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“I’m Fox’s real father. He’s not even reallyyourson. He’s mine to take if I want?—”
The door from the diner opened, Levi stepping through, acting as if he was surprised to see us standing there. I was pressed against the wall, Briggs brandishing my phone above my head.
Levi smiled as if butter wouldn’t melt. “Sorry,” he apologized, blinking, all innocent. “I’m looking for the bathrooms.”
Briggs changed in an instant, the mask of civility falling so fast that a person could blink and miss it. “Think you’re going the wrong way, bud.” He smiled, handing me back my phone, and patting my shoulder. “Nice to see you, Cal, sorry…Noah.” He confronted Levi, who confronted him right back, then stepped to one side to allow Briggs through. As soon as the door shut on my ex’s ass, I slid to the bottom step, bending at the waist, all my bravery sliding away in an instant.
“Noah?” Levi was in a crouch in front of me. “Noah?”
I stared at him. The adrenaline that seeing Briggs had created was like acid inside me, burning its way through all of my peace.
Levi rested a hand on my knee. “Come on, Noah, are you with me?”
I blinked at him. “Uh huh.”
The door opened again, and fear knifed through me, but it was Neil, in his sheriff’s uniform, another man lurking behind him. Connor? What was scary-ninja Connor doing here? The sheriff took in the spectacle we had going on before placing a hand on Levi’s shoulder. “Levi?”
“Some guy came in, called him Cal, took his phone. I didn’t like it.”
“You didn’t need to call the sheriff,” I murmured, or at least I think I did—everything was a blur—and I scrubbed my eyes. All the pain and fear, all the coping strategies I’d worked on, had slipped away in one stupid ass minute of me thinking I could handle even sixty seconds of Briggs.
“I’ve got it from here,” Neil said. “Hey, Noah? You want me to call Chris?”
“Fuck. No!” I said. “He’s at school, and I don’t want Fox to… oh shit… Fox.”
“Okay, how about we take this upstairs and have a chat?” Neil sounded so reasonable, so level-headed, but Connor was still there, arms crossed over his chest, all kinds of badass. Neil glanced back at Connor. “School, Fox Bennett, don’t make it obvious,” he said, and Connor nodded and left. “Connor will go to the school and keep an eye on Fox, okay?”
I think I said okay, or something like that. Connor was as big as Briggs, but he didn’t have the same mean expression.
I’d wanted so badly to avoidthechat. I wanted my old life to be somewhere else, in a place I didn’t have to visit ever again, but it would always end up following me here. It wasn’t as if I was in witness protection; it was no secret where I was—Briggs had known about the inheritance when he tried to force me to sell—but the restraining order was supposed to keep him away, and the deal we made for him to leave us alone in exchange for me not fighting for any money was supposed to mean it was over… I tipped my chin.
Neil was talking. “Levi, can you … can I ask you to close the place or call Merle or something.”
“Merle’s at the wholesalers,” I interjected.
Levi nodded. “I’m on it.”
Then, I faced Neil, who was compassion and focus personified. “Let’s go upstairs.”
It was the climb toward everyone knowing everything, and I was new to town, and I may well be part of Chris’s life, but who was everyone going to believe? Briggs, out there, winning people over with stories of his glory days as a pro-ball player, or me, with nothing to my name except a diner.
Just as I was reaching to the community, finding love, he had to come back and take it all from me.
But not Fox. I was Fox’s legal guardian.
Fox wanted to stay with me.
He’d chosen me.
When Neil and I reached the living room, I sat on the sofa, and he took the facing seat.
“I have a restraining order against Briggs Lewiston,” I began, and Neil nodded.
“I know.”
I blinked at him. “You do?”
He gestured at his uniform and smiled. “Also, Connor ran your name when you arrived.”
