Page 81 of Mayhem
“I’m not your child, Paetyn.”
“I would hope not with the way we fuck,” Cruz scoffed, and Paetyn tapped his shoe against his. He was sure they both knew what she meant.
“You feel like I’m trying to force you to talk.”
“Yes,” Erin responded.
“Okay. When you trust us enough to tell us, then we’ll listen. Do you want some ice cream, or do you want to go to the next place?” Paetyn asked, standing.
Erin narrowed her eyes at him. “No. You don’t get to try to gaslight me.”
Paetyn furrowed his brow, genuinely confused. “I’m not trying to gaslight you.”
“Yes, you are. You just sat there and said you don’t think I trust you.”
“That isn’t what I said, and you know it.”
She shook her head. “Take me home.”
“Let’s go,” he stated. “But for the record, you’ll have to push much harder if you’re trying to get rid of us. Or come out and say it.”
Paetyn walked back toward the car. The entire tone of that conversation should have gone differently. They should have been able to sit there and talk it out, but she’d decided to push on purpose at the end, and he knew they wouldn’t get anywhere like that. He’d upset her, and while he knew the conversation might, he hadn’t meant for it to do so to that extent.
Honestly, she was mad from something she’d conjured up. He hadn’t been attempting to gaslight when he said what he had. He was a grown-ass man and didn’t partake in such juvenile things. He’d meant what he said to her.
When they were in the car, he pulled out of the parking lot. The silence in the vehicle was loud, but he didn’t expect it to be any other way.
He pulled into the parking garage of her building close to an hour later and parked the car. When he didn’t turn the engine off, he heard her hesitate in the backseat momentarily before getting out. Cruz exited the vehicle a few seconds after she did.
Paetyn rubbed his temples before killing the ignition and getting out. He walked down the hall as she opened the door, and she turned to look at them, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.
“Will you come in?” she asked. “Please.”
From the park to now, her body language had changed, and Paetyn wasn’t sure if she realized he’d been genuine or if she may have pushed more than she’d meant to. He walked over the threshold, Cruz behind him, and they sat on the couch as she closed the door. She would be the one to start this conversation.
Cruz sat on the couch beside Paetyn. Still pissed at Erin, insinuating they were trying to buy her. He could sleep with damn near any woman he wanted. He didn’t have to buy one to do so. However, the accusation was made worse because it’d come from her lips, and she was turning genuinely doing things for her into something tainted. Add that to the fact it was the furthest thing from the truth, and it had been better for him to keep quiet and let Paetyn try to handle it. That ended up going as well as trying to make a bag of bricks float in the ocean.
Erin sat on the loveseat, and it was quiet. The same kind that filled the car, and Cruz knew he wouldn’t be the one to break it because he didn’t trust himself not to say something that would come out harsher than he would mean for it to.
“I apologize,” Erin started. “I shouldn’t have said that. I should have told you I wasn’t sure if I wanted to discuss it.”
Neither of them said anything as she paused. She snapped her thumb nail off her index nail and sighed.
“Telling you gives you the power to hurt me far worse than you not knowing. If I tell you, and you leave, it then feels like a deliberate act, a deliberate attempt at crushing me. But you leaving without knowing won’t hurt as bad. Keeping it to myself keeps my guard up and allows me to protect myself.”
“You think we plan on leaving you, Angel?”
Cruz watched Erin’s body relax some. He assumed it was because Paetyn hadn’t called her by her name again. “I think we don’t know what the future holds. So, it’s a possibility.”
They could tell her that they’d waited a year for her and had no intention of letting her go anywhere. That the pace they usually set for their relationships had been shot to hell because they knew from the beginning that they would make it work with her. Before either of them could speak, she spoke again.
“If I allow myself to get used to the things you do, start enjoying them, or depending on them, on you. It’s only going to hurt worse when you aren’t around. When what I’ve equated as my new normal is pulled from under me.”
“Stop staying when,” Paetyn stated. “We aren’t going anywhere.”
“You just said at the park—”
“Think about what I said,” Paetyn interrupted.
