Chapter 24
SCOTT & HARLOW - A DAY IN THE LIFE
Harlow’s POV
A text wakes me from the kind of sleep that didn’t refresh me in the way it should have. A million interruptions during the night guaranteed that, and while I’ve got a lot to do today, all I want now is to stay in bed for as long as I can.
I’m trying desperately to keep my eyes shut and convince my brain to go back to sleep when Scott’s hand slides over my waist and around to rest on my stomach.
His chest presses against my back as his mouth brushes my ear.
“Who the fuck is texting you at this time on a Sunday?” The early morning rasp in his voice does what it’s done to me for nineteen years: it hits my veins like the drug it is, which is not what I need while attempting to fall back asleep.
I curl my legs up into a ball and bury my face in my pillow. “I don’t know. They need to go away.”
Another text sounds from my bedside table.
And then another.
“Fuck,” Scott mutters before leaning across me to retrieve my phone. “It’s Madison.”
I groan.
When Madison sends texts this early, she’s on a mission to get a reply. Also, she reserves Sunday mornings for long sleep ins. If she’s awake this early, something’s up.
I roll onto my back as I take my phone from Scott who then brushes a kiss across my lips and leaves the bed to walk into our en suite. His naked ass almost draws all my attention, but honestly, I’m too tired for that. I read the texts instead.
Madison
Do you know what happened at the party last night?
Madison
Savannah slept here after the party, and I just found her with a black eye.
Madison
A black fucking eye that I didn’t notice last night when the girls got home! What am I going to tell Scarlett and Wilder????
Another text comes in as I’m reading.
Madison
WAKE UP, HARLOW! I’M STRESSED THE FUCK OUT HERE. WE ALL KNOW HOW PROTECTIVE WILDER IS. AND OMG SCARLETT WILL KILL ME!
I sit up, fully awake now, and call her.
She answers immediately and I hear every ounce of her stress.
“Did Keaton say anything when he got home from the party? Savannah’s not talking, and neither is Jewel.
I may need you to come save my daughter if she decides to stay silent.
Honestly, that’s the last party I allow her to go to.
J can finally get his way and lock all our girls up and never allow them out again.
” She exhales a long breath when she finally stops talking.
“I didn’t see Keaton when he came home. Scott did, though, so I’ll ask him.”
“Ask me what?” Scott says, coming back into the bedroom.
My gaze is drawn to the muscles in his arms as he pulls a black T-shirt over his head. My husband doesn’t look anywhere near his age. Scott makes fifty-four look like forty-four.
“Did Keaton say anything about the party when he got home?”
He shakes his head. “No. But he wasn’t happy about something.”
I frown. “How not happy?”
He grabs a clean pair of jeans from the wardrobe before eyeing me again. “He looked like he wanted to punch the shit out of someone.”
Oh God.
Our seventeen-year-old son is like his father when it comes to using his fists: he has no patience for dickheads and is more than capable of winning a fight.
Unfortunately, he’s found himself in more fights than I care for because unlike his father, he’s not capable yet of controlling his urge to brawl.
“You didn’t ask him about that?”
Scott gives me a pointed look while he dresses. “No. He wasn’t in a mood to talk, and I wasn’t in a mood to be pissed off by that.”
Keaton and Scott have always been close, but Keaton’s teen years have caused issues between them. Scott has little patience when Keaton shuts down on him during conversations and this is often a source of their arguments.
“Okay.” Madison brings me back to our conversation as I watch Scott stride out of our bedroom. “So, we still know nothing. Can you go and ask Keaton if he knows anything?”
I rub my temple where a headache is threatening. I’m already sensing today isn’t going to be my favourite day of life. “Yeah. I’ll call you back.”
We end the call, and after using the bathroom and dressing, I make my way to my son’s room. It takes a few minutes of knocking to wake him, and by the sound of his grumbly “What?” he’s as happy as I am to be awake.
“I need to ask you something,” I say through the door.
“Can’t it wait? I’m sleeping.”
“It’ll take five minutes at the most and then you can go back to sleep.”
He grumbles a string of words I can’t quite make out.
“Keaton, you have thirty seconds to get dressed and then I’m coming in.”
“Fuck,” he mutters before I hear movement. Then, the door swings open and I’m met with a pissed-off scowl that fills a face that is the spitting image of Scott’s. “What is it?”
