“Pay you to do what?” I asked.
The boy shrugged and sniffed. “To mail letters, and to leave them at the police department and your parents’ house.”
My face smoothed out and I choked on a laugh when a snot bubble came out of the boy’s nose as he sobbed. He looked terrified, and now I was worried he was going to pee on the couch. “Juarez pays you?”
The boy shrugged again. “Someone does. Juarez just tells me what to say and draw.”
“What’s your name?” I asked again; this time my tone was softer, but still held a hint of amusement at how the situation had drastically turned around. Not that I would have ever been scared of the boy himself, it was the situation that had me freaked out. He looked like he weighed no more than a hundred and twenty pounds, and having him come in trying to act like a badass only to start crying had me seconds from bursting into laughter.
“Matthew. My name’s Matthew.”
“Okay, Matthew, how do you know Juarez?” I looked over to Rhys when I realized he had stopped questioning the boy, but his eyes were wide as he watched the boy break down in hysterics.
“I was visiting my pop in prison. My pop owed Juarez a favor from the inside and told me to go to him, so I went to visit him to see what he wanted.”
“How did you know the girls were here?” Rhys asked.
“I d-didn’t, I swear. It was just a possibility. Juarez said there was family here, so I came. I’ve been following your uncle for almost a week, and saw you all go to his place for Thanksgiving, so I followed you back here. But I didn’t know if these were even the girls I was looking for. I had to get a computer so I could search for their social media accounts to get pictures of—” Matthew cut off on loud sobs, and I had to bite my cheeks in order to keep myself from laughing.
“Police are coming,” Kira mumbled from the kitchen, and Matthew cried harder.
I sighed and shrugged when Rhys gave me a confused look.
“What were your orders this time?” he asked gently, and I smiled, knowing that Rhys understood how to handle this situation. It was so hard to be mad at this boy since he’d just gotten mixed up with the wrong people because of his dad.
“Just to scare them with the symbol. But you’d gotten it earlier, so I’ve been waiting for the girls to come back. I was going to leave another note and knock once they were here.”
“This poor kid,” I whispered when Rhys took another step back so he was next to me.
“I don’t know what to say now,” Rhys said low enough that it wouldn’t carry.
“I know,” I agreed, and studied the kid again. “Matthew, do you know if Juarez has anyone else harassing my family?”
Matthew shook his head and choked out a sob. “I don’t know, maybe. I’m sorry, I just wanted to help my pop and make money.”
“And you don’t know who’s paying you?”
He looked up to me. “No. They mailed me a bank card and they just keep putting money in it for me. Oh no! No, please don’t let them arrest me!” he cried out when sirens sounded close by.
I gave him a sympathetic smile, but didn’t know what else to say. It was ridiculous that a kid who had been harassing my family could have me feeling so bad for him, but I couldn’t help it. And from Kira and Rhys’s expressions, they felt the same.
To be honest, I’d never thought anyone would find us here. But I was sure that if they did, it would have been a lot more action-packed than the last ten minutes had been. What a letdown.
Rhys helped the kid stand, and started leading him over to the front door. He was holding Matthew’s hands behind his back like a cop without cuffs would do, and the action made Matthew cry even harder.
“Wait! Matthew, does Juarez know we’re here in California?”
“No. He calls me every Wednesday. When he called me last week, I’d still only been following your uncle.” He tried rubbing his wet cheeks against his shoulder, and looked between Kira and me. “I’m sorry,” he cried.
“We know,” I answered for us. Kira was still standing there with a guarded but sad look on her face. “We’ll tell the police exactly what you told us, I promise.”
He nodded, then let Rhys lead him outside.
“Do you think he was the only one doing everything?” Kira asked.
“I don’t know. Let’s hope so.”
Kira’s face clearly said she didn’t agree. “We need to be a lot more alert from now on.”
“I know, we will.” I sighed heavily and clapped once. “Well! You ready to spend Monday night in a police station giving statements?”
Kira groaned and rolled her eyes, and I laughed at the look. “I’ll go change my shirt so I don’t smell like smoothies. Meet you outside?”
“Last one out has to call Dad to tell him!” I called over my shoulder as I ran toward my room.
I heard Kira’s mumbled curse, and laughed louder as I stripped off my shirt and ran to my closet to grab the first one I touched. The worst part of this entire night would be telling Dad and Uncle Mason that one of Juarez’s boys had found us . . . and I sure as hell didn’t want to be the one stuck having to make that phone call.
16
December 4
Liam
I LOOKED UP at the sound of my office door opening, and my body immediately tensed when I saw the expression on Eli’s face. He looked like he was nervous about talking to me, and while I still wasn’t worried about my job, I was worried that he’d have news from one of his nieces.
“Hey,” I said cautiously. “What’s up?”
He sighed as he sat in the chair opposite me. “I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”
“I’m fine, why?”
Eli’s face went blank. “Well, that’s some bullshit.”
“I don’t know what you want, Eli. I’ve landed more accounts and finished more jobs in the last month alone than I normally do in a quarter. I’m fine.”
