Page 17 of Always Us

“Who was that guy?” I ask as we walk down the hall.

“Just some asshole I used to date.”

Jade didn’t date much before we met. She told me she only dated like five guys in high school.

“How long did you date him?” I don’t know why I care. I can’t stand thinking of her with another guy so I shouldn’t even be asking.

“About a month. We went to homecoming together.”

Jade only went to homecoming one time. Senior year. And the guy she went with is the guy she lost her virginity to. She told me the story. She said he went to another school, they dated for a few weeks, he invited her to his homecoming, had sex with her that night, and never called again.

“That asshole was the guy?” I spit out the words as I think about the idiot with the weak handshake and floppy hair sleeping with Jade. That guy took her virginity. Never called her again. And now he tries to act like they’re friends? Like he did nothing wrong? That fucking pisses me off. And this is not the time to mess with me. I’m already fired up with rage over my grandfather and this guy’s adding gas to the flame.

Jade sees my anger and doesn’t answer my question.

I stop walking. “Jade. Was that the guy?”

“Garret, it doesn’t matter now. It was a long time ago. He’s an ass. Big deal. A lot of guys are.”

“Not with you they’re not.” I storm back toward the door.

“Garret, stop!” Jade grabs my arm and yanks on it. “I’m giving a speech in 20 minutes. You can’t go beat up Josh.” She puts herself in front of me.

“I can take him down in 30 seconds. Plenty of time to make it to your speech.”

“Yeah, and you’ll go to jail. You already got in trouble last year for beating up Blake. You can’t beat someone up again.”

“After what he did to you he deserves to have his face bashed in.”

“And you could end up in serious trouble.”

“I’ll take the risk.” I can’t get past the door because she’s blocking it. “Jade. You need to get out of the way.”

“No. Stop it. I mean it. He’s not worth it.” She looks into my eyes and I can see that she’s scared. Scared I’ll do something that’ll take me away from her.

Fuck. She’s right. What am I doing? I’m a grown man. I’m married. I can’t do this shit anymore. Two years ago, I would’ve beat the guy unconscious. But now? As much as I want to do that, I can’t. I have responsibilities. I have Jade.

I relax my shoulders and take a breath. “Fine. But I still want to kill him.”

“I know you do.” She smiles a little. “But I’m already stressed enough about the speech. I need you to calm me down, because right now you’re stressing me out. Let’s just go.” She gets a firm grip on my arm and leads me away from the door.

“Can I kill him after the speech?” I’m kidding but she thinks I’m serious.

“Garret, no. Please don’t do anything.”

I kiss her. “I was joking. I’ll leave him alone. Unless he talks to you again. Then I’ll have to hurt him. And if he looks at your breasts again? I’ll definitely kill him.”

She sighs. “You’re stressing me out.”

I hug her into my side. “Sorry. We’re done talking about him.”

We walk back toward the auditorium and find Frank still sitting on the bench in the hallway. “How was the tour?”

“Boring,” Jade answers.

“They want you to go wait behind the curtain on stage,” Frank says to her.

“Right now? I still have 15 minutes.”

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