Page 76 of Chokehold
As soon asI got that fucking message from Jackson, I ditched my mom’s little speech about my anger and barged my way out the front door. I don’t even remember driving to his place, or smashing my fist into his face, but fuck, I’m still mad.
I stare at the split skin on my knuckles, flexing my fingers to make the slices open more and feel the pain of the tearing.
There’s mud under my nails, and on my knees and legs. I haven’t showered yet since I got home. I’m lost in my own head again.
I slide out from under my bed and crack my neck side to side.
Blaise still isn’t home. I wish I had stayed and confessed, then yelled at him some more for messing me around, but there’s no point.
Because he isn’t mine. Plus, I’m not attracted to him.
I laugh bitterly at myself and my denial. It’s obvious now that I’m into Blaise, the taste of him on my tongue and the way Iwanted more tonight is more than enough evidence. I’ve never had an orgasm like that. Not with Allie or anyone else I fucked around with.
I wanted more. I still do. But I’m just lost in my head about what this can all mean. It could fuck up my mom’s life. It would be my fault again.
Even fucking Jackson knows, and he used it against me by…
My back hits the mattress as I drop and press my palms into my face. “Fuck,” I blurt. “Fuck me.”
My phone buzzes, and it takes me an entire two seconds to jump for it, seeing it’s from an annoying existence.
Mia: Allie knows.
I want to reply and ask if she means Allie knows I sixty-nined her ex an hour ago, but her second message comes through.
Mia: I had to tell her. She was bound to find out eventually what was going on between us.
“What is it with this psycho?” I ask myself, deleting her message and awaiting the storm to blast through the front door. No doubt she’ll make my life a living hell if she truly thinks I’d go there with Mia.
I mean, I kind of did? Not because I wanted her, but because it was the closest I could get to Blaise without any confused back and forth shit.
My phone rings, and I frown when I see it’s an unknown number.
“Hello?”
There’s a hiccup, and then a deep voice booms through the line. “Son!” my dad sings. “My boy! I have been trying to reach you for months!”
My breathing halts. I can feel his hands on me without needing to think about my past. Skin crawling, my stomach turns inside out just as my door opens. The burning in my leg hits me, and I feel the urge to hold my side.
Blaise limps in with his sore ankle, covered in mud, his eyes red, the gash on his cheek deeper than I thought. He stops in the middle of my room.
“What do you want, Dad?” I ask, and Blaise goes deathly pale.
“That asshole brother of yours has been hanging up on me for months.” He throws something, and it smashes on the other side of the line. “He made me mad, son. Real fucking mad. You know what happens when I’m mad.”
I clench my teeth together. “I didn’t know,” I say, because as much as I like to think of myself as a hard-ass, this fucker who is half my biology is the scariest man on the planet in my eyes.
He can destroy my entire life.
He can hurt me.
He’ll take Mom and hurt her.
“There’s a restraining order,” I tell him. “You can’t do anything.”
Blaise doesn’t move from his spot, watching me like a hawk, seeing the anger building behind my eyes. If he had just told me my dad had been calling, I could have figured something out. He’s only pissed him off and potentially made this way harder for everyone involved. He’ll stop at nothing.
“It’s too late for any of that. Restraining order or not, you took your mother from me, and he tried to take you away from me too,” he slurs, drunk off his ass. “I’m going to take you away from them all.”
