“So, well, okay,” she filled the silence. “Tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s Saturday but I have an open house so I won’t be home until maybe six.”
“Fine. Be here then.”
She was going to sleep alone.
Okay.
Right.
Maybe he needed this and maybe she needed to pull back and give it to him.
And also, maybe she needed some time too.
But she had more to say, things he wouldn’t like, and she might as well get it over with.
“You should know, I spoke with Amélie and she said—”
“I know,” he cut her off. “Ol called. I asked him to nip it in the bud the best he could.”
“I said the same to Leigh.”
“Good.”
He said no more.
She waited again.
He still said no more.
Evangeline again filled the silence.
“Okay, then, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, Evangeline.”
With that, she heard the disconnect.
She stared at her phone.
It wasn’t like she didn’t expect a fight. A wild ride. Ups. Downs. Steps forward. Steps back.
But after last night, first sitting held in his arms in his lap at the Honey like they’d done it thousands of times before, then being pulled into his arms in her bed, she thought …
It didn’t matter what she thought.
She needed to stay strong.
She was getting in there.
She knew it.
And she’d come to know that Branch was worth the ups. The downs. The wild ride.
The fight.
She just needed not to give up.
thirteen
Evenly Matched
EVANGELINE
At nine o’clock Tuesday night, Evangeline heard the kitchen door open.
She was sitting in her couch, back to the door, not exactly watching the fourth episode of True Detective.
She looked not over her shoulder toward the kitchen door, but down to her phone that was sitting on the seat of the couch beside her, which she activated.
The text string came up.
Saturday at 6:23 p.m.: Not going to make it. Tomorrow.
Sunday at 5:40 p.m.: Tonight’s not good. Tomorrow.
Monday at 6:57 p.m.: Tonight won’t work. Tomorrow. Seven.
That day at 7:47 p.m.: Be late. Around nine. All right?
She hadn’t answered.
Because she was a woman.
A woman who met a man who, in his way, had told her the score.
Okay, she’d changed that score.
But fuck it, he didn’t fight too hard.
And he’d done some adjusting of that score too because it was him that staked his claim with the Damian incident.
And he blows her off for work (understandable), twice (understandable) but then he blows her off not giving any reason, again twice. And then he texts, already late, to say he’s going to show at nine at night on a Tuesday?
She looked at the time on her phone screen.
It was nine thirteen.
And after all that, he shows even later.
She looked back to the TV.
She saw out of the corner of her eye Branch enter the room. He stopped and she kept watching the TV so she didn’t see what he was doing or what he was looking at.
He took his time before moving to the armchair that was angled toward the TV beyond the couch and he sat on its arm.
“You didn’t lock the door, Angie.”
Was he serious?
With that, she looked at him.
God.
Why did he have to be so gorgeous?
“You need to lock the door,” he pushed, face inscrutable but nevertheless alert and watching her closely.
She looked back to the TV.
“You’re pissed,” he muttered.
He was a sharp one.
She said nothing.
He let the silence linger before he broke it.
Speaking quietly, he shared, “I needed time to clear my head.”
“You have my number,” she replied, still looking at the TV. “You could share that. Just like that. ‘Evangeline, I need some time to clear my head.’ You can speak the words or text them.” She faced him and finished, “It’s been intense, I know, Branch. I was there too. So I’d get it and you know I would.”
“I know you would and I shared it just now.”
She wasn’t playing that game.
She grabbed the remote, paused the program, tossed the remote aside, then looked back to him.
“I like you,” she stated baldly.
He winced and looked to the side.
God.
Branch.
“Sorry that hurts, Branch, but I like you,” she kept at him. “You’re handsome and you’re honest and you can be funny and you can be sweet and you’re strong and protective and possessive and your alpha tendencies are all kinds of hot and you make fabulous enchiladas and you’re fucking amazing to play with. I love how you put yourself in my hands. I love how you react to me. I love how much you can take, how you let me be free to let go, how you trust me with you, how I can trust I can let go with you and we’ll both get something beautiful out of it.”
He looked back to her but made no reply.
“I get what this is,” she informed him. “I told you, Aryas made it clear. Even so, that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to like you. Enjoy being with you. And I do. With both. But I’m a human being. I can’t stop myself from feeling something for you, and to return the honesty, even though I sense you can’t hack it, because of feeling that, hoping for something more. And more honesty, even though you’re not stupid so I’d guess you already know, I pushed that. And even more honesty, Branch, I might have been muddying the waters but you did your own muddying, holding me in your lap at the Honey. And with all this honesty I’m giving you, you should know, I can’t stop myself from feeling, and I also can’t stop myself being a woman, and not only knowing I deserve some respect, but demanding it.”
“I respect you, baby,” he said, the words soft even with his gravelly voice so they were also sheer beauty.
“Don’t be sweet,” she whispered, the hurt filtering her tone, damn it, and she saw him wince again when he caught it. She shook her head. “My fault, Branch, I signed on, literally, to be your unpaid Dominatrix whore. But to give you more honesty, with that, I’m not sure I can hack it.”
“You aren’t my whore,” he ground out, face now hard.
She tipped her head to the side. “No?”
“No,” he clipped.
She sat still and waited.
Damned waiting.
It had only been four days but she was fed up.
She wanted to be strong, not to give up on him, but four days of hurt and worry that he had four days to coat that marble with more ice, or worse, he was going to vanish from her life, was four days too many.
God, why had she even started this?
She’d known from the beginning there was a bigger chance at failing than succeeding and with every minute she spent with him, she knew there was more and more to lose.
So maybe she should cut both their losses.
“I think maybe—”
“That woman who I told you about, she was mine.”
She snapped her mouth shut.
“She was not my first girlfriend,” he held her gaze direct, “she was not my first Mistress. But she was my first real one of both. We lived together for two years but were together for four. We broke up. Strike that,” he spat out the last two words in a way that had her, already alert, go straight to wired. “I broke up with her and she didn’t want it. It hurt both of us. She was sure we could work it out. I was pissed about I don’t know what the fuck but whatever it was it wasn’t worth digging my heels in. I dug my heels in. She could be petty, something I know now we could have worked on because she was young too, younger than me, and to make me pay, she answered an ad from a sub. By the time he caved her head in, he’d taken out three others. Not Dommes. Prostitutes, escorts. But she was his last. They caught him after her. He’s on his fourth appeal on his wait to get injected.”
This was like a story out of a book.
A sad one.
Tragic.
Brutal.
It couldn’t be real.
But looking into his eyes, she knew it was real.