Page 27 of Make Me Whole

I could feel her gaze on me, but I didn’t look at her or reply to her greeting. “Were one of you sick?”

“What? No, why?”

I clenched my jaw and exhaled forcefully through my nose, still refusing to stare at her. “Just wondering if that was why you disappeared this morning. I’ve been thinking about it for an hour, and I can’t figure out another reason that would make your behavior acceptable.”

“Do I need an acceptable reason to leave the house with my daughter?” Her voice was high-pitched and livid.

Finally, I looked up at her. She was barefaced, which was rare for Skylar, and her brows were set in an angry frown. Still, she looked breathtakingly beautiful. My cock twitched at the sight of her and my mind filled with memories of the kiss, but I didn’t let either mellow my temper.

“Yes,” I deadpanned, sounding just as angry as she was. “After all the trouble I went through to keep you and Ella safe, you need a good fucking reason to leave the house without letting me know or at least taking your goddamned phone.”

She stared at me for a second with amber fire in her eyes. Her chest moved with shallow breaths and her hands balled into fists. She shook her head just slightly and sneered an angry, “Fuck you, Max,” before climbing the stairs two steps at a time.

I was literally stunned by her reply for a full five seconds. On the sixth, I ran after her. I was halfway through the stairwell when I heard her bedroom door slam. A fresh wave of anger hit me, and I sprinted the rest of the way.

Jaw locked, I opened the door. She had a suitcase on the bed and was throwing clothes from her dresser inside.

She looked at me from over her shoulder, face as angry as I had ever seen her. “This is still my bedroom. You have no business being here.”

I ignored her comment. “What are you doing?”

“I think clothing in a bag is pretty self-explanatory. Ella and I are leaving. I’ve lived with one asshole who dictated what I could and couldn’t do, and I’ll never live like that again.”

Frustrated to my core at being compared to that fucker, I closed my eyes and ran a hand through my hair. It didn’t work all the way, so I took a deep breath that added about two percent of Zen. I was far from calm, but it would have to do.

“I didn’t mean to be an asshole, but can you stop packing? You’re not leaving.”

She huffed, testing my patience and self-control. “You seem to do a lot of shit you don’t mean. And watch me.”

I really didn’t want to be a jerk, but her pigheadedness was leaving me no choice. I opened my eyes and followed her to the dresser. Before she could reach it, I closed the open drawer and stood in front of it to block her approach.

“Move,” she ordered.

I rolled my eyes. “No. I’ve already told you that you’re not leaving, so save yourself the work of having to return your shit to the dresser.”

“Iamleaving,” she retorted defiantly and tried to push me out of the way.

I almost laughed at her attempt. Even with the weight of her whole body, I was too big for her to move. Muttering curses, she turned to her closet, but I’d had enough.

“Stop acting like a child, Skylar,” I admonished, touching her wrist to keep her in place.

She gasped and shivered. I wasn’t sure if it was at my touch or at being called a child. I bet neither made her feel good, but I assumed it was the latter. My grip was barely strong enough to hold a child, so it couldn’t have been that. I was angry, but not unhinged.

“Let go,” she said through gritted teeth.

Tears pooled in her eyes when I didn’t release her, and she yanked her arm to force it free. I didn’t move, neither to tighten my grip nor to release it. Still, she let out a yelp of pain. My fingers reacted by going slack around her wrist, diminishing my already weak hold to something nonexistent.

“Get away from me,” she cried as she cradled her wrist between her breasts.

The sight was sobering. Regret instantly replaced all anger, and I took a step back, hands raised in surrender.

“Fuck, Sky. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. There was barely any strength in my fingers. I just wanted you to stop moving and talk to me.”

Tears kept rolling down her beautiful face, making me feel like a monster. “Now you want to talk?”

I had a distinct feeling that she wasn’t just talking about my attitude today. Still, I was as honest as I could be. “I do.”

“Well, I don’t want to talk to you now. I wanted to talk to you when I arrived, and I really wanted to talk to you yesterday. But today, you scolded me and yesterday, you ghosted me, so now you can go fuck yourself.”

---