Page 17 of Absolutely Pucked
CHAPTER
FIVE
KILLIAN
My back was aching,every day a fresh hell since leaving home.
Sleeping on Damir’s couch for the last month wasn’t the worst situation I’d been in since splitting up with Delia. It definitely beat sleeping in my car, but I was developing knots in my muscles that were never going to heal if I didn’t do something about my situation.
I couldn’t mooch off my one remaining friend forever, and I also couldn’t keep letting the fear of what Daniel might do if I tried to apply for a job paralyze me every time I found the courage to think about going back to work. But it wasn’t as easy as submitting a resume.
I still wasn’t divorced, and I was only allowed to practice law in one state. There was so much to be done if I really wanted to start my life over somewhere new. And none of that could happen until I was no longer legally tied to Delia.
Of course, every time I tried, even the mere suggestionof going to court to finalize the divorce sent Delia into a tizzy. And the next thing I knew, she was filing another motion or adding something else to mediation.
I had no idea why she wanted to hold out for so fucking long either. She’d been caught cheating, but California was a no-fault state. Besides, I had no intention of asking her for anything at all. I figured she was going to fuck me over with alimony, but I’d been working as the office bitch for years now, and my salary was still pathetic, so whatever a judge decided to award wouldn’t be shit.
Not to mention, I had no job after being fired by the man who was screwing her six ways to Sunday, so when we did eventually stand in front of the judge, there wasn’t going to be much to actually give her.
Her expectations of what life married to a lawyer was going to be like had been dashed the day I got my first job and she realized I wasn’t going to be making millions like all the suit-wearing douche bags on TV. Her dreams of wearing head-to-toe Chanel and Gucci had been destroyed by my first student loan payment, making my paycheck sorrier than the pizzeria job I had during my undergrads.
It didn’t stay that way, but Delia had never been satisfied. At least, until she was. Until the moment she realized she had been trying to climb the wrong tree in the world of corporate law. I would never forget the day when I knew everything was about to change.
Daniel walked his smarmy ass into my sorry excuse for an office one afternoon, took her hand, then kissed it while meeting my gaze. “You’re one lucky son of a bitch,” he’d said.
I recognized the look on her face when she stared back at me. It was the same look she’d given me right before her sob story about Tucker breaking her heart. It wasn’t something I would ever fall for again, but it was in that moment I didn’t want to warn Daniel.
I wanted an out.
One PI later, and I had all the evidence I needed. Hell, I had more than I wanted. Emails and texts full of proof that she’d been manipulating me from the moment she and I locked eyes in Tucker’s hospital room.
The pathetic lies she’d given me about how he broke up with her and told her to find a whole man had been fucking bullshit. The way she’d been sobbing in my arms every night, asking why Tucker wouldn’t love her if she was willing to love him just the way he was, had gutted me. My anger with him had eclipsed all those little red flags she was waving.
And Tucker had been…fuck. He’d been suffering. He was so goddamn angry at his situation. He’d lost everything—himself, his sight, his legs, and his career with the NHL. It just made sense in my head that he would push her away, and I didn’t want him to take her down with him if he was going to spiral.
She was easy to love. At first. She was kind and thoughtful and attentive.
She told me she was holding off on getting married because she wanted to make sure that Tucker was happy before we tied the knot, and God help me, but I believed her with every fiber of my being. I needed to believe that being with her was for Tucker’s own good. That this was something he wanted.
That everyone would end up happy.
It was too easy to agree, even if I knew it was going to destroy my relationship with my brother.
I waited. I pined. I worked and tried not to think about Tucker, who had cut all of us off.
I watched him secretly, every chance I could. I saw him in the Paralympics. I saw his triumphs when he won medals and then failures when he torched everything around him. I saw the socials he never updated, except once or twice a year, if I was lucky.
Then nearly a decade passed, and I heard rumors through my parents that he was finally content with his life. No, it was more than that. He washappy.
Inviting him to Vegas had been my one mistake. I thought he was willing to take responsibility for throwing Delia out on her ass. Instead, he looked at me likeIwas the monster. LikeIwas the asshole who had broken their home.
I should have known. Instead, I thought he was a liar trying to get at me one last time, and when I went to his room and found he was already gone, I breathed a sigh of relief. I thought I could do it. I could forgive myself for what had happened between me, him, and Delia.
I could get married and live the life I’d always dreamed about.
I got a promotion shortly after that. And when I presented her with the ring for a second time, she looked me in the eye and said yes.
I did not expect to be thrown out on my ass six weeks after our honeymoon with a smirk and a list of demands. And I couldn’t explain why my first instinctwas to go running to my brother, but it was. It wasn’t the first time in the last decade that I’d wanted to run to Tucker, crawl into his bed, and tell him every dark thought that had crossed my mind.
