Page 123 of Branded
One
Raph
I pushed my drink away, knowing that if I finished it, I would get sloppy.
I didn’t get sloppy.
Nope.
I abided by a careful recipe of drinking at CeCe’s, consuming enough food, and stopping at just the right time to prevent me from getting sloppy.
A pinch of this. A dash of that. Two stirs. And ta-da!
The patented Raphael Gomez recipe to pretend my life wasn’t a shit-show.
Drown out the voices in my head.
But do it in a way that didn’t bring any intervention from my teammates—who would definitely have my back and take it upon themselves to clear up my shit, or worse, Hazel might take notice. Or take more notice. Already, sometimes the team psychologist looked at me as though she could see through the shield I’d erected.
And I couldn’t have that.
I was too busy shoring up that shield, barricading myself behind it, too busy letting the hurt and betrayal eat through every inch of me, to gnaw at my very bones.
Sighing, I threw some bills on the bar top, started to push away from the bar, ready to go home to my empty house, with the empty rooms, the doors perpetually closed.
“Raph!”
A shiver down my spine.
Fucking hell.
Not her.
Anyone but her.
Except, even as I turned, I knew it was going to be her. Going to be…Beth.
Fucking.
Hell.
My hands shook, fingers clenching into fists, lungs seizing.
I’d been avoiding her like the goddamned plague. Mostly because she was beautiful and loud and pushy, and I didn’t want her in my business, didn’t want any woman in my business. I’d been there, done that, got the fucking souvenir broken heart from Hurricane Monica.
Or maybe Hurricane Lying Bitch was more accurate.
Monica had lied about something so fucking big that I didn’t know how I was ever going to trust another woman.
Ever.
Especially one as beautiful as Beth.
Monica had been gorgeous, impeccably dressed, her makeup always done—high maintenance at its best, and maybe that made me a dick who’d deserved what was coming to me, but I’d always liked my women a little high-maintenance.
Beth was just as gorgeous, just as put together, and she was a total ballbuster (something else that used to make me hard).
But I hadn’t been avoiding her because of the way she looked or her personality or how she wore her makeup or did her hair or dressed.
