Page 153 of Leave Me Broken

“Mhm. Correct.” He pulls out a handkerchief and coughs into it several times. There are a few small dots of blood when he pulls away, but he wraps it up and we both ignore the elephant in the room. “Meaning I am far too old to be fooled.” My stomach tightens. “Also, I have been around long enough to know when two people are in love, and when two people are not.”

He holds my eyes for a long time, I don’t drop them once so he knows I’m not backing down this time. I didn’t want to be the one to tell Paul but I’m drowning, and if he knows, maybe I can finally have my girl back. I can be around without question.

“I think you should sit down, son.”

Fuck me. Forgive me for that, Payson. “What about Payson?”

“I won’t keep you long. In the meantime, maybe you can text your son and see if he can track down his girlfriend?” He lifts an eyebrow and curves his lips into a knowing look.

“What do you mean you can’t find her?”

Jethro frowns. “Do they speak a different language in England, or are you just fucking deaf?”

I slam a fist onto the desk. “Tell me where my girl is or so help you God.”

He pushes to his feet and gets in my face. “You better rethink the my girl thing real quick before I throw you behind bars, Pearson.”

My chest rumbles, shooting vibrations of adrenaline throughout my body. “I’m not fucking taking it back. I’m bloody over hiding it. I love Payson, she loves me. I do not care if you are a cop or whatever, you are not keeping me from my girl.”

His lip twitches and his face burns a bright red. “I could fucking kill you.”

“Try it,” I growl back.

“Someone want to tell me why I was picked up in a police car? Hello, PTSD, assholes.”

I whip around hearing Payson’s sweet rasps. Unfortunately for me, that leaves me wide open and Jethro is able to get a hard punch to the side of my face. I drop from the weight of his fist. It’s been a long fucking time since I have been in a fight.

Payson gasps and sprints over to me. She argues with her uncle, but I’m just so happy to see her, I don’t care. I wrap my arms around her and pull her onto my lap despite her fighting.

“Ash, we are in a police station.” Her voice is a low whisper I can barely hear over the throbbing in my bloody ear.

“Good, because I want to report an assault.”

Someone scoffs, must be Jethro because he walks in front of us. His jaw ticks but he tosses me a bag of ice that matches the one he’s holding to his hand. “Get up. She is correct. At least there is a small amount of brain between the two of you.”

Payson crosses her arms over her chest. “I’m not coming with you if you’re just going to be rude. I don’t need to hear it—”

“Yes, I heard. Sorry, now get up before I have to punch him again.”

Payson slips from my lap, and I let her attempt to pull me up but because of my weight, it’s just for show. “Try and I’ll knock you out, you fucking wanker.”

When he rolls his eyes and turns, I highly consider it. That is until a nicer, softer set of hands wrap around mine. I drop my eyes to her; despite everything going on there is still one set of pale green eyes that will always level me.

Payson’s face is red and blotchy, and she’s wet. Like soaking wet. “Where were you?”

She twists her lips and blinks several times. “The park.”

“Why?”

Her eyes fall to her fingers trailing over my chest and across the place she knows her name is, even with me in a shirt. I didn’t think twice about getting this tattoo because even without Payson’s name physically engraved on my body—she was already there. I don’t know where we go from where we currently are, but I know in the end it’ll still be us. It will always be us.

“That’s where everything changed. Something knocked us off center. That’s when our relationship shifted into what it is now.” Her shoulder digs into my arm when she shrugs, but I don’t move it. “I don’t know. I just . . . needed time.”

The conversation with her granddad went longer than expected. It was not an easy one, but I knew it wouldn’t be. It ended okay and that’s all I could ask. He’s not thrilled with our relationship, but he said he cannot control how others choose to live their lives. He can only pray about it. By the time he was finished, I had fifteen missed calls from Jethro. All with voicemails telling me to “fucking call him back.” When I finally did, he told me he couldn’t find her and I needed to get to the station immediately. Paul has enough going on that I decided to keep this to myself. Glad I did because Payson seems . . . mostly fine. Surprisingly.

I’m in no state to drive and that’s the only reason I agree to ride with Jethro in his fucking limo. Why he’s riding around town in a limo, I have no clue and I don’t feel like asking. I lean my head back. It took some convincing getting Payson to come, but I wasn’t leaving without her. Fucking wanker got me good, and I will return the favor one day. A day when my head doesn’t feel like bricklayers are attempting to build the next Great Wall of China in my head.

The conversation with Jethro goes a lot like the one with Paul. If Paul breathed like a bear in the spring, that is. I couldn’t care less how upset he is. Payson, on the other hand, has apologized several times. I want to tell her to stop. She owes him nothing. He’s only recently come into her life and already he’s making her feel like a bad person because of who she is with.

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