AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Thirty-Eight
It was possible—likely even—that he should’ve called before showing up here, but now that he’d buzzed the intercom and pounded on the door it was too late to reconsider his rash course of action.
Jethro stood outside in the cold, snowflakes floating down from the sky and catching in the beams of streetlights. He might’ve been able to appreciate the beauty except that he was too het up for that.
More than Sable being furious with him—which if he’d actually accepted money from her father to end things with her he would well deserve—he was worried about how much she must be hurting. She had trusted him, handed over her well-being and secrets to him and now she must think he’d literally sold her out. Not to think too highly of himself, but he thought she must be devastated.
He was about to start yelling and tossing whatever tiny chunks of loose asphalt he could find on the street up at the windows when a voice came over the intercom.
“Jethro?”
He let out a shaky breath. It was Ian. He, Hudson, and Ryker shared a sprawling two-story loft apartment on the floors above Hive.
“Is Sable there?”
“Yes.”
“Is she okay?”
Ian blew out a breath of his own. “She’s really fucking upset, man. What the hell did you do?”
Jethro raked his hands through his hair and swallowed.
“I will gladly explain to her what happened. Or Hudson if she wants him to be the judge of what I did before she agrees to hear me out. But I swear to you on everything you’ve given me that I was trying to look out for her. I…I love her. Like, fell off a cliff and into a canyon of loving her and it’s making me crazy to think of how upset she must be. I want to fix it and I think I can. Just, please.”
His heart pounded against his ribs like an MMA fighter trying to get out of an ill-advised cage match. Sable had to listen, she just had to. He didn’t know what he’d do if she wouldn’t.
Write her a letter? Send her flowers? The answer was anything. He’d do anything for her.
The pause on the other end of the intercom was maddening and he pounded the brick wall in frustration. He was glad that Sable had come here and he was thankful to Ian and Hudson and Ryker for putting up an impenetrable barrier between her and anything that might cause her more pain, but for fuck’s sake—
“Fine,” came Ian’s voice through the speaker again. “But you’re going to talk to us before you talk to her and if we don’t like what you have to say then you’re leaving and not coming back. Understood?”
“Yes,” he said, relief flooding through him like a sip of whisky after working a four-hour shift at the Christmas tree stand on a subzero day. “Yes, thank you.”
The door made its cranky buzz and he heard the lock click. He didn’t waste any time wrenching the door open and then hauling up the stairs two at a time.
Ian greeted him on the landing with cold eyes. He wanted to be irritated that his friend didn’t believe him when he said he hadn’t done anything wrong, but part of him was glad. So many times tops closed ranks and would protect another dominant’s shitty behavior in some misguided attempt to protect the community. When what they actually ended up doing was protecting predators and making it unsafe for bottoms and discouraging people from talking about very real abuse. So he didn’t like it, but he’d take it.
He’d been up to the apartment before to watch a few games, have poker nights. Ryker and Ian and Hudson were super welcoming at Hive, but this was their sanctuary and not a lot of people got an invitation. It was comfortable in a modern way with low-slung couches, lots of exposed beams and brick, and Hudson’s hobby brewery taking up a corner.
Ian led him to a seating area where Ryker was already sitting stone-faced. Which, yeah, he looked like that most of the time but he somehow managed to look extra forbidding right now. Jethro would ask him how he did that but knowing Ryker he wouldn’t know because he wasn’t trying.
Jethro sat opposite the wood and iron coffee table and tried to look confident, when in fact he was a fucking wreck.
A second later, Ian dropped down on the couch next to Ryker and they both glared at him.
“Well? Let’s hear it.”
Jethro blew out a breath. Where to begin to answer Ian’s question?
“Sable’s parents are loaded. They’re also self-centered and controlling.”
One of Ian’s ginger brows kicked up at that, as if to say, “Oh really, Bossy McTopperson?Youare going to criticize someone for being controlling?”
“Yeah, I know, all right? But you know if Sable told me to back it up, I would. I don’t want to interfere in her work beyond making sure she gets enough rest, and I wouldn’t interfere in her friendships, or what she wears or anything like that. She has a safe word and you know I’ll respect it if and when she uses it.”
“Okay. Go on,” Ian granted.
