Chapter 10
ten
JO
“I don’t know, Harlow. I don’t get why this case is so important to you. Yeah, it’s interesting, but we have nothing to go on and still have other states we wanted to cover before we circled back to Maine.”
I pace the length of Maverick’s living room while talking to my best friend and the current pain in my ass.
I left Mav and the others at the hospital once Declan was out of surgery and the doctor said he should make a full recovery.
I have work to catch up on for the band and the podcast. As much as I feel like part of their little family, I know the closer Ezra is to coming home, the closer I am to leaving them.
I can’t ingrain myself any more than I already have.
Harlow is refusing to budge on the topic for the next episode of Melt the Ice.
I tried looking into it in the small amount of spare time I have and found nothing.
It’s hard enough to produce these episodes when she’s hiding away with Cal and Cora.
How we’re supposed to do this apart and with a case that is technically closed is beyond me.
I barely have the mental capacity for my day job right now.
“It’s calling to me, Jo. Noelle deserves justice,” Harlow pleads.
I sigh. “She does, but a huge part of our platform is talking to the family. She doesn’t have any. We can’t even find this boyfriend they assumed her to have.”
“I think I might have a lead on that—”
I don’t hear what else she has to say. Maverick bursts through the door, and the moment his eyes find mine, I know something is terribly wrong.
“I have to go. I’ll call you back.” I hang up on Harlow and toss my phone onto the coffee table. “Maverick, what’s wrong? Is it Declan?”
He rushes to me, pulling me into his arms and sobbing on my shoulder. I hold him tight, panic beginning to take hold of my body.
“What’s wrong?” I ask again, pleading.
“Ezra’s back,” Maverick says between body-racking sobs. My whole body tenses, and it takes great effort to get myself to move and pull him down onto the couch with me. I don’t think I can keep my legs underneath me with what he’s about to tell me.
“These are happy tears?” I ask, trying to keep the pain from my voice.
“No,” he says, pulling back enough so I can see his face and the heartbreak there. “He’s been here for months. Right under our fucking noses.”
I frown, not understanding.
“He’s Ben. Ezra is Ben.”
My eyes widen as I gasp. “What?”
Maverick just nods, lip trembling. I pull him back to me, not knowing how to react or how to comfort him other than to hold him.
“What happened?” I whisper into the top of his head, which he’s rested on my chest. Maverick explains everything that happened in Declan’s hospital room. I just listen, holding him tight because I don’t know what else to do.
“Tell me what to do, angel. Please?” He looks up at me, eyes red and puffy, tears still slowly streaming down his face. I didn’t think he’d remember calling me that, but apparently he does, and hearing it from his lips cracks my heart just as much as it did the first time.
“I think you need time to process. You’re feeling too many things right now to make a decision.”
“I don’t know what I’m feeling,” he says softly, leaning back into me.
We’re horizontal on the couch now, Maverick between my legs with his head resting on my chest again.
I run my fingers through his silky hair, letting him use me for comfort.
Wishing with everything in me that we were in this position for entirely different reasons.
“I think you’re angry, hurt, confused, and betrayed, but I also think you’re happy and relieved.”
“That’s too many things to feel at the same time,” he mumbles, holding me tighter.
I snort. “No kidding.”
I want to ask him more. I want to ask if seeing Ezra again made him realize he doesn’t love him anymore.
Ask him if there’s no longer a chance for them.
That selfish part of me that wants this man in my arms wishes for all that to be true, but the part that loves Maverick hopes for the opposite.
Because he deserves to be loved by the person he loves most.
And that person isn’t me.