Page 80 of Honeysuckle
“My apologies for the brash conversation, Josh,” his mother cooed. “We don’t see Franklin much these days, and some heavy topics were discussed, but I can trust you’ll keep all this to yourself?”
I smiled at her but didn’t answer.
It was tight, and laced with disgust so loud that her expression changed from uneducated confidence to panicked fear the longer she stared at me.
“I should check on Dean,” I said, using the name he liked rather than Franklin on purpose to let her know exactly where my loyalty lay. I rose from the table slowly. “Dinner was delicious,” I said, looking down the table at everyone else before meeting her gaze again. “The chicken was overdone.”
I pushed my chair in and made my way through the house without another word, stopping only because Dean stood just outside the open front door. His entire body was curled against Silas, I had never seen a man that size break down so hard. Silas’s hand was against Dean’s neck, holding him still while he sobbed. The guy we had once assumed never broke, the unshakeable golden retriever, had been split in two and was hemorrhaging on the front step of his family's townhouse.
I hadn’t thought Silas would actually show—my faith in him was still strangled by the past but without questions he had dropped whatever he was doing and had been here in record time. For the first time since meeting him, I was grateful. Gray eyes watched me as I walked from the house and closed the door behind me, giving the two privacy from everyone inside. The sound of the door clicking had Dean standing up straight and turning away from me to wipe his face with his hands.
Silas patted his back and waited until he was ready.
“I should go back in there,” Dean’s voice cracked, and Silas grabbed him by the arm.
“Absolutely not,” he growled.
“They’ll just take it as an act of hostility.” He cleared his throat but Silas’s grip held firm.
“From where I'm standing you and Josh did the least hostile thing you could have done,” he said. “From here on out you leave the communication with them to me.”
Dean scowled. “I can’t ask you to do that,” he said.
“You aren’t asking, I’m telling you. It’s an order.” Silas adjusted his grip to pull Dean down off the step gently. "Whatever happened in there was bad enough for that asshole to text me. You do not go back in that house or I’ll drag you out of here.”
I snorted that time and both of them looked at me with dirty expressions. “What?” I shrugged. “The guy weighs, like, two-fifty—no way you’re dragging him anywhere.”
“It was…” Silas sighed but the joke had returned a light to Dean’s blue eyes that I hadn’t seen for nearly two hours.
“It’s okay,” Dean said with a tight nod. "I hear you, Doc, but it’s not that simple,” he said.
“It is, walk yourself to your car, get in and go back to the Nest. Now.” Silas stared at him, and I could see Dean thinking about the options but Silas wasn’t going to back down and I was glad for his pushy attitude for the first time ever.
“It’s a Jeep,” Dean groaned and rolled his eyes but I could see him relaxing a little bit with the way the conversation was going. “Thank you for coming,” he said.
“Always.” Silas tapped two fingers against his chest, then clapped Dean’s shoulder to move him in the right direction. “Go,” he said as the front door opened again. “Mr. Tucker, how’s your Sunday?” I heard Silas turn on his business voice as Dean and I started toward his Jeep.
There was an inkling of guilt leaving Silas to deal with the fallout, but the main priority was getting Dean away from it.
“Keys,” I said to him as we approached the curb.
“No.” He shook his head and tried to walk around me but I stepped in front of him and held out my palm with one hand, yanking open the passenger door with the other.
“You aren’t driving like this,” I said. I didn’t care that he had painted some fake smile on, I’d seen that look a hundred times—standing in my bathroom mirror, practicing it so no one would ask questions. Becoming Joshua Logan, pitcher with the cocky attitude and handsome smile all to protect Josh, the beaten down, angry little kid.
Dean watched me for another moment before digging the keys out and dropping them in my palm. He slipped into the seat in silence, and I closed the door on him. Silas heard the sound, briefly looking over his shoulder at me and nodded at me as Dean’s father continued to speak in quiet, quick sentences.
I climbed in and closed the door behind me, starting the engine before he could argue, getting us out of there. It wasn’t until we were moments from the house that Dean finally opened his mouth.
“Thank you,” he said, the sound was too quiet and too broken. It slithered beneath my armor and inched its way toward my guarded heart.
“I’ll help you with the press statement,” I said, ignoring the way his little, cracked gratitude made me feel and turning into the driveway of Dansby House.
“Okay,” he said and as soon as the engine died he was out of his seat and disappearing into the house. I tried to follow but it was clear he didn’t want that so I grabbed my books from the dining room table and sat down to write.
TUCKER
You’resick.
