Page 149 of Lucky Mother Pucker

I grab him by the shoulder and shove him against the wall. “If you’re lying to me⁠—”

“I’m not! I-I swear, that’s all of it!” he snivels.

The guys quietly start hauling boxes out of the house while Richard sits on the floor of the hallway, watching us with that terrified look on his face.

It takes us twenty minutes to haul all the boxes to our car. Before we leave, I crouch in front of Richard, who’s still cowering in the corner.

“Don’t ever contact Lucy again. Understand?”

“Y-Yes.”

“Don’t ever mention what happened today. Or I’ll be back.”

“I-I won’t.”

I walk out of the house, my heart thrashing in my chest, adrenaline pumping like jet fuel inside of me.

When I’m in the driver’s seat of my car, I let out a breath. I suddenly feel exhausted.

I stare straight ahead for a minute at nothing. Blake sits next to me quietly.

“So much for not getting physical with the guy,” I mutter.

“That asshole deserved it,” Blake says.

“That’s really fucking crazy what I just did, right?”

“Yeah. But it was also the right thing to do.”

That caged-animal rage fires through me. Part of me wants to go back in there and make him hurt for what he did to her.

But I know better than to do that.

I force myself to take another slow, steady breath. I focus on Lucy. On how happy she’s going to be when she comes home tonight and sees her parents’ belongings.

Blake claps a hand on my shoulder. “You did this for your girl. I would have done the same for Briar if she had been in this situation, no question. And know Nick and Travis would do the same for Poppy and Anna too.”

That familiar squeeze hits my chest when I think about Lucy and what she means to me.

“She’s not my girl,” I say. It feels wrong to say that, even though it’s true. “We’re not a couple. We’re just two friends who are…having fun.”

When I look over at Blake, he looks like he’s trying not to laugh.

“Come on, dude. Don’t bullshit me,” he says.

“We’re just friends,” I say again.

I think about how she’s going to move out soon and get her own place…which will mean that we’ll probably spend less time together…

Will she still want to keep seeing each other? Maybe she won’t…

An uneasy feeling gnaws at my gut just thinking about that.

“You wined and dined her for her birthday,” Blake says. “You threw her a party. And you dropped everything to take on her stepdad. My guess is that you wouldn’t hesitate to do anything for her. And you’d do it happily.”

He’s spot-on. I’d do this again a hundred times over. For her. I’d do anything for her.

“That’s not ‘just friends’ territory, man. That’s way, way deeper,” Blake says.