Page 53 of The One for Me
“Good answer,” Connor says with a nod.
“What?”
Declan agrees as well. “He’s right. It’s the only answer that would’ve granted you support from us. We love Devney, and since you have no intention of staying here, it would be the two of us who had to deal with the aftermath of this shit. If you guys fail, we’ll have to be here, see her in pain, and comfort her. In order to stay together, the only choice is for her to go with you.”
“It won’t fail.”
Connor speaks up. “Did you guys discuss any of this?”
“Not really. I know that she doesn’t want to do long distance.”
“Did you ask her if leaving with you is an option?”
“It’s not.”
For some strange reason, Devney will not leave Sugarloaf. I don’t get it. I’ve never really gotten it. She was happy, or seemed to be, so why she stayed wasn’t my business. Now, though, I have to push her.
Her family treats her like shit, so it can’t be them.
If it’s fear of another man hurting her, then I have a very limited amount of time to prove that I’m different.
Declan’s eyes narrow a bit as he thinks. He’s a businessman and sees things very differently than the rest of us do. Connor was always very single-minded. He found what he wanted and went after it. When he called to tell me that he got accepted into BUDs, I wasn’t surprised. The day he enlisted, he said he planned to be a SEAL, and so he did. Jacob is free spirited and artistic, which is why he excels as an actor. Each of us has our strengths, and together, we’re a stronger unit.
“What are you thinking?” Connor asks after a minute.
“Just that of all the people who I thought would get out of Sugarloaf, Devney was at the top. She was smarter than everyone by half and had this drive. When she got a full ride to that college in Colorado, I don’t think anyone was surprised.”
“I definitely wasn’t,” I tell Dec.
“Right. That is why I’m confused.”
“She has her brother and nephew,” I say as a sort of explanation. “She and Jasper were always tight. Hell, he followed her out to Colorado at one point during college and lived there.” Now that I think about it, he would have been out there around the same time as all the shit went down with her professor.
“Yeah, but . . . staying around for Jasper? Come on. The four of us know about being close with siblings, and I wouldn’t stay around either of you fuckers,” Connor scoffs.
“And yet here the three of us are now,” I point out.
Declan and Connor both shrug. Maybe there’s some other guy who Devney isn’t telling me about and that’s why she’s staying. Although, that makes even less sense because she was with Oliver.
“Maybe her dad isn’t doing well. She’s always been close to him,” Declan offers.
That could be. As much as she hates her mother, her father is the bright spot. If there’s something going on with him that no one knows about, it would explain it.
“I don’t know, maybe.”
“Has she spoken to them since she left their house?” Connor asks.
I shake my head. “She debated it, but I don’t think she has.”
“That’s a tough call.”
The three of us have zero room to judge someone for cutting off contact with a parent. We walked away nine years ago without a backward glance on our father. Of course, he was a drunk who beat the fuck out of us.
“Do you think Dad would’ve apologized had any of us given him the chance to?”
Connor laughs once. “Not fucking likely. He felt that hitting us was a way to teach us to be men. Do you remember when he took the stick to Jacob?”
I clamp my jaw as the anger rolls through me. “Yes.”
