Page 21 of Inked Obsession

I looked at my sweat-soaked sheets and cursed under my breath. My alarm would go off in about an hour, so I might as well get up and get ready for the day.

I stripped my bed, rolled the bedding into a ball, and walked naked to my laundry room. I stuffed everything into the washer, turned it on high on permanent press, and called it a day.

I looked around the spacious home my family and I had built and shook my head. I needed someone in the house. Maybe a dog. It had been a while since I’d had a pet. Perhaps the puppy could come with me to work. A couple of my cousins did that down in Denver. It could work up here. He or she could hang out with me in the office and then grow with me, and I would never be alone.

While that was a depressing thing to think about, maybe it was a good idea. I could also get a cat, one who didn’t mind if I wasn’t home as much during the day. Or perhaps a ferret. Though I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with a ferret. They were even more mischievous than puppies and kittens. So maybe just a dog, then perhaps a cat.

Something that could be in the house with me so I wasn’t alone with my thoughts all the time.

Pushing those ideas from my mind, I quickly showered and dressed in a pair of worn jeans and a t-shirt. I was on-site all day, and would probably end up getting messy, considering what we were working on. I had clothing for meetings, for sitting at the office and working, and for days like this when I knew I would get filthy, so I might as well look like a professional who worked with his hands, rather than a businessman in a suit.

I went to the kitchen and poured myself some coffee. I was just thinking about breakfast when someone knocked on the door. I frowned and walked over, looking through the peephole. I smiled softly.

“Hey,” I said as I opened the door, and Brenna walked in.

“I’m in the mood for waffles. Do you mind if I make them?” she asked, and I grinned. It was a common refrain. Brenna would come over and make me breakfast, long before our workdays, and I would sit and eat because she was a damn good baker and made the best waffles out there.

“That sounds pretty great,” I said, and my stomach rumbled. Her eyes filled with laughter, and I shook my head. “Apparently, I’m really hungry.”

“Good to know. Now, let’s get you fed, and you can tell me all about your day. I have to bake a shit-ton of cake tonight, and I need carbs to get me through.”

“Why don’t you just have cake for breakfast?” I asked as I sipped my coffee. I went over to the coffeemaker and poured her a cup, fixing it the way she liked it.

She took it with a smile and shook her head. “If I ate all of the cake I baked, I wouldn’t be able to fit through the door. I still want to like cake, so I don’t eat it every day. Sacrilege, I know.”

I shrugged. “I’m just surprised you still like it after all these years.”

“Once again, you’re making me sound old.”

I cringed, remembering when I had accidentally called her and Elizaoldat the bar. “Have you seen Eliza lately?” I asked, the words just popping out of my mouth before I realized it.

She sighed, her face scrunched. “She called after you left last night,” Brenna said as she began whipping up the waffles. “I’m so pissed off. I mean, that fucking asshole. That bastard. How dare he go and have a baby with another woman?”

“So, we think it’s true? Not just something his parents came up with for more money?”

Brenna shook her head. “I don’t think they would just come up with that out of the blue. I mean, of course, we’re all going to want proof, and we’re going to deal with it as a family, because Eliza is family, right?”

“Of course,” I said, wondering why Brenna asked that at all.

“I just can’t believe that asshole was out there cheating on her with his ex-girlfriend from high school and ended up having a love child. And it’s not like we can go and hate anybody about it because Marshall’s gone, we don’t know the other woman, and, frankly, we don’t even know Marshall’s parents. And then there’s the little girl out there who did nothing wrong.”

“Exactly,” I said as I pulled out my waffle maker. I had never made waffles before in my life, but Brenna liked them, and so did Lee. Therefore, when Brenna wanted to make waffles, Lee usually showed up, same as Benjamin. It was like they had the power to sense them. I knew Benjamin was on an early call today, and Lee was on deadline, so it would likely just be Brenna and me this morning.

“I don’t know what to do for her. It hurts to think what will happen. They want money, Beckett. After all these months, nearly a year now, they want money for that little girl. And I can see wanting to help, and you know Eliza wants to, but her life was completely thrown for a loop more than once. And now it’s changed completely again. I just can’t believe he cheated on her.”

I shook my head and sipped my coffee. “I can’t believe it, either. And I have no one to fight. No one to growl at or hit.”

“I feel like that’s exactly what she feels, too. Because you can’t do anything about it. At least, we can’t. We can pretend, but we have to sit here and show her what choices she has and then respect them once she makes them. It’s just not fair that she’s been put in this position.”

“And she was just getting to be okay. You know?”

Brenna frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. She was just starting to act like this new version of herself. Something happened in her life that changed everything, and she was figuring out who to be now. And that person needs us to support her. She was trying to make choices and figure out who she could be after the devastation, and then the world shifted again.”

I didn’t know if I was talking about Eliza or me, and given how Brenna looked at me, I had a feeling that she thought something was off, too. I cleared my throat. “Well, either way, we’ll help her.”

“Yes, we will,” she said as she plated two waffles and started on another.

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