Redeeming 6 (Boys of Tommen, #4)

by Chloe Walsh

“You can’t tell me what to do, Joe,” I growled, feeling a combination of drunk and dizzy. “You don’t own me.” “Well, that’s bad fucking luck on my account, because you sure as shit own me!” Drunk or not, his words hit me like a wrecking ball to the chest. Feeling the air whoosh from my lungs, I glared up at him, feeling a torrent of emotions crashing through me. “Why would you say that to me?” “Because it’s the truth.” “Since when?” “Since I was twelve.”

“I’ll love you the right way this time,” he whispered, and his breath fanned my cheek. “If you’ll show me how.”

I'm rooting for this guy

“I’m not your mother or your sister. I’m not another girl who needs something from you. I’m the girl who wholeheartedly wants you. I’m the girl who wholeheartedly loves you. The hurler. The mechanic. The boy. The protector. The asshole. The lover. The addict.” Sniffling, I added, “All of your versions. All of your shapes and colors.

When she told me that she loved me, she meant it, and it was as unsettling as it was addictive, because if she only felt a fifth for me of what I felt for her, then I was one lucky son of a bitch.

We’d grown up together. Our lives were tangled up and entwined. She had never been someone to pass away the time with until something better came along. She was the time, the better, the goal, the whole nine yards. Any future I had ever dared to imagine for myself never veered from having her slap-bang in the center of it.

“I’ve loved your daughter for six years,” Joey finally broke his silence by saying. “I can easily love her for another eighteen.”