Page 111 of Fearlessly Us

“You answer me when I’m talking to you, son. Fucking answer me.”

There’s nothing familiar about the voice and the anger it holds, but the back of my neck prickles with awareness, a kind of knowing snaking its way through me, and then, without another word, I pull away from my dad, push through the rest of my family, and break into a run.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

CAITLIN

Drew stands with his shoulders squared, his spine snapped straight, and his jaw clenched into a tight line, as if the effort of keeping himself upright instead of crumbling to the ground in front of the man I can only assume is his father is physically painful. His hands clench into fists at his sides, and I can see them tremble from here. My heart gives a slow, aching thud, as if it’s trying to jump out of my chest and get to him, my only thought that he looks so painfully alone.

My mind rebels at that—because not on my fucking watch.

Drew Ellicott will never be alone again. Not today and not as long as I’m alive on this earth.

I thunder down the corridor, every step taking me closer to him, and I don’t think he even clocks the noise of my feet hitting the concrete as I run, all his attention focused in front of him. I can tell he wants to walk away. To run. His entire body seems primed for movement, but the burden of the past his dad brings to bear is keeping Drew’s feet weighed to the floor.

“Did you forget your words?” Drew’s dad seethes, and I watch as Drew flinches like the question is a physical blow. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You’ve never been that smart. Only good for catching a football, and you’ve never really been great at that either.” He laughs, the sound gritty and mean. “The only reason you’ve ever become anything at all is because of me, so just give me what you owe me, and I’ll be on my way.”

“He’s not giving you anything.” My voice is steel as I come to a stop next to Drew, wrapping my hand around his forearm and then sliding it down until our fingers are linked. The second skin meets skin, I feel Drew exhale like he’s been holding his breath for hours.

“Catie,” he breathes out, his voice both raspy and relieved and startled almost, as if my presence is jolting him out of whatever headspace seeing his dad tossed him into. And when his exhausted, shattered eyes meet mine, they clear slightly, his body relaxing just enough and his hand gripping mine tightly, like he’s looking for an anchor to a life where fathers don’t hurt their children, and nothing comes for him in the dark.

The life he has with me. The one we have together.

I can feel the rest of our family and friends crowd in behind us, but my eyes don’t leave Drew’s, and I can hear the words in his head.

Stay, Catie.

Please, please stay.

As if there was any other choice for me.

I stopped having a choice in the matter when this man somehow knew I wanted sugar on my margarita rim even though I told him salt. When he wandered into the lake house kitchen confused about what, exactly, happened on a family vacation because he’d never been on one before. When he found me on a bathroom floor and took care of me when I was sick and stocked his freezer with pebble ice and ice cream and braided my hair so I didn’t have to do it myself. When he kissed me in my office and took me on a date to a haunted house and answered my SOS call to pick me up from the hospital and watched a million spy movies with me and made me a thousand dinners and loaves of sourdough while I recovered. When he loved me in a way no one else ever has and fixed pieces of me he didn’t break.

No, there was never a choice for me but to love this man. To be loved by him and stay with him and hold him up the same way he holds me.

I run my thumb over his, our eyes locked.

Always, Drew.

I’ll always, always stay.

My heart aches at the acute relief that shines in his gaze. Like seeing his dad made him doubt for a second that there’s nowhere I would rather be than wherever he is. That he belongs with me and we belong with each other.

“Who the fuck are you?”

The sharp voice breaks through our bubble and Drew sucks in a breath, something like fear swimming into his golden eyes, but the fear doesn’t belong to the man. It belongs to the little boy the man once was, and I’m going to handle this for them both. My mom practically hisses and I can feel my dad and Jack primed for a fight, my friends all ready to jump in to protect and defend, but I turn to them and shake my head because this is for me.

Hand locked tightly around Drew’s, I turn to his father, studying him with a cool-eyed perusal, the hard life he’s lived evident on every square inch of his face, no kindness to be found in the dull brown eyes so different from the ones belonging to the man I love.

Free hand on my hip, I narrow my eyes at him. “I’m his girlfriend. Who the fuck are you?”

He lets out a scoff that ends in a wheezing cough. “Girlfriend. You’re too pretty to be this lazy asshole’s girlfriend.”

If I didn’t hate this man with the fire of a thousand suns for what he did to Drew—if the memory of Drew waking up from that nightmare wasn’t burned into my brain—I would laugh because this guy is like a villain right out of central casting. “Well, be that as it may, I am, in fact, his girlfriend. I’m also an attorney, and I’m telling you it’s in your best interests to leave this stadium right now before I have to call security to come escort you out.”

When he rolls his eyes, he looks even more pathetic than he already did. “It’s a public stadium and I have every right to be here. Why don’t you tell your boyfriend to give me what he owes me then I’ll leave, and you’ll never hear from me again.”

Until he needs more, I think.