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16
Gideon
Like a couple of cats, Ingrid and Addilyn went at it, their raised voices and shrieks echoing throughout the entire house. The shouting ended, and I listened from where I sprawled on my bed as footsteps rushed past my bedroom. Addilyn’s door slammed seconds later, her sobs reaching me within a heartbeat.
Jaw clenched, I considered going downstairs and telling that bitch Ingrid that every word I’d overheard about her being a selfish woman had been true. Knowing Dad would be consoling her though, I wasn’t about to step foot down those damn stairs.
Addilyn on the other hand…
I eyed the bathroom door I’d kept open. On the opposite side, hers wasn’t all the way shut.
The thought of the pain she must be feeling pulled me off my bed, and I quietly pushed her bathroom door wide. “Addilyn?”
She didn’t pause in her crying but didn’t tell me to fuck off or get lost, so I moved across her room, settling onto the edge of her bed.
“Hey.”
“Go away,” she muttered into her pillow, sniffing and curling into a ball.
“Come here.” I pulled her sideways onto my lap and earned a punch and curse, but I squeezed her tight. “Shh. Let me hold you, princess.”
She melted. Goddamn gave into the comfort my insides ached to offer. Her tears soaked my T-shirt, her hands grasping at my back like I was her sole source of life, her rock.
Filled me fucking full to bursting—and not my nuts.
The connection I’d felt for her snapped tight inside me again, the rushing need to protect the young woman who’d allowed me another peek inside overriding all other senses. I wanted to make her smile with the light that could warm a man through. I wanted to soothe away her heartache. I wanted to carry her burdens.
Give her every fucking part of my soul.
Scared the living shit outta me. I was supposed to hate her, blame her for being responsible for my uprooted life and making me feel less than her rich ass.
But I couldn’t.
I soaked in the warmth of her, the sweet scent of her. Clung to the idea that I could be the one she ran to whenever she hurt and wanted someone to help shoulder whatever bothered her.
As soon as her tears lessened, I tightened my hold so she would attempt escape. Couldn’t let her go just yet.
“I remember my grandfather,” I murmured, closing my eyes and seeing the memory of the gray-haired man my father looked like. “He was a drunk. Gambler. My grandmother wasn’t much better. A controlling drunk.”
Addilyn quieted and rested silent on my lap, all the encouragement I needed to keep talking, to make her linger in my arms.
“Both are dead now,” I told her. “One cancer, the other a heart attack.”
“Your mom?” Addilyn whispered, her voice raw and shaky.
“Left us when I was three for some Hollywood producer,” I answered without feeling since I could barely recall the woman. “Broke Dad’s heart. He became his father.” A frown dented my brow. “But at least he went to rehab for the booze.”
“That’s why he doesn’t drink.”
“Yeah, but he’s the perfect product of both of his parents. He can’t control his gambling habit, but he holds tight reins on anything else he can.”
Myself included.
“He’s a gambler?”
How much to share… Surely her mother knew about my father’s broke bank account by now. “Let’s just say he doesn’t have the money to buy me shit to make up for being such a dick.”
“My mother will buy you whatever you ask for—if you stay on her good side,” Addilyn said with a sigh. “I still haven’t decided if it’s her way of showing affection or if she’s trying to make me forget she’s such a selfish bitch.”
