Page 21 of Give Me Forever Love

“What was that about?”

“He wants to buy Red and Bryce’s contacts.”

“You’re kidding? In exchange?” he asks.

“For Bryce’s freedom.”

Jace looks off for a moment, but then looks back at me. His sapphire eyes scan me over. “He won’t do it, will he?” he says as if he already knows the answer.

I bring my glass to my mouth, my silence giving him the answer he already knows.

“Damn, Harrison.” He exhales and rubs his chin.

“Yeah,” I agree. “Damn.”

Bryce’s decision has the power to make or break me. With a single no, he can take away a future I was so sure of only days ago.

“Your mom is at the apartment,” I tell him.

He brings the cigarette to his lips. “The fuck she doing there?”

“Lee called her.”

“What?”

“Yeah.” I take another sip, wincing as I say, “She’s been trying to feed me and shit.”

He scoffs, but doesn’t say anything. He leans up and flicks his ashes into an empty beer bottle before getting off the arm of the couch, lifting the ash filled bottle and a few others from the table.

“You heard anything from Michelle?” I ask. He stops over the trash.

“You mean Harlow?” he answers.

“Harlow?”

“Yeah.” He drops the bottle; it clashes with the others before settling in the bottom of the trash.

“She was using a fake name. Go figure. Her real name is Harlow Dalton.” He continues cleaning up with the smoke resting between his lips.

“So, you have spoken to her?” I cross my arms, holding on to the glass with my fingers, noticing a few holes in Jace’s shirt, like he doesn’t have money to buy clothes. Both Bryce and Jace come from money. While they didn’t start out that way, Lee has given them a good life and both boys are fucking it up.

Have fucked it up.

“You thought I wouldn’t?” he asks, dropping takeout boxes into the bin.

I think about that for a moment before I conclude my answer.

Yeah.

Yeah, I thought he wouldn’t. I assumed he’d forget she ever existed for what she did to us.

“What she did was unforgivable. I get you had some feelings for her, but there are other women out there you can catch feelings for.”

He takes a drag from his smoke, but doesn’t say anything.

“Do you agree?” I ask.

He gives me a sideways glance. He looks so much like his brother and yet so different. Where Jace isI go with the flowand have no rules, Bryce is steady on his feet and follows his own rules. He’s honorable and someone you can count on.

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