The Fight for Us (14 page)

Her response was just as breathy as his question. “Yes.”

“Tell me how.” This was blissful torture. His brain was spinning with images that alone made him want to devour her, and he wanted to hear her say it, so he could zero in on the exact image of how she’d done herself.

“I can’t…”

“Tell me or show me. Either will suffice, but I have to know.” He let his lip catch against her earlobe as he spoke, and she cried out quietly as her fingers dug into his skin harder.

“We can’t do this right now.”

And as if on cue, the stove timer dinged.

“Fucking hell.” He sighed in exasperation. Of course she was right. “I know.” He bit her neck gently, and her breath caught as she exhaled.

He backed away from her as she slid slowly off the countertop. As she shook her head, she walked to the kitchen door, pushing it back just enough to holler at the girls that dinner was ready. When she turned back, she was panting slightly and her skin was flushed. He sat quickly, before the girls entered the room, and as they bounded through the door, chattering and throwing down more slang than his ears could process or understand, Joss moved to the stove, using a couple of hot pads to take the dish out and carry it to the table. She peered up at him quickly as she was setting the dish in the center of the table, and he winked at her.

“Shit—” the dish slipped from her thick material covered fingers and nearly tipped over before she managed to get it onto the trivet.

He chuckled. The girls were oblivious as they continued to jabber on about something. He knew listening to his daughter and being interested in what she had to say was important, but since Nat was knee deep in volleyball talk, and he was knee deep in Joss heaven, he let the girls chat on as he watched the world’s biggest klutz set a table while she was trying to recover from being molested by him in the kitchen.

She finally sat opposite him, and he planted his etiquette-rule-breaking elbows on either side of his plate as he steepled his fingers under his chin. He studied her, and the breath she took seemed so labored that he watched the tension in her neck as her chest rose and fell. Her body language was some of the most fascinating and telling he’d ever witnessed, and he smirked as he shook off his completely unrequited arousal and turned his attention to the girls.

He struggled to immerse himself in girl talk for a while, and given Joss’s furtively moving glances and the pink of her cheeks that she couldn’t seem to get under control, she was struggling too.

“You guys going to the Fall Festival?” Harper’s eyes were moving back and forth between him and Nat, and given the confusion on Nat’s face, he wasn’t alone in having no idea what Harper was talking about.

“The what?” Nat said.

“It’s a big town party we have every year between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s Friday after next at the Pavilion.”

The Pavilion was a large circular building that sat on the waterfront by the ferry docks. It was a short way down the coastline from the docks and The Landing restaurant, and he’d noticed it a few times, though he’d never been inside. The historic brick structure was interesting, if nothing else.

“We hadn’t heard about it.” He glanced at Nat. “But I suppose we can.”

Nat nodded.

“Oh, you have to! It’s so much fun.” Harper wasn’t talking to him anymore, and her chatter was now directed right back to Nat as she talked on about the event. Apparently, the evening revolved around eating and dancing. One of those activities he would never turn down. The other sounded more than enjoyable as long as it involved a certain blue eyed, dark haired beauty.

Isaiah went back to staring at Joss and daydreaming about her. There was nothing in the world more distracting to him than her when she was in the room with him. He didn’t have a clue how he’d come to be so wrapped around the idea of her, but he could seem to focus on little else. But as much of a distraction as she was proving to be, it was nothing compared to the moment the front door was suddenly opened. At the sound, Joss’s eyes quickly moved to Harper, and Harper looked right back. They were sharing some known truth between them, though he couldn’t guess what.

The subtle shake of Joss’s head as her eyes dropped to stare at her plate made it clear she knew exactly who was going to be walking through the kitchen door any moment, and she wasn’t happy about it.

“Joss! Whose fucking Land Cruiser is—” As the ex-husband spoke, he pushed through the kitchen door, catching sight of the two extra dinner guests as he fell silent and stared for a moment. “Huh,” was all he said as his eyes locked on Isaiah.

Isaiah forced himself to look coolly back at the prick, and he held that focus until the man turned his attention to Joss, cocking his head to the side.

