Page 24 of Mr. Big Stuff

“When what is over?”

She stared at me like I was simple.

“When you no longer need my services, Mr. McCullough.”

I know she didn’t think she was going anywhere … unless she was trying to leave.

I swallowed hard right before the words slipped out of my mouth. “Call me Raymond wherever we are, Tracey. I told you that before.”

“I just want to make sure I never get on your bad side—that’s all.”

“I wasn’t that bad, was I?”

She started laughing.

“Uh yeah. That was like rule number one on day one. ‘No calling me by my first name. Address me as Mr. McCullough and Mr. McCullough only’.” Her impersonation of me made me smile despite her teasing.

“You know I’ve had good reason to set up boundaries.”

“I do. But I also wonder why you let them down for me.”

We had stopped walking and stood by my car. There were only a few other vehicles in the lot and while all the vendors, artists and crew were gone, the clean up staff were still out there, making sure the park is left the way we found it. Another company would be by in the morning to break down the stages and tents.

“I didn’t have a choice to be honest.”

She seemed thrown off by my words. “Why not?”

I didn’t know how to tell her I loved her. I wasn’t sure if it was fear of rejection or something else holding me back either.

“I just didn’t.”

She nodded but clearly the question was left in her eyes. When I still said nothing, she gave me a wan smile that made me feel like shit even though saying words I wasn’t sure of yet, wasn’t the move either. I had to be accountable for my words. Telling her I loved her meant what? What would I do about it. I’d need to make sure I knew the answer to that before I went any further even though my heart and my dick knew I had long since gone past the point of no return.

I pulled her in close, hoping to quiet her mind, even as mine was going full throttle. I tilted her chin up and pulled a sensual kiss from her soft lips. When I release them, her eyes were still closed, slowly opening to flicker across my face with tenderness. God, she was everything. Everything I wanted.Keep her then, fool.

“Let me get you home, baby.”

She nodded but I could tell she had been hoping I told her the words her heart wanted to hear and that’s what almost broke me.

Because I didn’t want to give in just yet, I dropped her off and went home to my condo, wondering why I was running away from one of my answered prayers like an idiot.

Chapter16

Raymond

Charise and I planned to take Pops to lunch for Father’s Day. He said he wanted Applebee’s. While we agreed to take him, privately through text both Charise and I sent each other the ?? (wtf) emoji because out of all the places, he chose that spot?

Anyway, the next day I ended up knocking on Pops’ door a few hours before Charise was supposed to show. I wanted to talk to him even if it was about nothing in particular. The war waging inside of me had me needing that masculine balance. And I knew my guy, Raj was too busy getting his music career jumpstarted after a few bad breaks and I knew Nathaniel would do nothing but laugh even though he was having a hard enough time dealing with his own woman.

There was no answer, so I strolled down the hall to my mom’s and knocked on her door. Again, no answer. Worried now because one of them, usually my mom, tells me when they’ll be out. Not that they cared about giving me every detail of their lives, but they began to fill in me and Charise when we started to worry all the time about them. No one tells you how we go from being reckless and avoiding telling our parents what we are up to while they worry to worrying about their every move when they grow older. But truthfully, at their age, they seemed so vulnerable.

With that in mind, I used my key and unlocked the door to my mother’s apartment.

The apartment smelled faintly of bacon and strong coffee which was odd since she didn’t drink the stuff or make it now that her and Pops were divorced but either way the aroma let me know she had at least been home and moving about as recently as this morning. Nothing seemed out of place from what I could tell as I made my way towards the kitchenette area, noticing the balcony door was locked from the inside. I headed back towards her bedroom and what I saw when I arrived at her doorway had me turning around so fast that I ran into the wall making me holler out in pain. I ignored the stars in my vision and focused on how the hell to get away from the horrifying sight of my parents getting it on in bed.

“Is that you, Raymond, baby?”

“Yeah, Ma,” I mumbled over the pain in my nose. I cupped it in my hand to feel whether it was broken and it felt normal to touch, but God knows it felt like it was fucked up.

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