, popping another chip in her mouth.
“Can we just forget this?” she asked, rubbing her hands down her face and wishing that she’d gone to the library to work instead of opting to work here today.
“No, we really can’t,” Sara said, tossing the bag of chips aside. “What’s going on, Kasey?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Kasey said, dropping her hands away.
“And I really don’t care. Start talking,” Sara said in a tone that told her that her best friend wasn’t going to stop bugging her until she told her everything.
Taking a deep breath. She did just that. She told her about the kiss, leaving out the whole closet episode, because they really didn’t need to talk about that. When she was done, Sara just sat there, staring at her for a few minutes, and kind of creeping her out, before she spoke.
“You didn’t Google him, did you?” she asked softly as she reached for the computer, pulled up Google and typed in Reese’s name while Kasey sat there, seriously wondering why she was bothering.
“Sara, it doesn’t matter,” she said even as her stomach dropped when the results popped up and when they did, she realized that she couldn’t tear her eyes away.
Sara didn’t say anything as she clicked one link after the other, but Kasey thought she was going to be sick. There were videos, pictures, copies of that horrifying letter everywhere, whole websites dedicated to him, bets placed on him, some of the most hateful, vilest things she’d ever read said about him.
The whole thing was just…cruel.
To have something so private be shared like this…
God, she’d thought people in this town had been cruel when she was a kid, but they had nothing on this Missy woman and all the horrible people who were taking so much joy out of tearing his life apart for the entire world to see. It was just so sick and mean and-
“He was telling you the truth, Kasey,” Sara said, closing the computer while she sat there, sick to her stomach as she thought about all those things that she really wished that she could un-see and really wishing that she could find this Missy bitch so that she could slap the shit out of her.
“Mom! Mom!” Mikey yelled, running towards them with a huge smile on her face. “Reese is going to the hardware store and he said that I could come if it was okay with you!”
She looked past Mikey’s smiling face to find Reese standing in the driveway, watching her and looking absolutely miserable. Her heart broke for him and all she wanted to do was to walk over to him and wrap her arms around him, but she knew that he would hate any pity right now.
“Yeah, we can go,” she said, shifting her attention back to Mikey as she pushed her laptop towards Sara, who knew where it went, and walked towards Reese with Mikey in tow.
“Mom said we can go!” Mikey happily announced as she ran past her to go climb in Reese’s truck.
Keeping his gaze locked with hers, he nodded slowly and stepped aside so that she could follow after Mikey. Once she got to the truck, she paused by the open truck door for a second out of habit and when Reese didn’t pick her up and put her in the truck, she realized that she might have a bit of groveling to do to make this right.
*-*-*-*
“Guess what Reese is building for me, Mr. Grey!” Mikey said, smiling hugely as she jumped onto the counter and sat down so that she could enthrall the older man with the news of the new pitching target that he was building for her while Reese headed towards the back of the mom and pop hardware store, walking past a few bored looking teenagers and their mother.
“Reese, wait,” Kasey said, catching up with him as he navigated his way through the store.
“I’m not really in the mood to be called an asshole again, Kasey,” he said, knowing that he should be fucking thrilled that she was talking to him again, but he wasn’t because that could only mean one thing.
She’d Googled him after all.
“I’m sorry about that, Reese,” she said, following him down the paint supply aisle.
“It’s fine,” he said, hoping that she’d just let it go, because this was one conversation that he didn’t want to have with her.
“I thought…I thought that you were just trying to-”
“I know what you thought and it’s fine, Kasey. Just let it go,” he said, cutting her off as he took a turn down another aisle, forgetting why he came here in the first place.
“But-”
“Let it go,” he said, deciding that he’d come back later when he was alone and took another turn to head back towards the front of the store.
“Wait,” she said, grabbing his arm to stop him and because he was a fucking moron, he let her.
“Look, I don’t want to talk about-Mmm,” he started to say only to end up moaning when she grabbed hold of his shirt, yanked him down, and kissed him.
When she slid her hands up his chest and wrapped her arms around him, he had to remind himself that they were in a hardware store with Mikey close by. But even knowing that didn’t stop him from wrapping an arm around her and reaching down and grabbing hold of that heart shaped ass that he’d been dreaming about for the past two months.
Her answering moan had him devouring her mouth as he backed her towards a shelf, pressing her against it and-
“Mom?”
-quickly putting some space between them.
“Mom?” Mikey called again, sounding closer.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” she managed to say while he stood there, struggling not to pull her back in his arms and finish what they’d started, but now was not the time.
“Tonight,” he bit out.
“Tonight?” she repeated with a cute little frown that had him ignoring that voice inside his head that told him that touching her again would be a bad idea and had him pulling her back into his arms anyway. “What happens tonight?”
“Tonight,” he said, brushing his lips against hers, “I’m going to make you mine.”