36 #2
I told her Mason had already been there when I arrived, that he remembered my drink, and that we had spent the first few minutes negotiating the strange territory between former intimacy and possible coworkers.
Blue listened without interrupting, and Ink stayed quiet enough that I stopped thinking about him.
“He said he wanted to make sure there wasn’t going to be any discomfort if he interviewed and ended up at the new ER,” I said. Saying it aloud made the meeting sound simpler than it had felt.
Blue’s expression stayed neutral. “That’s reasonable,” Blue murmured.
“Yeah.” My finger traced the edge of the chair arm. “It was.”
She waited, which was somehow more effective than asking. “And?”
“And we talked. Wicker Falls. Work. Old people. Old nonsense.” I let out a breath. “Then he told me he respected the way things ended, even if he had wanted more than I did.”
Blue’s eyes softened. “That had to feel weird.”
“It did.” I looked down at my hands. “He asked if there was someone else.”
The question had been sitting inside me since the coffee shop, heavier now that I had said it aloud. Blue’s expression gentled. “What did you say?”
“The truth. Mostly.” I rubbed my thumb across my palm. “I said there’s someone from my past I’m not over.”
Blue was still for a beat before she nodded. “That seems fair.”
I looked away from her. “It felt crueler than I expected.”
Blue’s voice stayed gentle. “Truth usually does when somebody wants a different ending.”
I gave her a look. “That is not helpful.”
A small smile touched her mouth. “I know.”
I should have stopped there. Instead, the other part came out. “He said he still wanted to be friends,” I admitted. “And then Jude showed up.”
Blue’s whole face changed. “Again?”
I nodded. “At the coffee shop. Just... there. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.”
Her brows pulled together. “Lila.”
I exhaled through my nose. “I know.”
“No.” Her voice sharpened. “He just popped up out of nowhere again? It’s really creepy that he always seems to be somewhere you are when he lives and works in Wicker Falls.”
The tattoo machine stopped.
Blue and I both looked up. Ink sat back from her wrist and checked the line for one beat before turning toward the open doorway. His voice cut through the shop.
Ink looked toward the doorway and called, “Deacon.”
My spine went rigid before I could hide it. So much for privacy.
Blue blinked. “What are you calling him in here for?”
I stared at Ink while realization arrived one ugly piece at a time. He hadn’t been absorbed in Blue’s tattoo. He’d been listening to every damn word.
Big ole Judas.
Jackson appeared in the doorway a second later with irritation already riding his face. “Yeah, what’s up? I got a client in my chair.”
Ink tipped his chin toward us. “I think these two have something they need to tell you. Your woman especially.”
My mouth dropped open. “Your woman? I am not his anything other than the mother of his child, and I do not answer to him like I’m a child.”
Ink met my anger with the same flat look he used when he had already decided he was right. Beside me, Blue leaned closer and muttered, “You better just tell him. We probably should’ve had this conversation at work or at your apartment. They will always snitch on us to each other.”
Traitor.
Jackson looked between us, irritation sharpening into suspicion. “What the hell is goin’ on?”
Ink never took his eyes off me. “You gonna tell him you got a stalker, or am I?”
Everything inside me froze.
Jackson’s whole body changed. “You have a motherfuckin’ what?”
Before I could answer, Ink kept going, because apparently betrayal really was his cardio.
“They were just discussin’ it in here like it was business as usual,” he said.
“Some guy named Jude. Been showin’ up places she goes even though he lives and works in Wicker Falls.
Clearly creepin’ her out, and she isn’t payin’ attention to that instinct and taking it seriously. ”
Jackson turned on me so fast I almost stepped back.
“Jude?” he said. “Creepy little Jude that used to follow you home from school? Whose mama used to beg your mama to let him come over for Sunday dinners after church because he was lonely? And then he’d sit there makin’ googly eyes at you the whole damn dinner?”
I rolled my eyes, mostly because the alternative was admitting how much of that I had tried to forget. “Yes, that Jude. I don’t know any other Judes. Do you?”
Jackson’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t sass me right now, woman. What is this that he is just showin’ up places that you happen to be at?”
