I glance around the restaurant, trying to get my mind back on work.
“So, uh, I heard you’re seeing Maggie?”
I look back at Tyler. “Yeah, I am.”
He nods thoughtfully. “She’s great. I really like her.”
His tone tells me he has something else he wants to say. I raise my eyebrows in question.
“I hope you treat her right. I don’t want to see her hurt.”
Most people telling me not to hurt Maggie would annoy me because I would cut out my own heart before hurting her, but Tyler caring about Maggie enough to give me an unspoken warning makes me respect him more than I already did.
“You don’t have anything to worry about, Tyler. But if I do, you have my permission to punch me in the face.”
His smug grin grows at my offer. “I’ll do so. Happily.”
I bark out a laugh. “You’re a good kid.”
“I’m not a fucking kid,” he mumbles with a scowl.
At least if I need help keeping Maggie safe, I have one more person I can rely on.
25
Maggie
Iroll over in bed and stretch out with a yawn. It’s still kind of surreal to me that I told him everything.
Well, almost everything.
But the fact that he knows some lifts a weight off me that I didn’t even realize was so suffocating. I bite my lip as tears spring to my eyes. A swirl of emotions overwhelms me. I’m scared of getting hopeful about where my life is going. Everything with Ian feels so perfect, like he was meant for me, but on the other hand, my life is one big jump scare. I never know what’s waiting for me the next time I turn around—it could be something amazing, or it could be something terrifying.
I pull the sheet up and dab at my wet cheeks. I want to be happy more than anything. The last six years of my life have been hell, even if they didn’t start that way. Looking back now, I wasn’t really even happy at the beginning. I wasin love with the idea of being in love. Of not being alone. Of being enough for someone. I told myself that everything was fine when it wasn’t because I knew what the alternative was, and I didn’t want to go back there.
It slowly morphed from things that I could convince myself to ignore to things I knew I couldn’t and shouldn’t. By the time that happened, I was too scared to leave. I’d seen too much and been threatened countless times. There was no getting out.
Hindsight being what it is, as many people who have been in awful relationships come to realize later, I know now that being alone would have been better. Because at the end of the day, what I had wasn’t love. It was control and manipulation.
Why Reese picked me, I have no idea. Maybe he recognized someone who was just weak enough to give in to him and not ask a lot of questions.
Shaking off the melancholy of my lamenting, I reach back and grab my phone off the nightstand.
Ian: Beautiful, I miss you already. Counting down the minutes.
My stomach flutters as I stretch again with a quiet squeal of excitement. As scared as I am about my future, there’s no denying how Ian makes me feel. It’s like the sun is slowly peeking out from behind the clouds after weeks of rainy, gloomy weather.
Me: Miss you too. About to get out of bed now since you aren’t here to keep me in it.
Ian: And I would if I were there…though I will admit…I’m surprised it took you this long to get out of bed since we woke up. That’s a lot of hours without coffee.
I laugh and roll my eyes as I get out of bed.
Me: You are correct. I’m currently experiencing withdrawal symptoms…from coffee and you.
Ian: Excellent answer, beautiful.
Smiling to myself, I make my way to the kitchen and place my phone down on the counter to grab the coffee filters and coffee from the cabinet. As I’m measuring the coffee grounds, I hear my phone vibrate on the counter. I retrieve it with a bounce in my step, expecting it to be Ian. My stomach drops when I see an unknown number with a Chicago area code.