My son towers over me these days and takes up more space than most boys his age. Keaton may be seventeen, but he has the body of a man much older with all the muscle he’s packed onto his frame.
“Do you know what happened to Savannah last night at the party?”
His features darken. “Why?”
My brows pull together at his odd response. “Why what?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because she’s got a black eye today.”
His jaw clenches and those features of his darken some more, but he doesn’t give me the answer I’m looking for. Instead, he stares silently at me.
“Keaton, I need to know what happened. Scarlett and Wilder trusted Madison to look after Savannah last night, and they’re going to want to know who caused that black eye.”
He crosses his arms, feet planted wide, and continues staring at me silently for a few moments. Finally, he says, “You’re going to have to ask Savannah. It’s not my story to tell.”
“Right, well the only problem with that is she’s not talking. And neither is Jewel. So, I’d appreciate it if you could shed some light on this for us.”
His lips press together hard as he shakes his head. “I’m not getting in the middle of this. You’ll have to ask her again.”
I stare at him while my mind races with possibilities.
Scott said Keaton was angry when he got home last night, and he’s still angry this morning.
Savannah is two years younger than him, and the best friend of his cousin, Jewel, who he goes out of his way to protect.
That connection ensures he also looks out for Savannah.
My gaze drops to his knuckles. They’re bruised.
I find his eyes again. “You got in a fight last night?”
He works his jaw again. It’s like looking at his father when he does this. “Yeah.”
“Did it have anything to do with Savannah and her black eye?”
“Yeah.”
I take a deep breath.
This can’t be good.
Keaton would never hit a girl, which means he punched a guy. Which means whatever happened to Savannah involved a boy.
Wilder is going to lose his absolute shit. Unless his wife gets to the boy first.
“Is that everything?” he asks, his arms still folded tightly over his bare chest.
“For now, yes.”
The look in his eyes tells me he doesn’t intend on getting into this with me again, and I don’t doubt that.
It’s just another way he takes after Scott.
Keaton only ever says what’s needed to get his point across, and when he doesn’t want to discuss something, there’s not much that can persuade him otherwise.
He’s more about the physical. That’s his preferred way of communicating.
With both the males in my life, I’ve had to learn how to read their body language a lot of the time.
I leave him and head into the kitchen. I’m wide awake now, so there’s no way I’m going back to sleep. I call Madison as I walk down the hallway.
She answers immediately. “Did he tell you anything?”
“Not much. All I know is that he got in a fight over her last night. From what he did say, I’m assuming a boy hit Savannah and then Keaton hit the boy.”
“Oh, God,” Madison says. “No wonder Savannah hasn’t stopped crying all morning.”
“I think you should call Scarlett.”
“I’m going to. I just feel awful that I didn’t notice the black eye last night.”
“We can’t see everything, Madison. Don’t beat yourself up over this. And also, I know if my kids don’t want me to see something like that, they’ll go out of their way to hide it.”
“Thanks, honey. Are we still on for this morning? You sound tired.”
I sigh. “I am tired. There was all sorts of drama going on in my neighbourhood last night. I kept getting woken up. I was concerned at one point that your brother was going to take matters into his own hands and sort shit out once and for all.”
“That sounds like something Scott would do. I’m surprised he didn’t.”
“I have my ways of distracting him.”
“No wonder you’re tired today. If you wanna skip shopping, we can do it another day.”
“I don’t want to skip it. Besides, the girls are so excited for it. I imagine a mass revolt if we don’t go today.”
We’re shopping for Madison’s oldest daughter’s formal dress today and have been planning this trip for weeks. Willow hasn’t stopped talking about it, and neither have Jewel or Savannah who are coming with us.
“Okay, we’ll meet you at ten. And pray for me that Scarlett and Wilder don’t drive all the way home to Brisbane after they hear about this black eye.”
Savannah and her brother are staying with Madison and J for a week while her parents are in Mt. Isa helping Wilder’s brother pack up their mother’s home to move her to Brisbane. His father passed away last year, and Wilder has finally convinced his mother to move closer to him and Paul.
“I’m on my knees, babe,” I say as I round the corner into the kitchen and spy my husband.
“Yeah, I bet you are.”
I laugh. “You have a filthy, filthy mind.”
“Honestly, I’m just thinking I’d rather be on my knees, on my back, on anything instead of having to deal with teenage girls this morning. Oh shit, I have to go. See you later.”