Page 64 of Sweet Like a Psycho (Secrets of Suburbi 2)

“Can’t two hearts break together?” She wiped a few tears away that had fallen down her cheeks.

“Yes. But usually one of the people doesn’t go missing. What did you do to make him run so

fast?”

One of her hands fell to her stomach and then she looked toward the stairs. “Zeke’s five years old. How hard is this to figure out? Look, this has been a lot of fun, but it’s late and…”

“He left you when he found out you were pregnant?”

Her hand fell from her stomach. “Yeah. I needed him and he ran. Just like you said.”

I wasn’t as blind as Damien thought I was. I wanted to believe Violet, but I was well trained in deception. There was more to this story. I could feel it in my bones. But I wasn’t going to ask her about it in front of Damien. I wasn’t looking for a confession like him. I just wanted to know the truth. I wanted to know how I could help her. “It's getting late,” I said.

Violet nodded. “I’ll show you both out.”

Ouch. I deserved that. I had barely tried to stop Damien’s questioning. It was hard when I was dying to know the answer too.

She brushed past us toward the front door.

“Sounds like no matter what you do, you’ll be better than her ex,” Damien said.

“If she’ll ever speak to me again after tonight.” We both followed her to the door.

Damien apologized for the accusations and then stepped out into the brisk night. I kept my hand on the door, trying to find the right words.

“You deserve better than Joel. And better than how I behaved tonight.”

“At least you did the dishes.”

I started to laugh, but it didn’t look like she was making a joke, so I ended up coughing into my hand.

“Do you think I killed him?” she asked.

I stared at her. “No.”

“You hesitated.”

“I didn’t hesitate. I was just processing the question.”

“If there was a new case being opened against me, would you tell me?”

I wasn’t sure how I kept digging myself into a deeper hole here. “There’s no case. I just got curious about a few details of your life when I started looking into you. There’s some things that don’t really add up.”

“So you’ve been looking into my past this whole time?”

“No.” Fuck. “Yes.” I shook my head. “This is what I wanted to talk to you about tonight. It’s complicated.”

“Get out.”

“Vi…”

“Don’t Vi me.” She shoved my chest, pushing me toward the door. “You’re not my friend, Tucker.”

She was pushing me away, but all I could focus on was her fingertips on my chest. They were on the edge of driving me insane. We’d barely touched and I’d done nothing but dream of having her ever since we met. “Tell me what you really want.”

“For you to get out of my house.” She shoved me harder.

I was tiptoeing on a very thin line. But her eyes didn’t match her words. She didn’t want me to leave. I knew that she didn’t. “Tell me to stay.” I took a step toward her.

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