Free Ex's and O'S by Bailey Bradford

last thirty years in prison for killing his brother and nearly killing him. He got out of the car and wrapped himself in the cold weight of that knowledge, cloaking himself in the armour of pain and fear and, though he hated to admit it, hate, that had kept him from letting anyone get close to him for the past three decades. Even Charlene couldn’t penetrate that shield.
     
    EX’S AND O’S
    Bailey Bradford
    51

Chapter Eight
    “I’m telling you, that man just ain’t right.”
    Adam glared at his mother as she set the last cup in the drain. He took the cup and dried it quickly with the towel, irritated by her constant comments about Stanton. Since Adam had got out of the hospital, it seemed all his mom did was rant about the cop—he was obviously unstable, so deep in the closet he couldn’t find his way out, a robot, dangerous, a walking, talking mess. Holy crap, she couldn’t go a single day without saying something negative about the man.
    And yet… Adam caught that brief flicker on her face, the one that caused her eyes to narrow and her lips to purse even as the edges canted up. Wasn’t that her plotting look? The
    ‘tell’ that she was up to something? He’d seen that look before, hadn’t he? It smacked of manipulation coated in a mother’s love.
    Not good. Adam turned and stretched his arm out, placing the cup in the cabinet and only hissing a little at the pull of muscles in his lower back. Out of everything Rollins’ thugs had done to him, it’d been those damned kidney punches that had made him suffer most. A little over a week later and he was still sore, although nothing like he had been—certainly not enough to distract him from catching on to his mother’s scheming. Like a switch flipped in his head, sudden certainty of what Charlene was trying to do bloomed bright. Adam risked a glance up, the backs of his eyeballs aching as he tried to see directly above his head. There really should be one of those cartoon light bulbs there.
    Charlene wiped down the sink with the sponge, scrubbing vigorously at a spot Adam was pretty sure was a scratch in the cheap aluminium. “I just think you should stay away from him, that’s all I’m saying. He’s so big and—”
    “Oh, you do not,” Adam said, tossing the towel onto the dish drainer in exasperation.
    It really shouldn’t have taken him so long to catch onto his mother’s game. He leant back against the cabinet and crossed his arms over his chest. “Did you really think this would work? Don’t tell me you’re not trying that reverse psychology sh—stuff, Mom.”
    EX’S AND O’S
    Bailey Bradford
    52
     
    Charlene shook a sudsy finger at him, splattering his cheek with the stuff. “Adam Masterson, you best watch your mouth!” Then she ruined her scolding by grinning
    unrepentantly. “And I figured it couldn’t hurt. You haven’t said a word about that man, so I thought reminding you he existed might be a good idea—although I really do think he’s a closeted mess.”
    Adam hadn’t said anything about Stanton because of this very thing. He hadn’t
    wanted his mother to get it in her head that he and the cop were going to have some fairy tale happily-ever-after. Not that Adam didn’t want one, mind, he just figured it wasn’t going to happen, and certainly not with Stanton, who’d yet to approach him. The best Adam could hope for was some fantastic fucking, and for that he’d needed to be healed up. Hard to be flexible when it hurt to even draw a deep breath—but he was doing a lot better now, wasn’t he? Still a little sore, but—
    “I think he needs some TLC,” Charlene continued as she turned the faucet back on to rinse her hands. “And not just from you, the other kind as well. You know, like a…like a mom, sort of.”
    Adam blinked, then blinked again but the blush creeping up his mom’s neck to her
    cheeks wasn’t a hallucination. He didn’t know whether to be astounded or jealous. Fuck. I’m both, which makes me