Page 82 of Barbed Wire Fences
He looks embarrassed, as the fucker should for interrupting our private moment, but there’s something else about him that tells me I’m going to hate this guy vehemently.
“Christopher?” Jael asks in shock, and my heart immediately sinks.
“Uh, yeah, hey Jael. I thought I’d come down and surprise you because I had the weekend off and haven’t heard from you in a few weeks. Wanted to see where you grew up and if we could maybe talk for a few minutes?”
He looks about as comfortable as a fly on a toad’s tongue as he slowly steps towards us. Bold of him to assume we’d want him close. I sure as hell wish he wouldn’t.
Awkwardly, he reaches an arm out as Jael gives him what looks like is a stiff hug. Meanwhile, I’m glaring at him like if I stare hard enough, he might disappear back to Virginia and out of our lives forever.
“Oh, sorry, let me introduce you both,” Jael says as if I give a shit to ever remember this guy’s name again. “Christopher, this is one of my old childhood friends from the trailer park I grew up in, Rhett Miller. Rhett’s mom used to watch me after school.”
“Oh, right, your neighborhood friend,” Christopher says as he reaches out a hand to mine.
Neighborhood friend?
Call it what it is, Chris, we grew up in a dirty trailer park.
I grip his hand in mine, giving it a firm shake and hating that Jael introduced me as just a friend. Another little detail that I’ll wrestle with later tonight when I leave her.
“Hello, Chris.”
“I actually go by Christopher.”
And I actually don’t give a fuck.
“Sure,” I respond, not correcting myself or apologizing.
Jael looks nervously between both of us for a few seconds until I finally decide to be the bigger man. There’s no point in getting in a pissing competition with him when I know I have the upper hand. Jael wants me. She loves me, she just hasn’t said it yet. And though it kills me to let these two talk, maybe this is that closure she alluded to needing.
“Well, I’ll let you get some rest before your twelve-hour shift tomorrow,” I stress that second part to make a point for Chris to know that he shouldn’t keep her up late.
She nods softly as I walk towards my truck, never turning my back on them.
“Thanks Rhett. I’ll text you tomorrow.”
I slide into the driver’s side but put it in idle. I know I shouldn’t stay but I want to make sure he doesn’t take up too much of her time. Plus, I already hate the guy.
“I need to work tomorrow early, can we catch up in the evening?” Jael asks Chris who looks disappointed but nods his head.
“I’m staying here at the hotel. Give me a call when you get off,” Chris says tentatively before leaning in and pressing a kiss to her cheek.
Heat rushes through me so fast it’s like my veins are on fire, and it takes every ounce of self-control not to throw the dooropen and rip into him. He has no right—no right to touch her, no right to talk to her. He’s the one who ended it. He’s the one who walked away from the woman she was because he wanted to stick his dick elsewhere.
And yet there she is. Talking to him. Giving him her time, her eyes, her attention. Why? Why is Jael even letting him breathe the same air, much less stand close enough to speak?
They walk slowly into the hotel together, side by side, and it takes everything in me not to follow them, just to make sure they go to separate rooms.
My insecurities rear their ugly head, and I can’t stop them. Memories of Jael and Owen from when we were younger resurface, how she’d lied to me about them breaking up before she slept with me. Yes, we weren’t together, so it didn’t really matter, but it still hurt. They drag up all the emotions and shit I thought I’d buried a long time ago and I hate how out of control this version of me feels.
“Fuck!” I shout, my voice echoing in the empty parking lot as the hotel doors slide shut behind them.
Jamming the keys into the ignition, I start the truck with a roar and tear out of the lot, tires screeching against the pavement.
I don’t know where I’m going, but I know one thing for damn sure: I can’t go home. Not now. Not to the place where Jael’s scent clings to every corner, a constant reminder of what’s at stake if she leaves.
And especially not when her piece-of-shit ex-fiancé is back in town, probably trying to worm his way into her life again.
I pull out my phone and hit dial, calling my half-brother Lawson. He’s a few years older than me and wiser, he’ll know what to do.
