Okay, how did I become this guy’s messenger girl?
I mean, seriously.
I thought I’d already had a bad day.
But this whole scene was a new definition of a bad freaking day.
“Listen, Cisco—”
“Please, call me Brett,” he allowed.
I didn’t want to call him anything.
I shifted in my seat, uncertain how to play this.
He was seemingly mellow.
The henchman with the gun was behind the double doors.
But I didn’t want to upset that applecart because he was a man who’d order someone to guide a woman into a room with a gun to her head, and I wasn’t the only one in our tribe who’d had that happen to her. He’d had a minion do it to Pepper during our kidnapping.
What I wanted was to get the hell out of here, do it still breathing, and get home, lock myself in, pull out my Taser and consider, after the day I had, moving to Maine before I fell asleep, Taser clenched in my hand.
“You were gonna say something,” Cisco prompted.
“I’ve had a bad day.”
I watched his head tick and I knew why.
My voice was suddenly strange in a way I’d never heard it be before.
Small.
Defeated.
“Like, a really bad day,” I told him.
“Kathryn—”
“Ryn,” I whispered.
Was I going insane, or did his eyes just warm?
Something about the fact that I couldn’t deny it, his eyes had just warmed, made me blather on.
“My brother’s a raging, uncontrolled alcoholic. With two kids. Two kids I adore. And I found out today his ex is a swindler who’s been fleecing me for years, making her kids eat Cap’n Crunch and running out of food and laying it on thick so I’d take them shopping for clothes, while she’s off using the money I gave her to have massages.”
“Jesus,” he said, sounding stunned as well as annoyed.
“I know, right?” I replied. “And I liked her. She wasn’t just my niece and nephew’s mom. She was a friend. I’ve known her for years. I can’t say she’s like a sister, because she’s been having a pity party for a while now, and it’s been getting aggravating. But I care about her. And now that I confronted her with the whole fleecing-me thing, she’s threatening that she won’t let me see the kids anymore.”
I leaned forward in my chair, put my hand to my chest and kept blabbing, laying all my shit on this felonious dude who’d had one of his men put a gun to my head.
But I guessed when you had to get it out, it didn’t matter who you were getting it out to.
“And those are my babies.” I banged on my chest. “With Ang checked out like she’s been, I’ve been like a mom to them.” I leaned back. “Well, one of three moms, my mom and Ang’s mom have helped. But still.”
“You learned that today?” he asked.
“Yeah, and I found all this out because this guy I like was looking into it because he’s kinda, sorta a friend, when I want him to be more than a friend and I want that in a big way. You know what I’m saying?”
He nodded. “Mm-hmm. I know.”
“But I was stupid, and I said no when he asked me out, so he moved on and got himself another woman, but he threw down with me today and he’s pissed I got pissed that he was investigating my brother’s ex. But I wasn’t really pissed. I was shocked and hurt at Angelica, and you know, kind of mad he gave up so easily and went off and found someone else. I took all that out on him, so we had words and he pretty much told me he doesn’t like me anymore.”
“Going easy here, girl, but if he wanted you, he wouldn’t have given up after asking you out only once.”
“He actually did it three times.”
Cisco/Brett’s brows shot up. “And you shot him down three times?”
I made an eek! face.
“I assume you know that wasn’t smart,” he muttered.
“Well, you know,” I threw out my hands, “what am I supposed to do? He’s perfect. He’s handsome and he’s got a good job and he swings the way I don’t swing, if you know Corinne, you get what I’m sayin’.”
One nod. “I get what you’re sayin’.”
“And he’s super sweet to Evie and Lottie and what do I do with that, hunh?”
“At this juncture I’ll remind you I got a dick, not a vagina, so my answer is bound to be wrong, but I’d start with saying yes when he asks you to go out with him.”
Had he lost his mind?
“You don’t get it,” I huffed, looking away, crossing my arms on my chest and slouching in my own chair.
“You’re right. I don’t.”
I sighed.
“All this happened today?” he asked again.
I looked to him. “Yeah, though I hadn’t gotten to the part where I had to do my stripping shift and then I got bamboozled into a semi-kidnapping.”