Jagged

“I’m scared,” I admitted.

“I get that. We got a shift to get through, baby, moving us to somethin’ we’ve never had. You promise to hold on to me, I’ll promise to hold on to you and we’ll make it through.”

God, I wanted that. I so, so wanted that.

But I had to be sure before I lost myself in the beauty of it.

“I need to know your issues with women,” I told him.

“And I’ll tell you, tomorrow night, when I take my girl out to a nice dinner. We’ll lay our shit, bare, baby, and then we’ll move on.”

I lifted my head and looked at his face. “You’re going to give me that?”

His hand came up to cup my cheek and he whispered, “Cookie, pay attention. I’m gonna give you everything.”

That was when Ham gave it to me. What I wanted. What I needed.

Proof I could lose myself in the beauty of it.

In him.

Oh my God, I was going to cry.

Man, oh man, I was crying.

I planted my face in his chest and let loose.

Ham wrapped his arms around me, pressed into me so we were both on our sides as he pulled me up, and tucked my face in his throat. Then he held me while I cried.

And while I cried, it happened.

It came to me.

All of it.

Ham was in Gnaw Bone only a week before he made the ludicrous sound reasonable and talked me into moving into his second bedroom.

Ham gave me a job at his bar when, with the reduced rent I was paying him, I could get on my feet working at Deluxe Home Store. Ham took me to work nearly every night when I wasn’t pissed or freaking out.

Ham scheduled us both off on the same days so we had the opportunity to spend the maximum amount of time together that we could, definitely at work, but also at home.

And when I went to him that first night, Ham not hesitating but a half a second before I was on my back in his bed.

And, last, when I went to him again, he’d yanked me into his bed.

Something else hit me and, with all the rest, it didn’t make sense.

“You fucked that blonde,” I accused his neck, my breath hitching through it because I was still crying.

“What?” he asked.

“That blonde you were flirting with, you fucked her.”

“What blonde?”

I stopped crying because I was shocked at his question and the fact that he sounded baffled. I was also, but more so, pissed.

How could he forget the blonde? He’d had her only a couple of weeks ago.

I yanked my face out of his throat and tipped my head back, watching his chin dip down, and I caught his eyes in the semi-dark.

“That blonde, Ham, that blonde you were flirting with the other night who you took down the back hall of the bar.”

To this, he strangely replied, “She was hammered.”

“What?”

“Blitzed, babe, totally out of it. I took her home. She lived in fuckin’ Chantelle, so it took a while. I came back to the bar, you were gone. I finished the shit I needed to finish, and seein’ as you were flirtin’ with that fuckwit, I was pissed so I sat in on a poker game so I could get my mind off you and your shit.” He paused, then finished with, “I won fifteen hundred dollars.”

“She was hammered?” I asked.

“Passed out in the truck. Got her to come to in order to walk her to her house. She passed out on her living room couch before I took two steps back to her front door.”

This was good news. Not only had Ham not fucked her, she’d been so blotto, she passed out, which meant her punishment for flirting with my guy was her having a hangover the next day.

It didn’t make me a nice person, she had no idea he was my guy, I didn’t even have any idea at the time he was my guy. But still, I liked this.

Onward.

“You won fifteen hundred dollars?” I asked.

I saw the white flash of his teeth and his arms gave me a squeeze.

“Yeah. Means we can go crazy at The Rooster tomorrow night.”

We were going to The Rooster? I loved The Rooster.

I let The Rooster go and narrowed my eyes.

“Since when does the manager of The Dog take drunk women home?” I queried. “Jake calls a taxi”—I paused to drive my point home—“unless the woman is hot.”

“They do that shit when they spend a night gettin’ crap from their girl who doesn’t know she’s his girl’s friends and watchin’ her flirt with some jackass and give him her number. Had to get the fuck outta there so I didn’t rip that jackass’s head off.”

That explained that.

My eyes un-narrowed and my body melted into his.

“That guy ever call you?” Ham asked.

“I didn’t pick up.”

“How many times did he call you?” he pushed.

I pressed my lips together and when his eyes narrowed, I answered, “Twelve… ish. I quit counting.”

“Fuck,” he muttered to the ceiling.

I decided to stay silent.

Ham looked back at me.

“You thought I fucked her?”

“You were flirting with her.”

“I was pouring her drinks. My job is to sell booze, babe, and you and me both know tossin’ a smile at a randy drunk is a good way to do that.”

He wasn’t wrong about that.

“You also left with her,” I reminded him.

“Wouldn’t ever do that shit to you.”

“You said that the ground rules were, if I hooked up, I did it at his place and you’d return the favor.”

“Baby, I lied,” Ham stated with firm emphasis that was made firmer by his arms going tight around me.

“Well, I didn’t know that,” I snapped.

“Is that why you were brooding on your balcony?” he asked.

“Yeah, Ham. I thought the love of my life, who I was living with and working with but I couldn’t have, had spent the night with another woman, so that was why I was brooding on my balcony,” I clipped.

Only when I was done speaking did I feel the air, the stillness of his body, and the fact that his arms were now very tight around me.

“Ham?”

“Fuck, now I gotta fuck you again,” he muttered, rolling us so I was on my back.

“What? Why? What’s going on?” I asked, rounding him with my arms.

His lips came to mine, where he whispered, “Love of your life.”

I stilled.

Then I drew in a soft breath.