Page 130 of Fair Catch

“I wasn’t trying to keep it from you. I’ve just been…a wreck, for lack of a better term.” I hold my phone out, letting him see the disaster that is my bedroom, then me, still in a spot I haven’t moved from since Friday afternoon.

“Yeah, I’ve been there,” Q mutters, frowning. “But hey, living without the money gets easier. It just takes some adjusting.”

“That’s the thing. I’m not.”

His brows clash together behind his glasses. “They were bluffing?”

I shake my head, emotion crawling into my throat. “He went and played the fucking martyr and left. Moved out a day or two later while I was in class, blocked my number…” The memories flood my mind, and I choke on them when I whisper, “I have no idea where he is. I haven’t heard from him since.”

Quinton curses under his breath, a little bit of fury lighting up his eyes. “So he took the original offer to keep you from losing everything.”

“Minus the money.”

I don’t have proof of it, of course, but I have the sneaking suspicion Kason didn’t. If I’ve learned anything about him in our time together, it’s that the money would never be motivation.

Saving me was the only thing he was worried about.

“You seem certain,” my best friend notes, eyes narrowing.

“As certain as the way I feel about him.”

He rolls his tongue over his teeth, glancing at Oakley as he does, then back to me. “Then what are you gonna do?”

“What is there to do?” I ask, but it comes out with more bite than necessary thanks to my agitation. “I don’t know where he is. Other than going lowkey stalker on his ass like Oakley by showing up on his doorstep and banging down the door in hopes he’ll hear me out, I don’t have many options.”

I hear Oakley’s sharp cough. “I was going for a romantic gesture, not stalking.”

“Who says stalking isn’t romantic?” Q asks, eyeing his boyfriend before blowing him a kiss.

I blanch, both annoyed and disgusted by their perfect little love life. “And on that note, I’m gonna go back to wallowing in misery all by myself.”

“No, you’re gonna go to him and plead your case. And you’d better hope whoever his new roommates are, they won’t be nearly as protective as you were when Oakley did the same thing.” Q’s lips pull up in a bittersweet smile, but when he looks over at his boyfriend, it quickly turns to a frown. “Why do you look like you know something?”

“I don’t look like anything,” Oakley responds, but his boyfriend isn’t buying it.

“Spill. Now.”

I hear a long-winded sigh leave Oakley before he indignantly mutters, “I know where he is, okay?”

And now Quinton looks like he wants to castrate Oakley, rather than kiss him. “You’re keeping secrets too?”

“Holden made me swear!”

“That rule doesn’t apply to your boyfriend! Everyone fucking knows that!” he screeches before looking back to me through the phone screen. “Back me up on this, Hayes.”

“I’m not getting involved. Not until Oakley tells me where my guy is,” I inform the both of them, holding up my free hand. “So yeah, I’d suggest you spill the fucking tea, Oakley.”

There’s a beat of silence before Oakley mutters, “I’m so fucking toast for this.”

After the world’s quickest shower—not even taking the time to shave whatever dead animal has grown on my face—I throw my car into park outside the townhouse that Oakley gave me the address to. Shoving open my driver’s door, I storm toward the place where Kason has apparently been living with Holden, Phoenix, and a few others.

I’m well aware I could’ve texted Holden or Phoenix, given them a heads up that I was coming here to see him. It probably would’ve been the smart thing to do, considering the circumstances. But the last thing I wanted was one of them trying to talk me out of it. Or worse, telling Kason so he could disappear before I got here.

I’ve done enough waiting, enough aching, enough fucking pining.

I just need to see him. To put this shit in the past.

To fight harder for us.

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