“What’s for dinner, dear?” His tone was sarcastic, if not downright cruel. “That the man who made me settle for the two story on Blakemoor Drive, rather than the ranch I liked so much on Easterly?” He cocked his head toward Isaiah as he spoke.

Isaiah didn’t like the man, not that he expected he would like Joss’s ex-husband, but he didn’t care for the man’s attitude. There was something cruel about his disregard for anyone in the room aside from Joss whom he obviously felt nothing but contempt for. The fact he’d not even acknowledged his own daughter was bizarre to say the least as well. There was just something very off about the man—at least in any sort of familial sense.

“You shouldn’t be here. We have company.”

Todd harrumphed, and the expression on his face was complete disregard for Joss’s words. His single arched eyebrow was the visual equivalent of saying “fuck you,” and Todd’s sentiment was not missed on anyone, including his daughter whose tight jaw looked of frustration, but Harper’s eyes were leery and worried—not at all the demeanor Isaiah usually associated with the spitfire.

“I’m going upstairs to take a shower. Save some for me.” Todd turned for the door.

“She told you to get lost. I’m curious why you think that means you’re free to shower in her home.” Isaiah wasn’t a man who kept his mouth shut in such situations, and when Todd turned back to him, Isaiah’s eyes narrowed.

“Her home? That’s cute.” Todd’s attention shifted to Joss who was staring at the table. “How about you explain to him whose name is on the deed, and then show him the door, so I don’t have to.” Todd walked away then as Isaiah tried to process what the hell was going on.

He looked at Joss, and she peered nervously up to him. “I’m so sorry,” she mumbled.

She seemed completely lost at the moment, and while it broke his heart to see her this way, it also pissed him off. She hadn’t followed up her apology by assuring him they should stay. She’d done nothing at all, in fact, to refute her ex-husband’s demand to send them packing. He was obviously missing a big piece of the Joss puzzle, and that didn’t sit well with him.

“Nat, we better go.” He stood, dropping his napkin on the chair, and Nat followed his lead as Harper and Joss sat silently.

Harper looked humiliated, and Joss simply looked confused. He snatched his coat off the back of the kitchen chair, shirking into it quickly as he passed through the kitchen on his way out. He glanced at Harper, and she was glaring at him. He didn’t know what to make of anything that had just happened, and he wanted to be away from the confusion of everything he didn’t understand. He was feeling entirely too vulnerable at the moment.

“Bye, Harp.” Nat spoke quietly as she followed him.

“Yeah. See you tomorrow.”

Isaiah didn’t bother saying anything to Joss as he pushed through the kitchen door to the hallway leading to the foyer, and when he took in the large black duffel bag that had been dumped on the foyer floor, he shook his head as his anger built. He was outside on the sidewalk before Joss managed to get herself together enough to follow him.

“Wait.”

“No.”

“Please. Isaiah, you don’t understand.”

That comment pushed his irritation a bit more than he could ignore, and he stopped walking then. “Nat, wait for me in the car.”

He tossed her the keys as she wearily looked back at him, but she listened to him, and he watched her, ignoring Joss behind him until Nat was in the car and had started the engine.

“What sort of ex-husband is allowed to come and go from your home without so much as you batting an eye? Huh?” His voice was getting louder as she balked at him, but she remained quiet. “I don’t give a shit whose name is on the deed to this home. I don’t even give a shit that you have an asshole for an ex-husband. But I’ll be damned if I don’t care that there’s a man in your shower right now who doesn’t seem to understand boundaries. You wanna know the thing about boundaries, though?”

She was still remaining silent as he laid into her.

“It takes two people to set them and uphold them. And there wasn’t an ounce of shock on your face when you heard that door open. Where was the surprise, Joss? If he shows up and lets himself into your life so easily, it’s because he’s done it before, and I’m guessing, given the lack of surprise in your reaction, that it happens fairly frequently.” He turned, intending to walk away then, but he stopped and turned back. “Where the hell does he sleep? By the look, I’m guessing
his
house is no more than two bedrooms. Am I right?”

