Page 65 of Receiving His Mercy
There was nothing innocent about him
“You can stay in one of the apartments. And watch the game there,” Travis told him as he tucked the blanket around her legs.
“But it’s so boring watching it by yourself.”
“Let him watch it here,” she said quietly. “It doesn’t bother me. And I’m the intruder here.”
Like usual.
To her shock, both men shot her chiding looks.
“You’re not an intruder and I won’t have you speak about yourself like that, understand me?” Travis pointed at her.
“Yeah, don’t know why you’d say an idiot thing like that,” Tyler told her. “We’ve known you for years, Caren.”
“And then I just upped and disappeared without a word.”
Tyler shrugged. “Everyone has shit in their lives that they can’t talk about. I’m sure you had your reasons. And you were a kid, right?”
“Fifteen, nearly sixteen.”
“Yeah, so a kid. Don’t sweat it.”
Don’t sweat it.
She wished she had a tenth of his easygoing nature.
“Tyler, you can stay as long as you keep the noise down,” Travis said. “I’m going to get you some water, Caren. You need to hydrate. If it gets too much, tell me, and you can go take a nap.”
“Ooh, water and a nap. Party on, brother,” Tyler cheered.
Travis just shook his head.
Oh, this was going to be a fun afternoon.
17
Caren rolled over in the comfortable bed and stared at the white wall.
Why couldn’t she sleep?
The afternoon had been a lot of fun until Tyler had to leave to go to the club and she’d been left alone with Travis.
Then, for some weird reason, things had just felt off.
Awkward.
It was like they had nothing to say to each other. It was likely her fault. She still felt strange telling him as much as she had. And there were times that she’d find him staring off into the distance, as though he was thinking deeply about something.
After some pizza that Travis had delivered, she’d gone to bed.
She’d actually managed to sleep for a few hours. But something had woken her up and now she was lying here, playing the day over and over in her head.
What could she have done differently? Should she have told him so much?
Did her mother remember her visit?
Finally, she got out of bed and grabbed her laptop from her bag. She knew that Travis would disapprove of her working onher computer. But she might as well answer some messages if she couldn’t work.
