Page 223 of Santa Daddies
Idiot.
“Well?” he demanded.
“Um.” Joey glanced up at him, then other to Miles. “You know, I think Miles should take this and put it somewhere safe. In case Alice wants it back.”
“No fucking way. Give it here.” Anson held out his hand.
“No,” Joey said. “It’s not yours. It’s Alice’s.”
“It’s in my house and Alice is mine so it’s mine,” Anson said.
Wait.
What the fuck did he just say?
“Alice is yours?” Miles asked.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said hastily.
Both men shared looks.
“And don’t do that,” he demanded.
“Do what?” Miles asked.
“Share a look where you think that I’m losing it. That’s your ‘how can we manage Anson’ look. And I’m sick of seeing those looks. No one has to handle me. I’m a grown man who can take care of himself.” Frustration bit at him.
“No one wants to treat you like a child,” Miles said. “We want to help you. If it was the other way around, if one of us was injured and needed help, wouldn’t you be there to help?”
Of course he would.
“It’s just not easy to accept help,” he managed to get out.
“We know that,” Miles said. “And we’re not trying to be in your face with it. But we just want to do what we can to make your life easier.”
Anson stared into the fire. “My life won’t be the same again.”
“No,” Miles said, coming to sit across from him. “But that doesn’t mean that it can’t be a good life.”
Anson made a scoffing noise. But he had to force it. Because for the first time, he thought that maybe it would be possible to have a good life. Might not be the one he’d planned . . . but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be something with purpose, a life that was full and enjoyable.
A life that would be better with Alice in it.
“What else is in that book?” he asked Joey.
Joey sighed and then handed it over. Anson looked through it. Something, he realized, that he should have done before he’d gone off at her.
Before he’d driven her away.
He opened the front of the book.
Alice’s Story Ideas.
“Story ideas?” he whispered.
“Was she an author?” Joey asked. “I don’t mean a reporter or that she’s going to sell a story to the tabloid. I mean . . . could she have been writing a fictional story?”
“She didn’t say she wrote stories. And why does she list out the attributes of a narcissist?” Anson asked. Then he looked at another page. His breath froze in his lungs and he forced himself to push it out. “She’s got notes on emotional and financial abuse.” But they weren’t just listed. There were examples. What seemed to be quite detailed examples.
