Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
AVA
“Ican’t believe I missed it,” Olivia grumbles after Layla and I spill the beans on everything that happened earlier, tossing a piece of popcorn into her mouth before looking at me with wide eyes.
“Not that I think your ex-boyfriend stomping up your husband’s driveway to demand you like a piece of property is entertainment fodder, or anything. ”
It’s almost enough to make me laugh. “I get it,” I tell her. “I’d probably feel the same way if roles were reversed. I love a good messy outburst.”
“You should have seen Rhett,” Layla said. “I’ve never seen him so mad, and I’ve seen him get angry plenty.”
Olivia nods. “He can go from zero to death metal pretty fast, but we’ve been working on it, you know? He just gets really protective of his family.”
I can’t help but wonder if I’m part of that designation for him.
“I don’t mean to sound like that girl or anything,” Layla continues, “but it was kind of hot seeing our men get all peacocky like that. We did good, girls.”
Olivia sputters out a laugh.
“I just feel so bad,” I admit. “I can’t believe Tobias actually came here.”
“Don’t feel bad,” Layla says, reaching to wrap a slender hand around my forearm. “Trust me, the Bennett brothers live to come together and fight against a good threat.”
“How long were you with him?” Olivia asks. “Tobias, I mean.”
“About a year and a half,” I say. “We worked together at a law firm in Miami and eventually started seeing each other.”
“Workplace romance, how scandalous.”
I snort. “The only person I scandalized was my damn self.” I came clean to her about my pregnancy during our earlier storytelling.
“Was he always such a turd?” Layla asks, scrunching her nose. “No offense, but he was a raging asshole today. I can’t imagine he’d have the capacity to be a delight.”
“Oh, he has range, trust me.” I sigh. “He knows how to turn it on. How to charm the people around him. And he can be really fun when he wants to be. But I realized somewhere along the way that so much of that side of him is performative—a means to get what he wants. I think his base-level self is the dick version.”
“Sounds like a lot of men,” Layla grumbles.
Olivia looks at her. “Kind of reminds me of Jason.”
The energy in the room shifts, and I’m not exactly sure why. But then Layla says quietly, “I don’t think he was a base-level dick. But I do think he was lost and took it out on the people around him.” She looks at me and helpfully clarifies, “Jason was my ex. Who I was with before Wells.”
“Ah.” I nod. “Wells’s best friend.”
“Yeah. I think Jason could have become what you’re describing, the way Tobias is, if he wasn’t careful.
But the way I knew him . . . I don’t know, he was so young, you know?
And there was so much pressure on him to succeed from literally everyone around him besides me and Wells.
I like to think that he could have been a good man, that somewhere deep down he wanted to be. ”
“Makes sense,” Olivia says. “The way this town treats football players is . . . weird.” She laughs.
I snort. “I dated a handful in high school. Every one of them was so full of themselves . . . well, except Kasey. He was the only one who actually gave a shit about me. I guess it was sort of my MO to date assholes.”
Olivia smiles. “Sometimes dating an asshole works out, but I don’t think it’s an ideal strategy.”
Layla throws a popcorn kernel at her, giggling.
I shrug. “They’re fun. There’s a thrill to it, you know.”
“Oh, I know.” Olivia smiles.
“Sounds like Kasey had nice guy syndrome. Is that why things didn’t work out?”
“Nice guy syndrome?”
“Yeah, you know—when you get the ick from a guy because he’s too safe—”
“There was nothing safe about Kasey.”
Silence wraps around us as confusion paints Layla’s face. “But you said he actually cared.”
“Yeah, but . . . For me, that was the most scary.”
“Not gonna lie, girlfriend,” Olivia says. “I don’t get it.”
I laugh, stretching out on her couch. “I guess . . . well, my mom left when I was young, and my dad wasn’t the easiest parent.
I always felt very alone as a kid, but I also learned how to be okay on my own.
How to control the chaos around me, you know?
” Both girls nod. I swallow. “And then Kasey just showed up and changed everything. He made me feel like my feet weren’t on the ground anymore, like I could fly if I wanted to.
He was so confident . . . He looked at the sun like it was his to wrangle, and I found myself needing to be his sun.
It knocked me off-balance. I didn’t know what to do with it or how to trust it.
People in my life kept leaving me behind, so I learned how to leave first to keep myself safe.
But with Kasey . . . I tried to shove all my fears away, but they just kept clawing back.
There was nothing safe about Kasey because of the way I felt about him.
