Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jude
I stood where they’d left me.
Didn’t move.
Didn’t speak.
Didn’t even realize my hands were clenched until my fingers started to ache.
The party had snapped back to life like nothing had happened. Kids ran past with sugar on their faces and no clue what had just gone down ten feet away from them.
Wrecker had handled it.
I dragged a hand down my face and finally forced myself to move, stepping away from the table and toward the edge of the yard where things were quieter. Not quiet, but quieter than the middle of it all.
I needed a second to get my head right, because if I didn’t, I wasn’t sure what I’d do if I saw that guy again tonight.
I leaned against the fence, eyes tracking the crowd automatically, scanning faces, exits, movement.
Old habits. It didn’t matter that the threat we’d been dealing with was supposed to be gone. Didn’t matter that this was a party. You didn’t stop paying attention.
I pushed off the fence and paced a few steps, running my fingers through my hair.
The image of him trying to grab her.
Calling her his.
Not happening.
I’d spent too many years not seeing what was right in front of me. I knew exactly what this was now, and I knew exactly what I was going to do about it.
Oliver came up beside me, handing me a fresh beer without a word.
I took it but didn’t drink it.
“Handled,” he said.
“Yeah.”
He leaned back against the fence, eyes moving across the yard the same way mine had. “Guy’s a problem.”
I didn’t answer. Didn’t need to.
“Ever okay?” he asked.
I glanced toward the clubhouse door like I could see through it. Like I could find her without even trying. “She will be,” I said.
Oliver looked at me then. Really looked. “Alright,” he said slowly.
I took a breath, slow and steady, letting it settle in my chest.
Letting everything lock into place.
Jesse wasn’t the problem.
Not really.
He was just the thing in the way, and now he was out of the way.
Ever was the point. The only point.
I straightened, rolling my shoulders back, the tension in my body shifting into something sharper. More focused. “I’m done watching,” I said.
Oliver’s brow lifted slightly. “Yeah?”
I nodded once. “Yeah.” I looked back toward the clubhouse again. Toward where I knew she was.
Where she was probably trying to act like everything was fine and like her night hadn’t just been flipped upside down.
Like she hadn’t just seen a side of a guy she’d been letting into her life that didn’t belong there.
My jaw set.
She deserved better than that.
I took a long pull from the beer finally, then set it down on the fence beside me. “I’m going to make her mine,” I said.
No hesitation.
No question.
Just fact.
Oliver nodded once. “Yeah,” he said. “I figured.”
I pushed away from the fence and started toward the clubhouse because standing out here wasn’t getting me anywhere, and I was done waiting.
Ever had been right there in front of me all along, and I had missed it.
That wasn’t going to happen anymore.