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Should she just go to the party and assume he’d be there?
That didn’t feel right.
Unsure what else to do, she called Billy.
“No, I haven’t heard from him,” Billy said. “Everything okay?”
“Uh, yeah,” she said, probably not convincingly. “I was just trying to see if he wanted a ride out to Noah’s.”
“Sorry I couldn’t help,” Billy said. “We’re almost there. Shayna says she can’t wait to see you.”
“Same here,” she said, and then they hung up.
Staring at the back of his house, she debated, then dialed Mo.
“Hey, Mo, it’s Dani.”
“Hey, Dani,” he said. “It’s good to hear from you.”
There was something in his voice, and she just knew. “He’s with you.”
“Yeah. And he’s not in a good way.” His words filled her with both relief and sadness. “You know why that is?”
“Yes,” she said.
“I see.” His tone communicated a whole lot more. Like, that he knew she had something to do with Sean’s demeanor.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“We’re at Noah’s. You gonna come fix whatever this is?”
She was already backing out of Sean’s yard. “I’m gonna try, Moses.”
No, she was going to do more than that. She was going to explain herself. She was going to tell him how she really felt. She was going to fight for Sean Riddick with everything that she had.
Chapter Twenty
Sean was shit for company, and that was a massive fuckin’ understatement. But Mo had dragged his ass to this party, which Sean had only gone along with since the guy had put up with Sean crashing at his place in the middle of the night without really telling him why.
Now Sean was sitting in a lawn chair surrounded by his friends who were all laughing and talking and trying to pretend like they couldn’t tell he was absofuckin’lutely wrecked. At least nobody was asking him what was wrong. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to say even if they did.
Because, Jesus, he couldn’t get the devastated look on Dani’s face out of his head. His gut was a noxious mess because of it. And his brain was right back to that old place. You always, always hurt the people you care about, Riddick. This time, you messed up spectacularly and hurt the woman you love. And now you may never get to tell her that you love her in the first place.
He really hadn’t meant to open that damn letter.
He’d been nervously wandering her living room, looking at her pictures. He’d been to her place a few times before for different WFC get-togethers, but he hadn’t ever paid too close attention to her pictures. Now, though, he knew who these people were. There was a picture of Dani in a cap and gown with an older couple who were probably her father’s parents. There was young Dani with a man who she strongly resembled. He had to be her dad. There was another with her as a teenager at what looked like some kind of festival with an older lady who he guessed was Granny. And then there was one of her and a good-looking guy, both of them in army uniforms. Sean leaned in for a closer look. Both of them had the name ‘England’ on their patches. Her husband.
That was when he’d planted his ass on the couch. Because he felt like maybe he was snooping and he didn’t want to upset her, especially given the way she’d looked when he got there—like a shell of her normal self. He’d already been worried out of his mind about her, if he were being honest, and then he’d arrived to find that she’d obviously been crying. Just as he feared, something had been really wrong, and he’d been kicking himself for not just coming over sooner.
All that was going through his head when he’d realized he was sitting on something. And when he pulled the envelope out from under himself, it caught on the button of the back pocket of his cargo shorts and ripped all the hell open.
At first, he wasn’t sure what it was, and then the page inside the envelope shifted out enough for Sean to make out a few words: I hope you never have to read this and that we get to grow old and gray together. But if that’s not the way the chips fall, then know I loved you to the very end and beyond. —Anthony
Nauseating words, because he knew exactly what this letter was—the last letter. And he couldn’t fucking believe he’d ruined it.
And then she’d accused him of reading it. Of barging into her life unwelcome.
She’d asked him to get out.
He hadn’t been able to go home because his house was now too filled with memories of her. So he’d ended up at Mo’s.
A hand fell on his shoulder, and Sean flinched.
“Sorry,” Shayna said, concern plain on her face. She tucked a red curl behind her ear. “Can I get you something?”
