Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
“I wouldn’t.”
“You mention your other rendezvous pretty often.”
“Not as often as you think.” I kept a lot of stuff from him because I wasn’t the type to fuck and tell.
“Theo.” He turned serious, letting the smoke leave the tip of his cigar and rise to the ceiling.
“How many times do I have to say it?” I barked. “It’s not serious.”
He cocked his head. “The last woman you took to dinner was—”
“Shut your fucking mouth, Axel.” I could tolerate the jokes and the grins, but there was one thing I couldn’t tolerate and that was her fucking name. She haunted me every day, had haunted me for a decade. Time may have passed, but her memory had never faded.
That was the only line Axel didn’t cross—and he didn’t cross it again.
We sat like that for a long time, the silence slowly suffocating us both.
Axel finally sucked on his cigar and let the smoke escape his mouth. “Scarlett wants me to quit.”
“Are you going to?”
“I don’t smoke at home or around the kids, just when I’m out.”
“Didn’t answer my question.”
“I want to honor her requests, but fuck, there’s nothing like a cigar in your mouth after a shit day.”
Every day felt like a shit day lately—except when I was with her.
Axel stared at my cold fireplace before he looked at me again. “You like her, right?”
“We aren’t in sixth grade, Axel.”
“You want more than sex, Theo.”
I hadn’t gotten sex. “Like I said many times, it’s not serious.”
“Why not—”
“Because she’s married.”
He was about to bring the cigar to his lips again when he stopped. His eyes hardened on my face. “Why are you taking a married woman out to dinner? Shouldn’t affairs take place in beautiful hotels room and shit like that?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Doesn’t sound complicated to me. Sounds like you want to get caught.” He sucked on his cigar and let another puff of smoke leave his mouth.
“It’s an open marriage.”
“An open marriage?” he repeated with disdain. “Then why be married at all?”
“I don’t know.” It didn’t make sense to me either. “We don’t talk about it much, so I don’t understand it.”
“If you don’t talk about it, then what do you talk about?”
“That’s my business.”
He straightened in his chair as he stared me down. “Why are you being so defensive right now?”
“I’m not being defensive—”
“I’m your brother. I’m not coming to you to gossip or talk shit. I haven’t seen you with a woman in years. Unless it’s a girl on your lap at the strip club or some shit like that. We tell each other everything, but now you’ve shut me out and I don’t know why.”
“I’m not being defensive,” I said calmly. “I told you it’s not serious how many fucking times, but you don’t believe me. So, yes, I’m getting a bit annoyed with the redundancy.”
“Well, you’re lying.”
“Fuck you. I’m not lying,” I snapped.
Axel stared me down. “Then why are you taking her to dinner?”
I grew frustrated at the line of questioning and almost reached for a cigar to dissolve the annoyance. “I asked her out, and she said she was married. But then her husband said he wanted an open marriage, so she asked me out. But she’s needed some time to get used to the idea of fucking someone besides her husband, so we’ve gone to dinner a few times. That’s it, Axel. That’s the whole fucking story.” I propped my cheek on my knuckles and waited for him to finally lose interest in this story.
But he looked just as confused as when I started. “Why are you wasting time with her, then? Instead of taking her to dinner, you could be fucking someone. You’ve taken her out multiple times, so it sounds like you like her. Have you fucked her?”
I continued my stare.
“You like her.”
“I think we have a lot in common.”
“Such as?”
Misery. “That’s between us.”
Axel put the cigar back in his mouth and let it sit there.
I continued to watch him. “Her husband is in the game.”
His eyes found mine again.
“I don’t know who he is or what he does. But she knew I was the Skull King when she looked at my ring. It’s a nice change, being with a woman who’s unafraid of who I am and my world.”
“That means you could be in deep shit if you get caught.”
“It’s an open marriage—that he asked for.”
“But I doubt he expected her to fuck you, of all people.”
I gave a shrug. “I don’t care.”
“Because she’s worth it?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth, asshole.”
“That’s why it was a question and not a statement. Asshole.”
I finally grabbed one of the cigars and lit up because it seemed like this conversation was nowhere near finished.
“It’s okay to like someone, Theo.” His voice was suddenly gentle. “You know that, right?”
I turned to look at him, the cigar hanging between my fingertips.