And then he proposed, and all the fears I’d been trying to hold at bay just came crashing down on me. I couldn’t handle it, so I left.”
“What were you scared of?” Layla asks. “If he proposed, if he wanted to marry you, you weren’t going to lose him, right? So what was there to be scared of?”
I frown. “My mom left,” I say simply. “She thought she wanted her life to look one way, and then it turned out she didn’t actually want that anymore, so she left. And she hurt people when she did.”
Understanding sinks in. Layla’s eyes soften. “You didn’t want to become her.”
I take a deep breath. “The way she hurt me . . . I don’t want to do that to anyone else. And I was scared that I’d eventually do it to Kasey.”
“What about now?” Layla asks. “I know getting married to him wasn’t about love, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that you guys are in love. Are you still scared of hurting him?”
“Oh, god, yes,” I admit. “Terrified. And it doesn’t help that I have deranged exes showing up or that . . .” I look down at my stomach. “Or that I still have plenty of baggage. Maeve knows—that I’m pregnant.”
“Fuck, that woman is truly plugged in. How does she do it?”
I laugh, and it comes out watery. “She assumes it’s Kasey’s baby, which doesn’t exactly help my worry about all the doom and gloom I’m bringing him.”
Layla turns to look at me head-on, right in the eye. “Ava—and trust me that I say this as lovingly as possible—I don’t think you know anything, girl!”
My brows sink over my eyes. “Um . . . what?”
“You said you wanted to be Kasey’s sun?” Here gaze lifts to the ceiling.
“You are. Don’t you see it? He literally looks at you like you are the entire world wrapped in one lady body.
You could bring that man all the doom and gloom you have and he’d still be on his knees for you.
Stop stressing so much about hurting him.
You’re just . . . all you’re doing is hurting yourself. ”
A new veil of silence settles over us as I let her words sink in.
I think about the way he hugged me this morning, the grip of his fingers against my ribs as if to not let me go.
I think about the baby moving and the slice of life I promised her I’d find for us.
Closing my eyes and sinking my head back against the armrest of the couch, I let out a quiet groan.
“I really am fucking things up, aren’t I? ”
“No,” Layla says gently. “You’ve been through a lot, and you’re figuring it out. You’re human. I guess I just hoped it might help to hear from an outside perspective that you’re both over the moon about each other. So maybe just . . . enjoy it?”
I smile. “I’ll try.”
“I still can’t believe you’ve been hiding a whole-ass pregnancy,” Olivia cuts in.
Layla and I lock eyes. She hasn’t revealed that she’s known since before the wedding, and I’m getting the sense she’s not going to. I’m grateful for it, because I’m not sure whether Olivia would feel slighted, even if Layla finding out was purely accidental.
“Rhett was so unhappy about it,” I eventually say.
Olivia waves a hand. “He’ll be fine.”
I groan. “I don’t know. He looked at Kasey like he was really disappointed.”
“Give him a minute to process,” Layla suggests. “He was pretty worked up about Tobias, so the timing of finding out his sister-in-law is carrying not his brother’s baby wasn’t exactly ideal, you know?”
Okay. Fair point.
“He’ll be fine,” Olivia says again. “I promise.”
I nod. “Thank you for letting me crash here.”
“Oh! Of course! It’s actually really fun—I’ve never had a girls’ night in this house before.”
“Have you ever thought about moving onto the ranch?” Layla asks.
Olivia shakes her head. “Not really. I’m not opposed to it, but Rhett doesn’t even really sleep there much. When he’s not staying the night here, he’s usually at the apartment above the bar.”
“Does your mom like him?”
Olivia beams. “She loves him.”
“What about your mom?” I ask Layla. “Does she like Wells?”
Layla’s nose scrunches. “It’s getting better.”
“Yikes. Sorry.”
“No, no. It’s okay. She was just really banking on me being a rich NFL wife and not living in sin with a cowboy.”
I snort. “Your mom and my dad sound pretty damn similar.”
“Pretty sure my mom and her husband have been on double dates with your dad and his wife.”
“Oh,” I mutter. “Goodie.”
I haven’t been to the sheriff’s station since I was a little girl. Even before leaving Saddlebrook Falls, it was a place I firmly avoided.
Inside the unassuming two-story building, my father was a legend.
He was strength and order, a beacon of safety for the people in this town.
And I understood it. Even if I firmly disagree with a lot of the ways in which he yields his power, there’s no denying he’s always been successful at keeping our town safe.