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Her eyes widened in horror. “W-what?”
“Say it.”
She hesitated.
“Kenzie…” I growled.
“Fuck him,” she murmured.
“Say it like I know you mean it.”
Her breath caught, and then she repeated more forcefully, “Fuck him.” Her shoulders slumped immediately after, as though some of the angry pressure building inside her had released.
“Better?”
She nodded.
Good.Stan deserved more than a mutteredfuck you,but this saint of a woman hesitated to even give him that.
My thumb stole over her cheek and then dipped toward her mouth. Instantly, anger turned to lust, and all I could think about was the feel of her mouth against mine. My head started to dip forward, thankfully, I caught myself and straightened quickly, returning to stand beside her, our shoulders touching.
I moved just as the teams switched out players, and Jake ran onto the field.
“Yeah, Jake!” Kenzie called and clapped, and when I looked at her, all trace of the trauma was gone and only the bravest smile was left for her son to see.
The game started again, but it was hard to focus. All I could see was him—Stan—as he stalked up and down the sideline. A quick glance wouldn’t have shown much change, but the longer I watched him, the more I saw a snarl start to creep onto his face anytime his gaze passed by Kenzie and me.
There was just something so off about this guy. I tried to believe it was just that he was an egotistical ass, but something in my gut told me it was more.And if it was… I was going to find it.
In the corner of my eye, I saw one kid kick the ball to Jake. Instantly, a bigger kid on the other team defending against Jake approached to try and claim the ball. Except he didn’t. He moved toward Jake and head butted him in the face.
Jake fell onto the field with a wail of pain. An audible gasp rocked the crowd. Whistles were blown.Flags dropped.
But that was nothing compared to Kenzie.
“Jake!”she screamed like a banshee. It was nothing short of a miracle that I hooked my arm around her waist in time to stop her from rushing onto the field. Even from this distance, it was easy to see the blood running down his face and onto his hands. “Jake!”
“You can’t, Kenz—” I held her tight.
“No, let me go.” She struggled wildly against me. “He’s hurt. My Jake, he’s hurt.” She started to sob, and my whole fucking heart broke because I knew as soon as I let her go to Jake, Stan would file a protective order against her; he would get every power over her ability to see him again.“Jake!”
I thought I’d imagined the way Jake looked toward us or the sobbed ‘Mom!’, but I hadn’t.Kenzie lunged forward, almost breaking through my arm because she saw and heard it, too.
“Jesus—” I manhandled her, spinning her to my chest and clutching her there, whispering in her ear.“It’s just his nose; he’s going to be okay,” I tried to tell her—to comfort her. But my words felt like they were doing shit. “He’s sitting up. Talking. They’re controlling the bleeding.”
“Let me go, Zeke. Please,” she sobbed, her fists balled against my chest.
“I can’t, angel,” I ground out. “You can look back, but I can’t let you go because if you go over there, Stan will have exactly what he wants.”
Even from the edge of the field, we heard slivers of what was happening. Jake’s nose was broken. No need for an ambulance because Stan was taking him to the hospital.Of course, he was here to save the day.
I didn’t know what was worse: seeing her son hurt or seeing his dad be the hero in the public’s eyes… opening up the medical kit, ordering the other adults… when in private he was just a plain ass.
Minutes later, a large truck pulled into the middle of the field followed by a police car; Stan carried Jake to the passenger door and then took the keys from the driver—it was the same man he’d stopped and spoken to earlier: the neighbor.The neighbor whose son just head butted Jake.
Even though the windows were tinted, I swore as that truck pulled off the field that Stan was looking directly at us. Like he wanted to rub this moment in her face—to use their son’s injury to hurt her.
God, I wanted to hurt him.There weren’t many people I wanted to hurt in my life, but holy hell had Stan Klinger shot straight to the top of the list.
