Page 109 of Jax

“On you?” Ronnie gasped, her face glowing bright red as she tried to look everywhere but my face. “O-Of course I have! I’m not a little kid anymore. And besides, who would want you? I like someone else.”

“Someone else, huh?” I raised my brow. “Somehow I don’t believe you.”

“Well, believe me.” She turned to fix me with a pointed, determined glare. “I. Don’t. Like. You.”

I sighed, dropping onto the rock next to her. “I liked it better when you were honest and admitted it when you liked me or when you were crying….”

“I told you!” Ronnie snapped. “I wasn’t crying.”

“Your red eyes tell me otherwise.”

“It’s hot! I’m just flushed!”

I scoffed. “At least you still use the same excuses.”

“I do not!”

“Do,” I retorted.

“Do not!”

* * *

“…Do,” I looked down at the black screen of the cell phone in my hands.

“What did you say?” Hunter threw me a confused look, sitting down at the creaking office chair. The thing cried under the huge man’s mass, too small and cheap to hold his weight.

“Doesn’t matter.” I shrugged, leaning into the plush waiting chair propped against the small office wall. You could see clearly into the workshop through the glass behind my head, but it was double-glazed so they couldn’t see back in. It made this an even more convenient place to have this discussion.

“What are you going to do?” Hunter gestured down to the white cell flipping between my fingers.

I looked down at the foreign thing, as if I didn’t know what a cell was, nor what it did. But I did know. Even if I wanted to pretend I didn’t. This wasn’t just another object or trinket. This was a cell phone. One that had been tucked away in the pocket of her duffle bag.

In the draw Ronnie had shoved closed from me the second she felt my presence. The image of her puffed eyes and wet cheeks overlaid my vision and a deep, defeating sigh fell from my chest.

“I don’t know…,” I slid my thumb over the warm screen. “Maybe it’s just a spare one. It’s not like we have just one phone either. Lamb, for sure, has dozens.”

“You don’t believe that.” Hunter sighed, green eyes seeing right through me.

“How else do I explain the burner that only has our numbers on it? Or the expensive smart phone is hidden in a drawer, turned off, and buried under her underwear,” I growled, placing the thing on the desk between us. “No matter how you look at it, I can’t find a good excuse for her.”

“It’s suspicious,” Hunter grunted in agreement.

“Every instinct inside me is screaming that something is up. Something happened… and I’m not just talking about the accident.” My hands fumbled with each other, the pressure of my thumb buried into my palm growing with my anxiety.

“You said you didn’t care about her past.” Hunter sighed, sitting upright in his seat, forearms pressing against the wooden bench. “You didn’t want to know.”

“I know.” I winced, the pain of my words like a physical punch to my chest. The ache of the conflict of emotions was ragging turmoil inside of me.

Even driving in circles to and from town couldn’t handle the building unease in my chest since I’d found that thing. I’d managed to get through church, but it didn’t take long for Hunter to drag me down to his garage. He didn’t even have to force it out of me. I spilled everything about Ronnie’s phone and her reaction and the other thing I had found tucked at the bottom of the drawer.

“But the ring….”

Hunter winced. The stoic man didn’t always show much emotional diversity on his face except around his wife, nephew, and daughter. So whatever expression had been on my face, must have been a severe one to cause such a reaction.

He didn’t respond with words, or anything of comfort, because we both knew what was up with that ring. No matter how long I had been trying to push down the brewing thoughts since the second I laid eyes on the grown Veronica Marsh, I couldn’t hold them back any longer.

The way she had changed. Her attitude. Her looks. Her words. Something had changed her.Someonehad changed her.

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