Page 19 of Last Chance Love

Reed laughed, setting a large leather bag onto a dried, discarded hay bale outside the shed. “I think Leon is trying to tell you that you were being a dick, Max. Maybe stop making jokes about us.”

“Especially when all I did was answer your question,” I said with a frown.

Max opened his mouth, and for a moment, I thought he was going to stalk off with a glower, which would have fit his norm. Instead, he glanced over his shoulder to where Reno and Elliot were, but Riley came into view, grinning at something Elliot said. He growled in his throat. “Alright, fine, I was being a dick for no reason.”

I opened my mouth until I caught a knowing look from Reed and decided against pointing out that, yeah, he was being a dick for no reason. Instead, I pivoted to a grimace. “Well, I can promise I wasn’t picking you to single you out. And I did it because I thought you were the best option.”

“Ugh,” he said, sounding disgusted, though I didn’t know with what. “Fine.”

“I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m also not,” I said with a wince.

“Yeah, well, even if you were, you wouldn’t be nearly as sorry as I am,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “I’m not going to be held responsible if I leave Elliot tied and gagged to a tree somewhere.”

“Careful,” Reed said, “Elliot might enjoy that.”

“Ugh,” his disgust was more obvious this time as he walked off, then stopped. “You…you aren’t expecting me to sit down and talk to Reno, are you?”

“No! God no. I don’t think Reno wants to talk to anyone. At least not right now. I think the best thing we can do is let them be themselves and hope for the best,” I said with a shrug. “Whatever that means.”

“I love how you sound like you don’t know what that means.”

Reed chuckled. “He does, but he doesn’t.”

“I’ve had enough puzzles today, thanks,” Max said, walking off and looking just as irritated as he had when he’d shown up.

“Thanks for mediating, Mom,” I said once Max was out of earshot.

Reed winked at me. “Well, you know how it goes.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah, Max can test anyone’s patience when he gets cranky. And you’ve just started settling down from placing Reno and Elliot together. So you’re a little more touchy than usual.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, and when you’re worried about something important, that counts as touchy. And you’rethatkind of touchy, you might be willing to take someone’s head off without feeling bad…until you calmed down, and then you’d feel like shit.”

“Excuse me?”

“Andthenyou’ll mope around for days because you let your temper get the better of you instead of taking the high road like you’re always telling yourself to do whenever you’re in a bad mood. But instead of learning anything from it or showing yourself the same patience and understanding you’d show others, you’ll kick yourself until you’re a miserable mess that will swing between spreading it around intentionally half the time and unintentionally the rest.”

I stared at him as he finally finished his little speech, summarizing something deeply personal about me in the manner of someone explaining how the new washing machine worked. I was dressed completely, all the way down to thick boots covered in dust, and I still managed to feel oddly naked. My only comfort, small as it was, was that we were out of earshot of anyone else hearing this level of…familiarity.

“Whoever said being known by other people was the greatest gift was a goddamn liar,” I said, turning my face away before he saw something else in my expression. “That shit sucks.”

My stomach flipped when Reed chuckled, showing a flash of teeth as he leaned against the old hay bales. He had never been a big guy, puberty had left him with an average build that stayed that way, except for his forearms, which were tightly corded with well-defined muscle that practically danced under his skin, like they did now as he crossed his arms.

“I might understand some things about you, but others? Not so much,” he said with a shake of his head.

“Like what?”

“Like how someone who cares so much about people, really wants to help them, and has a good sense for them, is so insistent on hiding himself from them.”

“Well, I guess I can take comfort in the fact that I’m still a mystery to you,” I muttered, not caring how grumpy I sounded. One of the advantages of knowing someone since you were kids was that you were pretty okay with showing them parts of yourself you kept locked away from public view. Despite what he insisted, I didn’t keep much from him, even if I tried to keep some things quiet.

Well, except for the fact that I still didn’t know how to feel about him. Or that if he didn’t uncross his arms and get that smirk off his face, I would be tempted to do things I shouldn’t be doing in public. Then again, I’d always struggled with self-control when it came to him, which had always confused and exasperated me.

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