red head as she hunched over her cell phone. She was damp and shivering, and when she looked up at me through the pane, I could tell she’d been crying.
Fuck.
I stood there for longer than I should have before setting down the bat, unlocking the door and opening it to let her in.
She closed the door behind her and wrapped her arms around her waist. "I was wrong,” she blurted, before I could say a word. “And I’m sorry.”
Her breath smelled like wine and I looked over her shoulder into the parking lot. “Did you drive here?”
She shook her head and pushed a wet hank of hair from her cheek. “No. I took a cab.”
“And you had him leave?” I snagged my phone from my pocket and thumbed in the number for the local cab company.
“Can’t you at least hear me out?” She grabbed my wrist and gazed up at me through bloodshot, puffy eyes. “I’m here. I’m admitting I was wrong. I’m begging you to listen and at least let me apologize. What else do you want from me, Matty?"
I squeezed my eyes closed and leaned back with my ass against the desk. That was a great question. What did I want? I wanted everything to be like it was before I'd ever met Mickey Flynn or his fucking daughter. I wanted to run my little gym and work toward being a fighter on my own, with my brothers at my side. So unless she had a time machine, I was shit out of luck. I pressed the red end button on my phone and yanked my wrist from her grasp.
"You have nothing I want. Not anymore."
She flinched and I couldn't even muster any sympathy. This whole thing was a nightmare of my own making. I'd told her I didn't want her around. That she'd be nothing but a distraction and I was right, but I let it happen anyway. I should've put my foot down with Mickey right then and there, but I let my dick do my thinking for me, whether I was willing to admit it or not. And look where it had gotten me.
"You don't know me. You don't know my l ife," she whispered. The pleading in her eyes was gone, and now they were empty except for dull resignation. "You don't want anything to do with me anymore, that's fine. No one does after a while. No one except Mick. So if you can't handle me and the baggage that comes with me, then I’ll go because you know what? I don't want you either." She turned, shoved the door open and then walked out, leaving me there with my head in my hand.
I didn't chase her —because what was there to say, anyway?— and then I did. Because she was outside walking alone in the rain, and as much as I wanted to hate her guts, the thought of something happening to her made my stomach churn.
By the time I caught up with her in my car a few minutes later, she was five blocks away and soaked to the skin. I leaned over and pushed open the passenger’s side door and called her name until she stopped and looked my way.
“Get in.”
I half expected her to fight me because that was all we seemed capable of doing, but she climbed in without hesitation, taking the towel I handed her with a soft “thank you.”
I wanted to tell her that I was just there to make sure she got home safe. That I didn’t want to talk about anything and I sure as fuck didn’t want to listen, but she never gave me a c hance. She just started talking.
"When I was thirteen, my mother went to jail one last time. She never came out. Died five years ago of ovarian cancer after four years in prison for drug trafficking. She'd gone from hooker to drug mule, and got caught her first time moving product. ”
Her voice was monotone, which made it all the harder to listen to. I kept my eyes pinned on the road and willed myself not to picture Kayla as a little girl, living through that. Forcing myself not to draw comparisons from my past to hers or empathize with how hard it must have been for her to lose her mother at such a young age.
Having her in my life was a mistake and had been from the beginning. She was Mickey Flynn’s daughter. The daughter of the man who had made
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