Before I can ask, we’re interrupted.
“I thought that was you,” Marcus says, his arm around a petite redhead. “Is Mom here with you? Hey, Uncle J—” he starts to say. In a blur of motion, Marcus has Jay shoved back against the brick exterior of the building. “You son of a bitch!” He lands a solid punch to Jay’s face. Then another.
“Marcus!” his date yells, not understanding what’s happening.
Trying to pull him off Jay is almost impossible, and I get sucker punched with an elbow to the ribs in the process. Seeing no other option, I shackle his wrists and wrench them behind his back. “Marcus, stop.”
He struggles against my hold. “Dad needed you! Mom needed you! How could you do that to them?”
Jay’s face crumbles. “I’m sorry.”
“Fuck you!”
Several nosy bystanders stop to watch the drama unfold, their phones out to record it. Why can’t people mind their own business?
“We have an audience, and you’re freaking your girl out. Calm the hell down.”
Marcus ceases his struggle, and I let him go. Big mistake. He lunges for Jay again.
His girl is either really brave or very stupid. She plants herself between them.
“Look at me, not him. Focus on me,” she says, her hands on his chest gently guiding him a few steps back.
“Marcus, I’m so sorry,” Jay rasps, wiping blood from the cut on his mouth.
A muscle tics in Marcus’s jaw, his breathing ragged with fury. The nearby streetlights enhance the harsh shadows on his face and accentuate the storm raging behind his amber eyes. “Save it. Your apology means shit.”
I was under the presumption that Jay never met Ry’s kids, but he and Marcus seem to know one another.
Marcus’s date’s small frame is a surprising barrier to his anger. Her fingers press firmly against his chest, her voice steady. “Marcus, please.”
Jay exhales sharply. “I want to make things right. I want?—”
“Shut up,” Marcus snarls. “Just shut the hell up. I don’t care what you want. You sure as hell didn’t care about Dad. I beggedyou—” Marcus tries to move forward to get to him, but his girl holds him in place.
“Jay, walk away. Now.” If he has any common sense left, he’ll listen.
He shifts uncomfortably, blood smeared at the corner of his mouth. His eyes flick between Marcus, then to me. For a second, I think he’ll argue. With a reluctant nod, he turns and disappears into the night.
“What’s your name?” I ask the brave redhead.
“Hannah.”
“Thanks for stepping in, Hannah.”
She exhales shakily. “Someone had to.”
Marcus will have his hands full with this one. Hopefully, he’s not an idiot and sees her for what she is: a strong woman willing to stand by him and fight his battles.
The tension in Marcus’s shoulders slowly abates, and he takes a deep breath before exhaling it in a rush. “Why is he back now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does Mom know?”
“No. She has no idea.”
Marcus swears under his breath and drags his hands over his face. He stares down the street where Jay vanished. When his gaze returns to me, fear erases the anger in his eyes. Because he knows as well as I do that Jay isn’t just some guy from Elizabeth’s past. I’ll be damned if he waltzes back in after twenty years and wrecks her again.
