"And the poker night thing." Pedro stands up, stretching muscles stiff from a long night at the clinic. His scrubs are definitely wrinkled. There's a coffee stain on his sleeve that matches the one on my shirt. "When he told her she couldn't come anymore because it was 'boys only.' Even though she'd been playing with us for over a year. "
"She cleaned me out three weeks in a row," I say, and the memory hits me like a fist to the gut. Jessica in our living room, feet tucked under her on the couch, blonde hair falling in her face as she studied her cards. Laughing as she raked in another pot with that competitive gleam in her eyes. "I went broke buying lumber that month because she kept taking all my cash."
I stop pacing and grip the back of a chair.
"Then suddenly she wasn't allowed to play cards with us. And we just accepted it. Made jokes about how Callum was protective. How he wanted quality time with his girlfriend." I shake my head. "We made excuses for him."
"He was isolating her," Sergio says, and his voice cuts through our memories like a blade. "Piece by piece. Cutting away everyone who might have told her she deserved better. Everyone who might have helped her see what he was doing."
"Including us." I let go of the chair and start pacing again. Can't stay still. "He isolated her from us specifically. Moved her to the city. Made excuses every time we tried to visit."
Three steps. Turn. Three steps back.
"And we let him, because we didn't want to admit that our best friend was turning into someone we didn't recognize."
The guilt settles over the room like a funeral shroud.
We let him.
For two years, we watched Callum slowly suffocate the woman we all loved, and we did nothing.
I stop pacing and brace my hands on the counter, hanging my head.
"There's one more message." Sergio's voice drops to barely above a whisper. "He sent it an hour ago."
He turns the phone around so we can all see the screen.
I'll be there Friday. Make sure she's ready.
Make sure she's ready.
Like Jessica is a package to be prepared for pickup. A piece of property to be handed over on demand.
"Over my dead body." The words explode out of me before my brain catches up to my mouth. I push off the counter and start pacing again, faster now. "He shows up here expecting to collect her like she's a goddamn Amazon delivery, and I'll—"
"You'll what?" Pedro cuts me off. "Attack him? Give him exactly what he needs to play the victim? 'My ex-fiancée's new boyfriend assaulted me when I came to talk things out.' His lawyers would have a field day."
I stop mid-stride and turn to face him. "So what, we just let him waltz in here?"
"Pedro's right," Nacho says, moving away from the window. He straightens his uniform. "We can't give him ammunition. Everything has to be above board. Documented. Legal."
"So what are you suggesting?" I spread my hands, frustration boiling in my chest. I need to hit something. Build something. Do something with all this energy. "We just stand around with our thumbs up our asses while he does his manipulative bullshit?"
"No." Nacho moves to stand beside Sergio, presenting a united front. "We make it absolutely clear that Jessica isn't going anywhere unless she chooses to. Her decision. