Maddox (Next Generation Carter Brother #5) - Lisa Helen Gray Page 0,2
room, my stomach knotting, and walk down the hall. Everything in me knows what I’m about to walk into. I guess the part of me I’ve kept locked away knew downstairs when I saw the car. But denial is a tricky thing, and I have been in denial for a long time, not letting myself question what was right in front of me.
I didn’t want to believe it, and maybe if I hadn’t been so weak, so foolish for thinking I was in love, I wouldn’t be here right now.
We have been together since we were fifteen, and although eight years isn’t much to some people, it is to me. We have been through a lot and fought against all odds.
I can barely swallow past the lump in my throat as I grip the door handle. I know what I’m going to be walking in on, however, that doesn’t make it any easier.
The sound of Jasmine whimpering has me steeling myself against the onslaught of emotions as I push through the door. I only give them a brief glance, my eyes welling with tears as I see him balls deep in my best friend, her nails digging into his arse as she begs him for more.
I can’t feel anything. I want to express my disgust, my anger, but neither are worth it. Not anymore. They are dead to me.
A part of me wonders if my lack of action has less to do with my concern for Jasmine and more because it has felt like we have been over for a while. As soon as that thought comes, I remember the exact day I began to fall out of love with him. He had raised his voice in anger and shoved me against the door, then punched a hole through the wood right next to my head. All because I told him I didn’t want to keep coming home to a messy house.
Or maybe it was because the minute we decided to live in our own place, our relationship changed. He changed.
It could have been from a million moments.
They haven’t even sensed or heard me come in as I walk over to the dressing table, knocking Scarlett’s bag to the floor so I can get to my keys in the bowl.
Tears course down my cheeks because what hurts the most is that Scarlett did this. We have been friends longer than Cameron and I have known each other. She was my best friend, the person I confided in, who I trusted.
Yet she is there, with my boyfriend’s cock inside her like it isn’t the first time.
“Amelia…” Cameron panics, seeing me for the first time. He jumps off the bed to grab his boxers, his face flushed. “It’s not what you think.”
“Oh my God,” Scarlett cries. “Amelia, I’m so sorry—"
I switch the music off and grab my bag off the chair. “Fuck you!” I bite out, keeping my voice low so I don’t scare Jasmine.
Scarlett struggles to cover herself with the bedsheet, but I can’t look at her a minute longer. Bile begins to rise in my throat.
“It’s not what it looks like,” Cameron rushes out, his red eyes boring into me.
He is definitely stoned.
“It just happened,” Scarlett rushes out. “It didn’t mean anything.”
“I don’t care,” I snap, stopping at the door. “I’m taking Jasmine to the hospital. If you cared less about getting your dick wet, you’d know she isn’t doing well and is in pain.”
His face turns concrete. “I hurt you. I get it. But don’t call me a bad dad.”
“You’re fucking another woman while she’s in the other room. Did you even care what this would do to her if she had walked in to get you? She was calling out to you and you didn’t even hear her. And don’t get me started on the smell of alcohol and the stench of weed and smoke in here.”
I storm down the hall, blocking the pain. I can be a single parent. Lots of mum’s do it every day and I can do the same. I don’t need a man to make us a family. I’m done trying to keep us together. He’s had chance after chance, and he blew it.
“Amelia, wait,” he yells, and I hear him pulling on clothes.
Walking into Jasmine’s room, I wrap her dressing gown around her, pushing her Stitch slippers onto her feet. I lift her into my arms, cradling her as I run a soothing hand down her back.