Page 57 of Utah

“Hold on. Hold on. Calm down, Ria. Tell me what happened. Slowly.”

I struggled to catch my breath as I mentally replayed the scene. “I’m at Rocky’s. I came here to tell my boss I’d be quitting. Then Utah went crazy. He attacked Will. Beat the shit out of him.”

“Why did he go after him?”

“Because he overheard something Will said to me.”

“What was it?” I didn’t answer at first, grappling with what happened. “Ria?”

“I’m here.”

“You gonna tell me what Will said to you?”

I paused for a second time because the only person I told about Will kissing me was Evie. Knox would be pissed because he didn’t care for the guy, either, but now wasn’t the time to worry about his reaction.

“After I met with Molly to tell her I quit, I ran into Will in the hallway on my way out. He asked if it was true that I quit and then asked… asked me if it had anything to do with… to do with—”

“To do with what, Ria? Spit it out.”

“He asked if my quitting had anything to do with him kissing me.” The air was sucked from my lungs as I waited for Knox to throw a thousand questions at me.

“When the hell did that happen? Never mind, it doesn’t matter. And this is when Utah attacked him?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s understandable.”

“How can you say that?” My brother started to respond but I cut him off. “You didn’t see him, Knox. Utah went crazy. He really scared me.”

“You’re right,” he said. “He shouldn’t have reacted like that, especially in front of you.”

“He shouldn’t have done what he did whether I was there or not.”

“You’re right,” he repeated. “Do you know which precinct he’s at?”

“No.”

The reminder that the cops hauled him away in handcuffs was enough to upset me all over again, my breaths coming out short and choppy. What was going to happen to Utah now? What was going to happen to us? I didn’t want to overreact until I heard his side of why he’d gone so crazy on Will, but what if he lost control in the future like that? I didn’t want to raise our baby in that kind of instability.

“Okay, don’t worry about it. I’ll find out. I’m on my way to get you now. I’m assuming you don’t have a way home, right?”

“Utah drove, so no, I don’t.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

After we hung up, I walked back into the bar, intending touse the restroom to clean up before my brother got here. Molly stopped me in the hallway, the sympathetic look in her eyes upsetting me more than I expected.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around what happened.”

“Yeah, that was crazy.” She paused a moment, the silence bouncing between us amping up my uneasiness with everything that just happened. I was seconds away from making up an excuse to leave when she asked, “Why did your boyfriend attack Will?” I didn’t want to get into the details, so I didn’t directly answer her question. Instead, I just shook my head. Her response was to place her hand on my shoulder and lean in closer, as if what she had to say next was vital. “I have to ask, Ria. Are you scared of him?”

“Who? Utah? No.”

My voice trembled with my answer because while I wasn’t physically scared of him, believing he’d never hurt me as he’d never given me any reason to think he ever would, I’d never seen him like he was today. His actions terrified me.

“You don’t sound sure.”

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