Page 38 of Broken Daddy
He stared at Hayes for a long moment, then he turned to her. Hayes tensed beside her. But Devi actually felt more calm. Jerry had been talking to her likeshewas the problem.
“I’m fine,” she said quietly.
“See?” Jerry said triumphantly. “She’s fine. You can go.”
“N-no.”
“No?” Jerry repeated.
“I want him.” She cleared her throat, realizing how that sounded.Please don’t let her be going red.“I meant what I-I said before, I w-want him to s-stay.”
Shit.
She’d hoped that stuttering would disappear now that she was feeling less on edge and . . . safer.
Yeah.
There was no denying that Hayes made her feel safer.
Jerry’s jaw tightened. “Fine. You thought it was a smart idea to go outside when you’d just been attacked. On your own?”
“No.” She rubbed her forehead. “But it’s never been a problem before?—”
“You’ve done this before?” Hayes demanded.
“Um. Yes.” She winced at the anger in his voice.
“You’re not doing that again,” he told her firmly.
Irritation stirred and she welcomed it. Built it up. She needed it to stop herself from falling into him, from begging him to hold her.
“Pretty sure you’re not the boss of me,” she told him. “And you can’t tell me what to do.”
Yay her! Seemed all she had to do to get rid of her stutter was get angry. Sure, she shouldn’t really be getting mad at Hayes. And he wasn’t wrong. She wouldn’t do that again.
However, that wasn’t up to him to decide.
Hayes leaned into her. “Seems like you need someone telling you what to do.”
He spoke so quietly that she was fairly certain Jerry couldn’t hear.
Well, she hoped he couldn’t. He might get the wrong idea about what she and Hayes were to each other.
Which was . . . nothing.
“It was a dumb thing to do, Devi,” Jerry told her bluntly. “And Hayes is right. Don’t do that again.”
“How is this my fault? I didn’t ask to be attacked!” She blinked rapidly.
“You’re right,” Jerry said with a sigh. “Of course you didn’t and in an ideal world, you should be free to go where you want whenever you want. But it’s not an ideal world. There are things we all need to do to keep ourselves safe. We all have to think smart. Letting someone bigger than you, someone who hadn’t just been accosted by some asshole, put the garbage out would have been smarter, don’t you agree?”
Well, yeah.
Of course she did.
“I just needed to do something. I was . . . antsy.” She wrapped her arms around herself.
Hayes moved, shifting forward. Where was he going? Was he leaving? She didn’t want him to leave. But he simply drew off his shirt, leaving him in just a T-shirt. Turning, he unbuttoned it and drew it around her shoulders.
