Always: Broken Series Book Four Read Free Page A

neurotic, but she kinda is. I don’t know where she gets that.” He raised his eyebrows pointedly, and I got his drift. He was saying that he knew exactly where she got her neurotic tendencies, and she got them from me. God knew that Nick wasn’t a man to worry about things. He didn’t worry, he just shined a laser focus on our problems and willed them away. He was never one to really dwell.
    “Let me just call her.”
    “You’re going to be seeing her tomorrow. Now, you need to just relax here next to me, and I’m sorry, Scotty, but you can’t have your phone right now. You’ll get the phone back tomorrow on our way home, and you can call her then.”
    I knew that there wasn’t any arguing with him. He was determined that this weekend was going to be amazing, and there wasn’t going to be anything that was going to mess that up for him.
    This is just great. I’m going to be distracted for the rest of the day, and he doesn’t even care. I glared at him, not wanting to share our champagne anymore.
    “What?” he asked pointedly. “Listen, Scotty, chances are slim and none that there’s actually an emergency with Addison. Slim and none.”
    “I just want to call her to find out for sure, that’s all. It would give me peace of mind.”
    “No. She’ll just tell you something that’s really unimportant, but will worry you all the same. That’s what she does. I don’t want to say that she does it to manipulate us, because that’s Olivia’s department. She’s the devious one of the bunch. But I do want to say that because she tends to worry about minor things, and get you to worry about those same minor things, whatever it is that she’s going to tell you is going to ruin the last day that we have together here. And I won’t allow it.”
    “But Nick-“
    “Don’t but Nick me. You’re not getting your phone back, so don’t even bother asking. You can hear all about Addison’s boy troubles when we get back, because you know that’s what she’s going to tell you. She’s going to tell you all about some loser who she’s crushing on not liking her back or some kind of bullshit, and you’re going to get on the phone with her and then you’re going to worry about it. Next thing you know, we’re on the road home a day early.”
    “I hardly think that romantic troubles are unimportant.” I wasn’t at all sure that romantic issues, such as they are at the age of 15, were what she was calling me about. Even if romantic issues were what she was calling about, they were still important. Nick tried to relate to our daughters, and, for the most part, he was a really good dad. But he saw the boys in their lives as being unimportant, as if he had never been their age and gotten his heart broken.
    Nick sighed. “Scotty, I know what you're saying. I know that the troubles in our girls’ lives are important. Believe me, I hear about their little problems all the time. I’m not completely insensitive about them. But this is our time. I know that it sounds really selfish…”
    “It does sound selfish. It is selfish. But go on.”
    “Okay. I know that this sounds really selfish to you, but dammit, Scotty, I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for at least six months. We’ve been working ourselves to the bone while stressing out about Olivia, Addison and Chloe.”
    At that, he turned off my phone. “Now, where were we.”
    I sighed. There was never any convincing Nick of anything. I was just going to have to put Addison’s urgent text out of my mind for the time being.
    I willed away my worry about my little girl while Nick and I spent the rest of the day in the cabin in the woods. We made love, we played games, we even watched a movie.
    I had to admit that it was heaven.
    I knew, though, deep down in my gut that we soon were going to be in Hell.

Four
Addison
    A fter I talked to Olivia , who so rudely decided that I had to leave, I decided to go ahead and call Uber to come and take me to the