“Yeah, your work is fine. It’s great. But you never leave. You never leave the office and you never talk to anyone. So from what I’m gathering, Kennedy still hasn’t called you, and as your friend, not your boss, I want to know how you’re doing.”
I sat back in my chair and folded my arms across my chest. “I don’t know,” I finally admitted. “I don’t know how I am. She calls, but she hasn’t made a decision, so I don’t talk to her. I can’t until she knows. Because talking to her will only give me hope, and right now my chances aren’t looking that great.”
“Well I don’t know about that. From what I saw when the girls showed up with Rhys for Thanksgiving, Kennedy’s pretty miserable herself.”
My eyebrows rose. “He came with the girls?”
“I wouldn’t go reading anything into that. It was very much a we-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-him situation since he’s still staying at their place.”
“Still doesn’t change the fact that he’s there, which means she’s probably no closer to making a decision.”
“Maybe not,” Eli mumbled. “If you want my suggestion, I would go talk to her.”
“I can’t do that, Eli. I told her I was stepping back, and I need to stick with that.”
He tilted his head to the side and looked at me like he thought I was making a mistake, but didn’t say anything else as he stood and began walking out until he got to the door. “My other suggestion is for you to take the rest of the day off, you need this weekend away from the office, and the weekend is starting right now for you.” Eli stepped out of my office, but popped his head back in. “And by ‘suggestion,’ I mean that’s an order from your extremely stern boss.”
I smiled and huffed, but listened to what he said. Gathering up my stuff, I drove home, changed, and grabbed my board to head out to the beach. I usually only surfed in the early mornings, but since I wasn’t able to distract myself with work at the moment, I needed to do something to clear my head.
I’d only been out there for about thirty minutes when I caught sight of a man not far up the beach,
standing up, watching me. Instead of paddling back out, I hung my head and walked over to him.
“Is this the day for people to give me lectures? Should I go see Brian after this?” I asked sarcastically, and dropped down next to where my dad was standing.
Once he was sitting down next to me, he asked, “What other lecture?”
“It wasn’t really. Eli just wanted to know how I was doing with the Kennedy situation, and told me he thinks I should go talk to her. And then he ordered me to leave early for the weekend . . . so I came here. Speaking of, how did you know I was here?”
Dad shrugged. “Saw your car. I had to run an errand since your mom’s and my anniversary is coming up, and saw your car on my way out and back. Decided I’d stop to see why you were here—but I figured it had something to do with Kennedy.”
I sat there for a couple minutes trying to figure out if I wanted to ask him what I’d been thinking for the past couple weeks. Dad just sat there waiting for me to begin. “When it was you . . . what did you do? And would you do it again?”
“With your mom and Chase?”
“Yeah.”
Dad exhaled slowly and leaned back so he was holding himself up on his elbows. “Well. When I found out she was pregnant I asked her to leave, and that was it for us for a long time. I knew you weren’t mine, and it didn’t take more than a minute to figure out who your dad was. I’d known how Chase felt, and I saw how your mom looked at him. While Chase waited for your mom to decide between the two of us—before she knew she was pregnant, and after—he did what you’re doing. He stepped back. And if he were here, I have no doubt he would tell you how big a mistake that was.”
“Mistake?” I blurted out. “Why?”
“Because your mom ended up taking a long time to decide. Even after Chase found out that we had broken up, she still told him she couldn’t be with him, and didn’t tell him that she was pregnant for months.”
“Months,” I echoed, my voice dead even though I was fucking terrified that Kennedy would draw this out for the same amount of time.
“Months,” Dad repeated. “By the time your mom was ready to tell him, and ready to give him a chance, they didn’t have very long before he died. He missed a lot of time with her because he stepped back. If he would have pushed it more, or been around instead of hiding from her, I have no doubt your mom would have broken down sooner.”
“And what were you doing during that time?”
“Staying away.”
I laughed, but it didn’t sound right. “So are you saying it was a mistake for you to do that too?”
“Nope,” he said simply, and I looked back at him.
“How is that supposed to help me right now? You said Chase would’ve regretted stepping back, but you stepped back and didn’t regret it.” I paused for a second, and then said, “But at that time, it wasn’t really a decision between the two of you anymore since you and Mom were broken up. So your situation wasn’t exactly the same as mine.”
He thought for a minute before saying, “It was, and it wasn’t. Your mom knew she’d hurt me, and one of her main reasons for waiting so long was because she didn’t want me to get hurt even more by being with Chase and shoving their relationship in my face all the time. Then, when Chase died, even though your mom had broken up with him right before, she was still too torn to be with me. She thought it would be spitting on his memory.”
“But you were together a couple months later,” I hinted, and he nodded.
“The way your mom has put it was that she loved Chase, and was in love with me. From the beginning, and through the whole thing. Even though she told me she wanted me to find someone else, she and I both knew that we would eventually be together again one day. But then Chase died, and it confused things as well as sped them up.”
I shook my head and stared back out at the ocean. “Doesn’t matter how many times I hear the story . . . I’ll never understand how you went through any of that.”
“I went through it because I loved your mom and you.”
