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My brow scrunched together. None of it made sense. I’d known Jade for more than ten years, and I’d been with her through all the hardest times in her life—breakups, losing family—and I’d seen her at the worst of times.
But I’d never seen herquiet.
I’d never seen her shut down.
That’s just not the type of person she was.
She bitched. She moaned. She cried about it.
When we argued, she wouldn’t let me leave until we had yelled and screamed out our issues.
That was her process.
The more I thought about the phone calls I’d had and now how she’d been acting, I knew there was something wrong.
“Do you think—”
Mr. Lawson scoffed. “Look, Valen. While I appreciate you wanting to make things right after what you did, I doubt Christine would agree to let—”
“I’m sorry,” I cut in, standing a little straighter. “After whatIdid?”
He looked up at me, his eyebrow raised. “You humiliated your fiancé and your best friend in front of a church full of people who love them.”
Reed tightened his hold on me, slipping his finger from my belt loop and grabbing hold of my waistband as I edged forward. Smart man.
“I loved them.” I jabbed my finger into my chest. “I did. Both of them. And you’re sayingIshould be the one to suck it up and shut my mouth?”
“Come on…” Reed growled, wrapping his arms around my waist. He lifted my body and turned me to face the exit. “Let’s go.”
“Reed…”
With a sharp shake of his head, he let me know he wasn’t playing around. “Valen. Let’s go.”
“You should just go,” Reed’s dad said, getting to his feet with a barely-there laugh. “The boy has this hero complex where he has to be the one who comes to the rescue. I’ve seen it over and over again. It’s just a shame it didn’t work on the one person he was here to save.”
Reed pressed his hand against my back, trying to force me to the front door. I would have gone too if his dad had kept it about me and the mistakes I’d made. I could handle those. Take responsibility for myownchoices and the repercussions of them.
But he couldn’t help himself.
He couldn’t miss a chance to drag his son down.
I slipped out of Reed’s grasp and stormed back toward the awful piece-of-shit man, who I’d tried everything to be fucking respectful to until this point. And while I knew Reed was perfectly capable of defending himself, I also had this habit of having to speak up and fight for the people I cared about. It’d gotten me into plenty of trouble before—arrested, thrown out of my home—so this time, I was going to keep it short and sweet.
“You’d think for a man who has little to no money and a wife who’d leave him in a second if she found out, you’d be a little more humble toward the son who’s keeping you afloat.”
The past few weeks I’d been spending at Reed’s office in the afternoon had helped me to learn a lot about just how far Reed was going to make sure his father didn’t crash and burn.
His dad’s eyes grew wide, his mouth falling open.
At the same time, a low, gravelly laugh came from behind me as a tattooed hand circled my waist. “Time to go now,” he murmured, his father still frozen. “See you around, Dad.”
I allowed him to pull me with him toward the door, but not before throwing one last fuck to the wind. “So lovely to see you again, Mr. Lawson,” I called from the door before adding, “But next time we visit, watch how you fucking speak to my husband.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
VALEN
It took a little over a half hour before we arrived home.
