Page 45 of Bully's Second Chance
My eyes sprang open, and I cleared my throat. “That’s okay; I need to get back to work anyway.”
She dug her phone out of her purse. “This will only take a second.”
I waved my hand in the air. “Take all the time you need.”
She picked up the phone call and slipped out into the foyer, which meant she needed privacy. But I couldn’t help myself. She talked softly, which piqued my interest, and as I lifted myself from my seat and walked over to the double doors of my office, I heard the tone of her voice quickly change.
I couldn’t tell what she was saying, but she had gone from talking to hissing into her phone.
Who the hell just called her?
As I stood there, straining to hear her voice, the tone of it quickly shifted. It went from normal to hissing, then from hissing to almost choked off. Like she couldn’t speak because she was underwater.
Is she crying?
“Stop it, okay? Just stop it. Stop calling me like this. I can’t deal with it anymore,” she begged.
“That’s it,” I murmured.
I buttoned my suit coat before I threw open the doors of my office. Lily gasped as she whipped around, and sure enough, her mascara was rushing down her cheeks. She quickly wiped at her tears, but I had seen enough. And as I walked toward her, I simply held out my hand before she settled her cell phone against it.
“Hello?” I asked.
“—and-another-thi—who the fuck?”
I sighed. “I’d know that voice anywhere.”
He heaved on the other side of the line. “Jax?”
I clicked my tongue. “Hey there, Tucker.”
He heaved again. “Put—ugh—put Lily back on. She—her and I—”
“Your conversation with her is done for now. She’s currently at work, and you’re disturbing her day. Can’t have you messing with my productivity like that.”
He growled as his words slurred back together. “Fuck-you-and-your-business. You and your father are both—”
I grinned. “If you speak of my father again, you might want to make sure you have a will.”
“Jax,” Lily whispered.
She shook her head softly at me, and I relented.
“Listen, Tuck, the pain you’re causing Lily is unacceptable. She’s crying, for God’s sake. What the hell are you saying to her?”
Tucker and I had hung out a lot when we were kids. We ran in the same sort of crowd together all throughout middle school. But, something happened when we got to high school, and we ended up taking separate paths. He fell in with the crowd that drank and partied every weekend while I enlisted into things like football and lacrosse to keep my mind—and my anger—busy.
I listened to Tucker vomit. “Just put her back on!”
I licked my lips. “Look, I blame myself partly for the path you took. Maybe if I had talked with you more in high school instead of blowing you off for sports practice and shit, we might be in better—”
He scoffed. “No, you don’t get the pity card. You don’t get to send me on guilt trips. Not after the hell, you put my sister, through.”
“And yet, we’ve gotten over it. We’ve built a bridge toward a better future, and we’re okay. Can you say the same for your relationship with her?”
“Fuck you,” he spat.
“Finish puking up your guts, and when you call Lily next, remember to mind your tongue. You wouldn’t want me to become the good guy, and you continue to be the bad guy, would you?”
