Page 101 of Hold Still

Ozzy

“OZZY!”

Aiden’s voice carries up the stairs and into my bedroom, where I’m still lying in bed. Haven’t slept for hours, but haven’t moved either. I turn my head away from the door.

“Ozzy!”

“Go away,” I whisper. I’m in no mood to play nice. It’s been days since I’ve seen McKenna, and each one gets harder to get through.

“There you are.”

I turn onto my side, away from him, grumbling, “Can’t you take a hint?”

“Come on, wake up.” He shakes the bed, followed by Bans’s barking from down the hall.

“Great. Now you’ve woken her up.”

The golden retriever jumps onto the bed and puts her doggie breath all up in my grill. Backing away, I say, “It’s too early for this shit.”

“But not for this.” Aiden tosses a magazine on top of me.

Flicking it to the side, I say, “Whatever. Don’t you have something else to do besides bother the piss out of me?”

“Nope.”

The rustling of pages being flipped reaches my ears. Sighing, I turn over and throw my arm over my face.

“Here it is.” Aiden makes a weird-ass sound in the back of his throat.

And, nothing.

Moving my arm to the side, a huge photo of me is on the front cover. “Great. What did that rag print about me now?” I sit up, resting my back against the padded headboard. Listless, I look out the window, my mind blank. Empty. Like my life.

“Ahem.” Aiden brings me out of my musing.

Waving at him, I instruct, “Go ahead. Let’s hear their lies.”

He shakes the tabloid. “It’s not what you think.” He shows me the photos and reads a lurid tale about McKenna and Matt, ending with her father being killed. “Seems to us that Ozzy is well rid of this modern-day Lizzie Borden.” He finishes and looks at me.

My mind is everywhere and nowhere all at once. “She never mentions her father. I assumed he wasn’t in the picture.” A fragment of a conversation rises to the top. “No, wait. That’s not true. She did mention he used to take her to Edie Z’s for a chocolate every week.”

Silence falls over the room, the only sound being Bans’s snoring. Ignoring the fluff-ball, I shift in the bed. Anger overtakes me. “Why the fuck didn’t she talk to me about this? Oh, right. How was she going to tell me that she killed her own father?” I adopt a high-pitch tone. “By the way, I happened to hand my boyfriend a knife, which he stuck into my father.”

Aiden drops the rag onto my bed.

I shake my head. None of this meshes with the woman I know. “This doesn’t add up.”

“Maybe they got it wrong. Fuck knows, they mess stuff up all the time.”

The need to get to the bottom of this gnaws in the pit of my stomach. I can’t believe she killed her own father—she doesn’t have it in her. But then again, I didn’t think she had it in her to cheat on me either, so what do I know? When I can’t take all of the unanswered questions ramming my brain, I toss the blankets off my nude body and stalk into the bathroom. “Can you take care of Bans for me today? I have to find out what all this is about.”

“I thought you might say that.” Aiden holds up her leash. “C’mon Bans, let’s go for a walk.”

I shower and dress in shorts and a Las Vegas T-shirt. Stopping in the kitchen, I make myself a protein shake. Each whirl of the blender fuels my anger toward the woman I thought I was falling in love with. Ha! What a freaking shit-show that would be. Maybe I should send some flowers to the tabloid for doing me a favor. She makes Teresa look like a saint.

But that’s not the McKenna I know.

Shoving my head into my helmet, I hop on Shirley and barrel toward her house. She better have a good explanation about all this. And, more importantly, why she didn’t she tell me about it ages ago?

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