She nodded as she stared at his chest. Her eyes were glossed over, and she was refusing to look at him. All he could think about was the man inside her home fucking her. He had no idea what the hell sort of situation he was looking at, but for whatever reason, he knew it had happened. How long in the past, he couldn’t guess, but it was far more recent than her divorce five years prior. The fact she couldn’t look at him sealed that knowledge for him—even if he couldn’t figure out why.

“I’d have thought, seeing as how you invited us over for dinner, not to mention this little flirtation that’s been going on, that you’d have this situation a bit more under control. As it is, I don’t want to walk into this bullshit. I have more important things to think about than how to compete with your fucking ex.”

“It’s not like that.” She tried.

“I don’t give a shit what it’s like. I don’t want anything to do with it.”

She remained silent. The gaping mouth said she was too stunned to speak, and when he finally managed to turn and walk away, he didn’t look back. He climbed in his car, forcing his eyes to stay on her garage door, rather than straying to the sidewalk that ran beside it to where he knew she was still standing. He threw the car in reverse and backed out.

“Dad…”

“Have you started packing yet?”

“Dad…”

“I’m serious, Nat. We’re moving in a few weeks, and you need to make sure—”

“Dad!”

His eyes flashed to her. He was refusing to delve into this any further, and she wasn’t accepting that. She could be as stubborn as he was in that regard, and his attempt to change the subject before she even had a chance to raise it was as pointless with her as it would be if she attempted the same with him.

“What?” His voice sounded harsh, but that meant nothing to Nat. He was just frustrated.

“You were mean.”

There was little doubt of that.

“We don’t know anything about that man or why—”

“I know Harper hates him! I know she rarely sees him except when he shows up out of the blue! I know that!” Her eyes were wide as she chastised him, and then she shook her head in irritation. “You hurt Ms. Verna’s feelings.”

He shook his head. “You don’t understand, Nat.”

“Neither do you!”

He didn’t bother responding then. Any further explanation would have pushed their conversation into territory that was entirely too adult for his daughter, not to mention inappropriate.

She ignored him as she climbed out of the car, and the rest of the evening was much the same. She disappeared to her room, and when he peeked in on her at ten that night, she was sorting through her belongings and packing them into the boxes he’d set inside her door a few days before.

“Don’t stay up too late. School tomorrow.”

She turned toward him, but she said nothing. He gave up thinking she was going to be civil and went to bed. But sleep was impossible, and he spent the next three hours imagining Joss’s life with another man in it. The man was likely sleeping under her roof at that very moment, and how close he was to Joss while he did it was gnawing at Isaiah. Joss didn’t appear to like Todd in any way. But there was little solace to that fact, because for whatever dislike Todd might incite in her, she had allowed this. For whatever reason, whatever motivation there was to her highly non-traditional relationship with her ex-husband, she was part of it.

Chapter Thirteen

Todd reemerged once he was finished showering. Joss and Harper were sitting at the kitchen table, saying nothing at all. There was nothing to say. They knew this routine, and neither of them were happy to be going through it at the moment. Harper, of course, only knew about the part of the routine that happened outside of Joss’s bedroom, but that part alone was bad enough.

“So, Harper, who was the fat chick that was here?”

Harper’s face scrunched up in disgust as her eyes flashed to her father. “Her name’s Natalie, and she’s not fat. Even if she was, you don’t say that about someone.” She shook her head. “I don’t call you douchebag even though you are one,” Harper muttered, but her eyes flitted away from him quickly. She knew him well enough to be intimidated, even if she couldn’t bite her tongue.

Todd ignored the insult. He didn’t really care if his daughter thought he was a douchebag or not, so it meant nothing to him. Todd was just broken in that way. Always had been Joss was guessing. This type of flaw surely had to be hard-wired.

“I’m going up to your bedroom to watch T.V., Mom.” Harper’s lips were pursed and her expression weary as she stood and left the room.

Joss waited until she could hear Harper’s footsteps upstairs to speak. “How long are you staying? I saw the bag by the door. You know you can’t stay tonight.” Joss knew he’d stay as long as he wanted, and she’d be able to do little about it other than taking herself and Harper to Steph’s if it came to that.