Page 13 of His Relentless Angel

Kiddo. I nurse the rest of my weak drink while talking to Shayla about Grayson and Lainey’s tempers now that they’re older, legitimately laughing when she says, “They’re even worse than you and Autumn. They keep me up all night the same as y’all did.”

“Oh my god, not this again.” I roll my eyes in mock annoyance. “You’re the one who decided to move into our room instead of sharing with Brady.” Autumn and I had the bigger room since we had to share. It didn’t feel so big after Shayla moved her bed and Lainey’s crib in with us, rearranging furniture like Tetris to make it all fit.

“Yeah, but that’s only because I didn’t want to wake up every hour again with a newborn, and it was only temporary until I left for college.”

“Says the woman who was up at all hours with Grayson right afterward.”

“It’s different when it’s your own child and not your sibling,” she says, even though Grayson was James’s nephew and not legally her child, by adoption or marriage, at the time. “You’ll see.”

“No, I won’t,” I whisper with a flick of my eyes toward Isaiah and Jai as I slip out of my chair with my glass and stand.

Shayla’s face immediately falls, and she follows me to the bar so I can order a stronger drink. She grabs my bicep to turn me to face her. “What happened? I thought you moved on. You said your last boyfriend—”

“I lied. I never ‘moved on’ or had a boyfriend,” I confess, finding a dim corner further away from the table.

“Why would you do that? I thought everything was ok. You seemed…” She trails off with a wary look.

“Would you have moved on from James? If he had never looked your way. Never loved you—or at least, never admitted to it. Would you have gone on dates with other men? Married someone else?”

Shayla quietly admits, “No. Never.”

“Then you know exactly why I can’t do it. I lied because everyone kept looking at me like I was a bomb about to go off, and I couldn’t stand it. I love Isaiah, and he’s the only man I want to be with. I’m never going to be able to ‘move on’.”

“But Bailey…” Goddamnit, she’s giving me the look I just told her I can’t fucking stand. “Isaiah has made it clear that he doesn’t return your feelings. Don’t you want a family? Kids of your own?”

Frustrated, I dig my red-painted fingernails into my palms when I clench my fists. “You’re not listening! No one ever listens.” Relaxing a hand, I press it over my aching heart and say, “Of course I want kids and a family. You know I do. Raising them in an amazing home with parents who love them and each other unconditionally like we had growing up. Like what you have with James. But in every dream I have about my life and future family…all of them include Isaiah. It’s always been him. It will always be him. It will only ever be him. If I can’t be with Isaiah, then I don’t want anyone at all.”

By the end of baring my soul to Shayla, she’s crying harder than I am, and she pulls me into a hug. “I understand. I do, and I’m sorry for putting so much pressure on you that you felt like you had to lie to us about moving on and dating other people.”

The dreaded pity in her voice is about more than the pressure she and everyone else has put on me to give up on my love. It’s also for the fact that she thinks I’ll never have a family of my own because Isaiah will never change his mind or want to be with me, and I feel even worse than before.

After pulling away and wiping under our eyes with the black and gold bar napkins the bartender discreetly pushes toward us, Shayla turns back to the table, immediately bumping into James.

He tenderly cups her cheek. “Are you ok, angel?” She nods, and he presses a kiss to her lips. James shoots me a worried glance over her shoulder. He can be so oblivious a lot of the time when it comes to things outside of his wife and children, for which I’m grateful since he doesn’t give me the same pitying look before he pulls Shayla away to gather their things from the table.

Before leaving, Shayla asks, “Do you want to come back with us?”

The last thing I want right now is to share a ride with my sister and her husband while they make googly eyes at each other the whole drive. Their love will suffocate me.

With an exaggerated voice of shock, I wave to a purple-haired woman my age over Shayla’s shoulder across the bar and say, “Oh my god, Tyla?” The woman’s bold brows shoot up to her hairline. “What are you doing here?” To Shayla, I say, “My friend, Tyla, is here. I’m going to stay and catch up with her. I’ll see you later.” I walk away before she can stop me.

The woman doesn’t know me from Eve, but her confused expression could be misconstrued as surprise at seeing a long-lost friend. Just what I need. I hold out my arms for a hug and rush to say, “Please pretend you’re my friend so my sister will leave me alone.”

She must be a girl’s-girl because she drops her jaw and squeals, hops off her high-backed bar stool, and bounces around in her sky-high matching purple stilettos as she hugs me so tight she almost crushes my ribs. “Oh my god! I haven’t seen you in so long!”

We loudly make small talk as if we’re catching up, and when I look back, I catch James guiding Shayla through the front door after opening it for her. She looks back once at me, and I wave her off with one of my old fake smiles. Not even twenty-four hours into this trip, and I’m already slipping my mask back onto my face. I should have left as soon as Autumn crossed the stage. My family would have a lot more fun without watching and worrying about me ruining their vacation.

After a few more minutes of surface-level conversation, I thank the woman, whose real name is Mariah, for her help. It’s with horror that I return to the table to find Jai sitting directly on Isaiah’s lap with one arm around his shoulders while she sips from a fresh cocktail.

And then he does the unthinkable.

He kisses her jaw in the exact same place he once did to me.

There’s no stuffing my devastation down when I race past them into the bathroom. I’m so fucking tired of crying and feeling like this. I get several curious looks before I rush into a stall, which is more of a small room with a heavy wood door that reaches the ceiling and goes all the way to the floor. I’m in there long enough for the automatic lights to turn off a few minutes after the other users leave. It’s perfect for falling apart in privacy as the haze swirling in my head turns into a black hole I don’t know I’ll ever be able to claw my way out of.

Mercifully, depending on which way you look at it, Isaiah and Jai are gone once I finally drag myself out, so there’s no one I know left to witness my breakdown. I know it’s dangerous to leave the restaurant as a woman alone at night, but I need to be by myself instead of waiting inside the restaurant for my Uber to arrive. I walk a few steps to the side and lean against the warm brick wall beneath a street lamp so I’m not totally in the dark, but I hang my head and pinch my eyes closed, trying to drive the image of Isaiah pressing his lips to Jai’s skin out of my head.

Maybe I should leave early. Ask my Uber driver to take me back to the hotel and wait for me. I could pack up my room and go home. Pack up my apartment, too, as soon as I get there. Get in my car and just…drive. Try throwing the remaining pieces of my heart devoted to Isaiah out of the window just as I did with my bumblebee necklace.

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