“Dad?” When he made a grunting noise, I asked, “When it was back to being a choice of being with you again or not . . . did you still stay back?”
“No. Hell no. She told me she couldn’t be with me, and because of Chase’s death I was questioning what I thought I’d already known about us being together again. But I told her I would be there for her and you. Not just because of how much I loved the two of you, but because Chase was my best friend and I know he would’ve done the same if the roles had been reversed. So I was there, at your grandparents’ house, every day. Never pushing her, just always being there. Well—I may have pushed her a couple times.”
I smiled and looked back to see him grinning. “She was with you, then no one, then Chase, then no one, and then you again. So Chase was there waiting for a relationship, then you both stepped back, and then you were there.”
“Pretty much.”
I sighed heavily. “What does that mean I should do?”
Dad looked up at me and laughed. “It is the most complicated and simple decision. In this situation with Kennedy and her ex, you need to figure out what stage you are all currently in, and then you need to figure out if you’re me, or if you’re Chase.”
“Nothing in that sounds simple.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
December 4
Kennedy
“HEY, RHYS!” I called out as I walked down the hall and turned into the living room. I was caught off guard and took a step back when I found both Rhys and Kira looking at me—Kira with wide eyes that held a tinge of an apology, Rhys like he was afraid of what I was about to say. “Uh, everything okay?”
Rhys glanced over to where Kira was sitting on the love seat then back to me. “Yeah. What’s up?”
“Er, well . . .” I drifted off and shot Kira a confused look that immediately had her snapping out of whatever weird state she’d just been in. “There’s a farmers market in town tonight, they have one every Friday night. There’s live music, fresh veggies and fruits we can grab for the kitchen, and I saw them putting up a stand for corn dogs and funnel cakes. It’s my favorite part of a fair and the produce section from a grocery store all in one, and I thought you might like to go.”
“Do you think it’s a good idea to go walking around town when there’s a possibility of more people looking for you?”
My face fell. “After how much Matthew cried on that couch, I’m really not worried about how another one of Juarez’s guys will be.”
“Kenne—”
“Please!” I whined, cutting him off. “Funnel cake!”
Rhys laughed at my excitement over the fried goodness, and conceded with a sigh, “Yeah, okay. Sounds great. When did you want to go?”
I shrugged. “Whenever. It started an hour ago, and I’m ready when you are.”
“I’m ready.” He stood from the couch, and I once again caught Kira staring off with a weird expression.
“Kira, you coming?”
“What?” she asked, her head snapping up to look at me.
“Farmers market. Are you coming with?”
Her eyes widened and her mouth formed a small O, like she was just now clueing in to what I’d been talking about. “Oh no. You two should probably go alone.”
“Really, it’s not a big deal, I want you to come.”
“You’re not going to come?” Rhys asked, and I pointed at him.
“See? He wants you to go too. Come with us!”
I stood there silently praying she would say yes. As much as I’d been enjoying having Rhys around, I was terrified whenever we had to do something alone. I was worried he would start taking it as a sign that I wanted to be with him again, and he and Kira got along so well that it usually took the awkward tension away from us. Besides, Kira had started withdrawing back into a shell, and I wanted to do anything that prevented her getting sucked into it. It had taken long enough to get her away from the one Zane had put her in, a
nd now I didn’t know how long it would take for this one since I didn’t even understand what had caused it. All I knew was that whenever I entered a room, she wouldn’t talk to me and always had weird looks on her face; and when I was talking with Rhys, she’d go to her room. If she was giving me the opportunity to be alone with him . . . it wasn’t appreciated.
“No, really. You two go. You’ll have fun.” She was already off the couch and walking toward her room before she was even done talking.
Seriously? “So anyway, you ready?” I asked Rhys, and began walking toward the front door.
Rhys followed me out of the condo and walked with me over to the farmers market. It was only a mile away from our complex, and I doubted we would have gotten much closer if we’d driven and tried to find a place to park.
We didn’t talk about anything important on the way over, or as we browsed the booths filled with produce. By important, I mean anything that I should have talked to him about. Like what had happened to me after he left, what I really felt the day he showed up at the condo, and just getting to know him again on a deeper level. All we talked about was Kira’s and my job, the differences between California and Florida, and Matthew and Juarez. Rhys never really offered up anything about himself, he just continued directing questions at me.
And like with Kira, I felt like something was off with Rhys.
He was still smiling, polite, and funny, but there was a distance between us that hadn’t been there just a few weeks ago, and it was nothing like the distance I’d placed between us when he’d first showed up. There was just something in his dark eyes that left me wondering why he looked so worried and, at times, unhappy.
I was afraid it had something to do with the fact that he’d been in California for over a month now and I had yet to make a decision. But the truth was, the closer and closer I got to making a decision, the more scared I got. Scared I still hadn’t done enough to give both Liam and Rhys a fair chance, scared I would make the wrong decision and not be able to reverse it, and even more scared of hurting one of them. Both men meant too much to me to want to hurt them—and that thought had me wondering when I’d become such a wimp when it came to voicing my feelings.