“I’m gonna kill him.”
I laugh in an attempt to diffuse the situation, but I’m not quite sure if he’s serious or not. “Milo. You need to promise me that you won’t kill Ian.”
He doesn’t respond, so I lift my head and peek up at him. His strong jaw looks like it’s been chiseled from stone.
“Please?” I whisper.
“Is he home?”
If he is, I’m afraid that he’s about to get the shit kicked out of him. Sitting up a little straighter in my seat, I scan the parking lot for his polished black muscle car but don’t find it.
“Is he?” Milo demands.
“I don’t think so.”
Grunting, Milo reaches for the door handle, but I stop him from opening it quite yet.
“If he’s in there, I’m gonna need you to promise me that you’ll keep your head on straight.”
“That’s bullshit,” he scoffs.
“I’m serious, Milo.” Grabbing his face, I make him look me straight in the eye. “He isn’t worth it.”
The wheels are turning in his head. I can practically see them as he weighs his options, so I do the only thing I can. “If you don’t want to make this ugly for me, then you need to keep your cool. Promise me.”
He grits his teeth.
“Promise me,” I beg.
“Fine.” He opens the back door then slips out of the exit. His muscles bunch and pull beneath his black shirt as he marches toward Jake, then cocks his arm back and hits him square in the face.
I gasp.
Jake’s head swings to the left, and he stumbles back a few feet while I cover my mouth in shock.
“That’s for not speaking up when you thought something was wrong but didn’t tell me,” Milo spits.
And because he’s Jake, he stands to his full height but keeps his arms at his sides. “Then you should probably hit me again.”
Milo shakes his head. “No. Because I should’ve seen it in the first place.”
Giving me his back a second time, Milo crosses the empty parking lot toward my old front door without waiting for us to follow.
A hand reaches out from the side of the truck, and I take it before hopping down onto the black asphalt.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” Gibbs returns. “Let’s go catch up before your brother beats the shit out of anyone else for one day, shall we?”
I laugh dryly and wipe away the excess moisture that’s seemed to gather beneath my eyes. “I think that’s a good idea.”
As we make our way across the open space with parked cars sprinkled throughout the vicinity, I notice Jake still hanging by the carport along the north side of the street.
“Can you give us a minute?” I murmur to Gibbs.
He nods. “Sure thing.”
Then he jogs ahead.
Tucking my hands into my back pockets, I ask, “How’s your jaw?”
Jake chuckles, but there isn’t much humor in it. “Could be worse. Milo was going easy on me.”
With a nod, I chew on the inside of my cheek as the street bustles with car engines and birds chirping.
“How did you know?” I rasp.
“I didn’t know.”
“Well, what tipped you off?”
Running his hand along his bruised jaw, he admits, “You seem more guarded than you used to be.”
“I’ve always been guarded. You’ve met my parents, remember?”
“Those weren’t parents,” he corrects me.
“Good point. Still, there had to be something that made you draw that conclusion.”
His gaze drops to the dark asphalt beneath our feet. “It was the little things. The missed lunches. The daily texts that turned to weeks, then months. Stuff like that. I had two choices. Either you were tired of my sarcastic memes, or you were moving on and falling in love, too busy to be chatting with your big brother’s friend anymore.”
“That’s not true––”
“It kind of is,” he argues with a knowing smile. “But then you showed up at the bar, and I realized there might be a third option. You weren’t in love with him. It was just that your self-esteem was so low that you figured no one else would want you except him. You’ve been too afraid to leave his sorry ass because you’re terrified of being alone even though he treats you like shit. And you were scared because you didn’t know how he would respond to you finally ending things when you’ve already tried so many times in the past. Combine that with everything else, and I guess I was able to piece it together. I shouldn’t have told Milo like that, though. That wasn’t fair to him, and that wasn’t fair to you either.”
“No. It wasn’t.” Closing the last few feet of distance between us, I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him into a hug. He doesn’t hesitate to return the gesture and curls his arms around my waist protectively while resting his chin on the crown of my head.
The seconds seem to slow down as we stand like this, breathing each other in before I whisper, “Thank you for telling him. Honestly, you kind of opened my eyes to the whole thing too. It might not have been the best time, but what’s that saying again? Rip it off like a Band-Aid?”
He chuckles softly, his breath tickling the top of my head before he releases me from his grasp. “That’s the one. I’m sorry about earlier today too. I shouldn’t have assumed that you were sleeping with River.”
“I’m not that kind of girl, Jake. You should know me better than that.”
“I do know you better than that. I don’t”––he sighs and lets me go––“I don’t know what I was thinking. But I truly am sorry, Reese. I’m an ass.”
“Just a little bit,” I tease, letting him off the hook. “But I forgive you.”
“Thanks. Let’s go get your stuff so you can finally move on, okay?”
“Okay.”
8
Reese
“Do you have your key?” Milo asks as Jake and I approach the second floor where my apartment sits.
“Yeah.” I hand it to him. He slides it into the lock, but it doesn’t twist.
“What the hell?” I mutter under my breath as Milo continues to jiggle the key.
River watches with his arms crossed over his chest before announcing, “Looks like your loverboy changed the locks.”
“Why would he do that?”
Shrugging, River throws out a guess. “Maybe he knows that once you have your stuff, you won’t have a reason to ever see him again. Maybe he didn’t want you to sneak by and grab it when he isn’t home, which is exactly what you were trying to do. Gotta give your boy credit. He’s not as dumb as I’d assumed.”
“Or maybe he is because now, we get to have an up-close and personal introduction with the guy who cheated on our girl here.” Gibbs tosses his arm around my shoulder while River snorts.
“Our girl?”
“Yeah. She’s our roommate now––”
“And therefore she’s ours? As in, to share?” River razzes with a knowing smile.