Blue’s mouth twitched. Ink looked far too satisfied with himself.
I folded my arms. “It really could be coincidence. A couple weeks ago I ran into him at the grocery store. He said he was there shopping because he has a new girlfriend in the area and was making dinner at her house.” Jackson’s face stayed unreadable, which somehow felt worse.
“Then yesterday I was having coffee with an associate.”
Ink cut in immediately. “A guy. Some doctor Reid.”
I swung my glare toward him. “Would you like to die?”
His expression didn’t change. “Depends,” he said. “You tellin’ the story or not?”
Jackson’s attention darkened. “You were havin’ coffee with who?”
I pointed at him. “You do not get to do that right now. That is not the important part of this story.”
His jaw flexed, but I kept going before he could drag Mason into a conversation that already had enough problems.
“Jude showed up at the coffee shop,” I said. “He said he was looking at houses. Said if he found one he liked, he might buy it and transfer here so he could take good care of his woman the way she deserves.” I shook my head. “It was weird. And creepy.”
Jackson’s stare stayed fixed on me. “What does he do for work?”
I met his stare. “He’s a cop with Wicker Falls PD.”
That changed his face. The job itself wasn’t the problem. Everything tied to Wicker Falls law enforcement was.
“And Matty knows about this?” he asked. “Or your dad?”
Blue answered before I could. “Her dad would probably be thrilled, seeing as he’s been trying to set them up for years.”
Jackson turned toward her. “He what?”
Blue’s smile widened. “He wanted Lila with a good stable man. He figured Crude Jude fit the mold.”
Jackson blinked. “Crude Jude?”
Blue laughed softly. “Your daughter’s nickname for him.”
That finally dragged a smirk out of him. “Smart girl.”
It disappeared almost immediately. “Somethin’ ain’t right. Somebody needs to talk to Matty.”
I folded my arms tighter, because there it was. The part I had known was coming. “I do not need you handling things for me or my brother handling things. I have taken care of myself for the last seventeen years, and I can continue doing so just fine.”
Jackson looked at Ink, then Blue, then back at me. Whatever decision he made happened without consulting the person most likely to object.
His jaw set. “Excuse us a minute.”
I barely got out, “Absolutely not,” before he crossed the room, hooked an arm around my waist, and lifted me clean off my feet.
I twisted in his hold, fury flashing hot. “Jackson Hayes!”
Blue choked on a laugh. Ink outright smirked.
I kicked uselessly behind him. “You put me down right now!”
I pounded a fist against Jackson’s back as he threw me over his shoulder and carried me into the hall like a caveman with excellent shoulders and a serious control problem. Framed flash and exposed brick passed upside down while Blue’s and Ink’s laughter faded behind us.
The back door opened, and cool air hit my skin. Jackson kept going until we were behind the shop, where the noise from inside dulled against the brick. Then he slid me down the front of his body until my boots hit the ground.
Before I could get away, he turned me and pressed me against the wall. One hand braced beside my head, the other settled at my hip, his body close enough to make anger and awareness collide in ways I did not appreciate.
“Listen here,” he said, voice low. “And listen good.”
I opened my mouth, but he shook his head once. “No. You’re gonna hear me first.”
That should not have landed the way it did.
His eyes held mine with too much intensity for simple anger.
“I understand completely that you’ve taken care of yourself for the last seventeen years,” he said.
“And you’ve done a fanfuckingtastic job of it.
You took care of our daughter. Raised her into somebody smart and sharp and fuckin’ incredible.
I know damn well you can keep takin’ care of yourself. ”
Some of the fight shifted in me because he wasn’t dismissing what I had done. He was naming it.
His hand tightened at my hip as he stepped closer. “But you don’t have to do it alone anymore.”
My breath caught, and he kept going before I could turn that into an answer. “You won’t do it alone anymore,” he went on, voice rougher, “because now that we’re in each other’s lives again, I’m incapable of lettin’ you.”
I swallowed against the pressure building in my throat. He was too close, too warm, too certain, and every part of me remembered what that certainty used to feel like before it hurt.