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“I love you, too.”
She gives me a quick kiss and then hops out of the truck to go to work. I watch her until she’s out of sight, hating how I feel so useless right now. Once she’s gone, I spin the truck around and pull out of the parking lot.
And later, as I spend four hours of her eight-hour shift smashing shit at the old surf shop, I think about how I’ll never forgive myself for failing her.
If he steals the only girl I’ve ever loved away from me, there’s no telling what I might do.
No matterhow hard I try, I can’t seem to sit still. How can anyone stay calm when they’re in a courtroom? The environment alone is enough to have you on edge. But with today being Cam’s bail hearing, I don’t stand a chance. Either I’m making excuses to have to walk around—like excusing myself to the bathroom so much it looks like I have a bladder infection—or I’m fidgeting while I sit.
“Someone should have brought a goddamn pop-it for her,” Mali says.
Hayes reaches over and puts his hand on my knee. “You okay, babe?”
“I feel like I might throw up,” I tell him. “Like projectile vomit all over everything.”
He smirks. “You are so sexy right now. Keep talking dirty like that.”
For the first time all morning, I laugh. It’s soft, and it doesn’t last long, but it’s there. And Hayes smiles proudly, knowing he caused it.
“I hate you,” I lie, and he winks at me.
But as he interlaces our fingers, it manages to calm me down a little. He has been my rock the last few days. He’s always checking on me and making sure I’ve had something to eat or drink recently—because stress always manages to destroy my appetite. And the one night I came close to having a breakdown, he laid with me and watched Gilmore Girls for hours while running his fingers through my hair.
Honestly, I wonder if he knows how amazing he truly is.
“He’s here,” Mali tells me, and I turn around to see Monty walking in with Cam’s new lawyer.
The man is middle-aged and looks professional in a suit that probably costs more than my car. He stops to talk to my parents while Monty comes over to us.
“Hey. How are you guys holding up?” he asks.
“Been better,” I answer. There’s no point in sugar coating shit.
He nods sadly. “Well, Brent is very good at his job. If all goes well, Cam should be home by this afternoon.”
God, I hope so.
I didn’t want to have to call Monty, especially knowing how much it would bother Hayes. But when it came down to it, he was the only option we had. Hayes even tried calling Marc instead, to see if there was anything he could do, but there wasn’t. Monty was our only option.
The way he stepped up so easily, even after not talking to him for a few weeks, it really showed he cares. Sure, technically he owed me after he involved himself in my and Hayes’s relationship, but he still could have told me to fuck myself. Plus, it’s a lot harder to stay mad about what he did when Hayes and I are in such a good place.
“Brent,” Monty says as the lawyer comes over to us. “This is Laiken, Mali, and Hayes. Laiken is Cam’s sister.”
He extends his hand toward me specifically. “Brent Waldorf. It’s nice to meet you.”
“You, too,” I reply. “Thank you so much for doing this.”
“It’s my pleasure. Your brother is in good hands.” It looks like things are about to get started, and Brent gives me a small smile as he has to take his place. “Excuse me.”
It’s one thing knowing your brother is currently in jail. It’s hard, but you can block it out in a way so that it’s not so bad. Seeing him in handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit, however, is an image I will never be able to remove from my memory.
With the last case, that polyester never even touched his skin. He didn’t spend so much as one night in jail because we were able to bail him out and bring him home until his trial. At least then I knew he was safe. But this time hasn’t been anything like that.
It’s been worrying about him constantly.
It’s been missing his sarcastic commentary.
It’s even been missing the way he hogs my boyfriend becausehehad him first.
