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I turn around to face Kayla. “What?” Seeing her unexpectedly raises my defenses and makes me suspicious. There has to be a confrontation coming, especially with what she just said.
“Because of you, my relationship with my dad is strained. He told me yesterday I had to deal with being uncomfortable with your relationship, and he refused to listen to my side.”
“You don’t have a side, Kayla!” I argue. “Feeling awkward about it isn’t a reason for us to break up. I’m sorry if you feel like your relationship is strained, but that has absolutely nothing to do with me and everything to do with you. And if you ask Brent, I’m sure he’d say the exact same thing.” She opens her mouth to argue, but I’m pissed that everyone wants to be pissed at me for Brent dating me and my anger gets the best of me.
“I’ve done everything I can not to interfere with your relationship with Brent, so if it’s strained, that’s between you and him. Don’t ever confront me again and blame me for something I haven’t done. I’ve been as nice as I can possibly be to you and I’m done. You want to see my bad side, keep on and that’s all you’ll see.” I turn on my heels and walk away before she can utter another word.
What’s crazy is that I find myself pissed at Brent, too. So much so that I decide to skip my next class to drive to the shop. Brent is talking to a customer in his office. I patiently wait outside until they leave. Brent smiles as he walks to the door of his office and sees me.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” He leans in to kiss me, but I turn my head so the kiss lands on my cheek.
“I know you’re working and I’m sorry to come here mad.”
“Mad?” he echoes with surprise.
“But I have to work tonight and I didn’t think I could wait that long.” I take a quick breath. “So, can I speak to you?”
“Sure.” He grabs my hand, pulls me into the office, and closes his door. “Why are you mad?”
“Did you talk to Kayla yesterday?”
Brent runs a hand through his hair. “What’d she do now?”
“Why do you have to keep talking to her and trying to make her let it go, Brent? All that does is make her angry with me! You do your best and talk to her, but then she confronts me and I have to deal with her. I’m tired of it. Please, stop talking to her about me or us. It’s not helping!”
“What did she say?” he asks.
“I’m not telling you for you to talk to her again!”
“I won’t,” he tries.
“Oh, really? This is your daughter we’re talking about, Brent. You aren’t seriously about to tell me that you won’t try to smooth things over with her again?”
He hesitates and that’s enough of an answer for me. He would definitely talk to her about what happened today if I give him more details. I won’t do it.
“Just keep me out of conversations with Kayla because I can’t promise I’ll continue to play nice with her anymore.” I’ve officially reached my limit with all of this bullshit.
Brent sighs. “I’m sorry, Jamie.” He closes the distance between us to wrap his arms around me. “I’m by no means making excuses for her, but once she’s stuck on an issue, it can take her a while to get over it. Pretty sure it took her finding out about her mom dating Glenn for her to give up on the idea of us getting back together. And she didn’t like one of Logan’s friends, a girl, for some time when they first met. It’s one of her flaws to get hung up on something and take some time to move on from it.”
“I understand her hesitation, but she’s had time to get used to the idea of us. And I don’t understand why she has to come after me instead of you.”
“Because she’s daddy’s little girl and it’s probably easier to confront you than me.” He kisses the top of my head. “I’m sorry, hon.”
“I know.” He’s already said so. A laugh suddenly bursts free and I look up at Brent. “She’d probably have a panic attack if she overheard you joking about marrying me on the cruise. We’d have to have a dinner like Glenn, except I would say that I definitely wouldn’t be their stepmom, just their dad’s wife.”
Brent grins. “You’ve been thinking about this a lot, huh?”
“No. Don’t get any ideas. It hit me just now is all.”
He quickly kisses the corner of my mouth. “Glad you’re smiling again. You have my word to do as you asked.”
“Thank you. I know you’re only trying to help, but it’s not helping.”
“Apparently not, when you storm into my work wanting to yell at me.” He gives me a quick smile before kissing me with all the care and love in the world. “I need to work and you need to get back to campus, but you should come home tonight so we can make up properly.”
“I can do that, and it’ll be like a farewell night too.”
Brent tenses and narrows his eyes at me. “What are you talking about, Jamie?”
