Page 49 of I Found You
Through the line, I could hear Wyatt in the background, “Jackson, a hand, please?” He was technically asking, but his tone was downright murderous. “Who are you on the phone with? Are they more important than getting this shit cleared up?”
“Sorry, man. It’s just Maeve,” he said to Wyatt. To me, he replied, “I got to go. Boss is looking at me like he wants to bury me. Wish me luck.”
He hung up the phone, and I let out a deep sigh. I wasn’t afraid for Jackson. Wyatt might look like a bear sometimes, especially if he went a day or two without shaving. It was actually quite the look, in all the best ways. But Jackson would be fine.
Wyatt, on the other hand… was he that mad over what happened yesterday? Was he dreading the conversation we were going to need to have? If so, that was on him. I was fine with pretending nothing ever happened, at least when he was around, and going back to life as normal.
Who was I kidding. That would never work. I had a handle on my crush before, when it was something only I knew about. But now? How would I ever be able to look at him, sitting on my living room floor with his back against the sofa, eating Chinese takeout, like I wasn’t completely obsessed with him?
Ugh. Why did I have to take things past the point of noreturn?
I spent the rest of the day trying to work on my lesson plans for the upcoming school year. My thoughts turned to Wyatt so frequently I wouldn’t be surprised if I looked back at my notes and saw “Maeve + Wyatt” in hearts scribbled on each page. I really had to get my act together if I wanted any chance at keeping him in my life and not scaring him away.
21
Wyatt
What even was my life anymore? Two days ago, I was the one babysitting when Jane got so sick she needed to be hospitalized. Yesterday, my brother came to me, despondent that the woman he thought he was going to spend the rest of his life with dumped him. Last night, I had an out-of-body sexual experience with a woman I really liked, admired, and respected. It was fucking bliss. Until it came crashing and burning for what was still an unknown reason. Maeve locked herself in the bathroom and refused to come out. She slept on the couch, for Christ’s sake. The only thing I could think of—and it absolutely gutted me to even think it—was that she hadn’t wanted that. She seemed like she did. She was the one who initiated it. She’d participated enthusiastically while it was happening. Her every moan, her every breath was burned into my memory. But afterward, I had never felt like more of a dick in my life because she very clearly regretted it immediately.
And then there was this morning. After waking up to an empty bed, I found Maeve on the couch, still in her dress fromlast night, and tucked the blanket around her. She wouldn’t even look at me when I woke her up.
And my day just got worse from there.
The garage was torn apart when I got here. Someone had come here, either yesterday or last night, and destroyed the place. All of my small tools were gone. Cars that I had in my shop were smashed up. Headlights looked like someone took a baseball bat to them. Windows were shattered. There was oil and grease everywhere, like whoever did this just dumped every liquid I kept in the garage onto the floor.
Jackson.
I left him in charge yesterday to finish up the tasks I had assigned him and lock up if I wasn’t back yet. Not exactly difficult directions to follow. Either he didn’t lock up, or he was involved.
He better fucking not be involved.
I called Luke as soon as I got here this morning. He was cranky that I always called him directly and not 911, but what was the point of having a brother on the police force if I couldn’t get an inside track? Plus, he was clearly hungover from last night’s revelry, which probably contributed to his bad mood.
Luke called it in and came straight over to document the scene. While he and a small team of police were doing that, I called Maeve. I needed to check on her after her reaction last night. Apologizing was going to be gut-wrenching, but I needed to do it. I needed to talk to her. She didn’t answer, so I switched gears and called Wes instead.
“How are you feeling this morning?” Wes said as he answered the phone, his deep voice held a note of amusement. “Starting to hit you that you’re not in your twenties anymore?”
“I’m feeling pissed. Fucking fuming, actually,” I told him.
“What have you got for me?” Any humor from a moment ago was gone.
“Someone or multiple someones broke into my garage last night. It’s completely trashed, as is every single vehicle I had in there. Except for one. Do you want to guess which vehicle looks like a million fucking bucks?”
“You think Jackson trashed the place? Why would he do that? Did you give him attitude about something?”
“Are you telling me that if I gave the kid some lip, I deserved the thousands of dollars of damage?” I raked my hand through my hair as I paced back and forth in the front lot. I wasn’t allowed in the building while the police were doing their thing, so I had taken to pacing.
“No. That is not what I said. I was trying to ascertain if the kid would think that property destruction was a valid retaliatory course of action. As far as I know, you’ve been nothing but good to him. Why would he want to do this?”
“Fuck it if I know,” I said, sounding slightly less furious and more resigned. Wes was right. He usually was, but I wouldn’t tell him that. Jackson didn’t have any reason to do this much damage. Plus, the fact that his truck was the only vehicle not touched in this entire space looked awfully suspicious. Too suspicious that even an amateur would know better than to leave his shit spotless in the middle of all this chaos.
I gave Wes all the information I had, which wasn’t much at this point.
“Listen, I’m on a job right now, so I can’t get down there right away. Take pictures of everything and send them to me. You ever get your cameras fixed?”
“No,” I growled. It was a small-town mechanics shop. I hadnever used the cameras, and when they went offline months ago, I hadn’t made it a priority to get them operational again.
Jackson called as I was finishing up with Wes, so I ended the call with him, switching over to make sure I didn’t miss Jackson’s.
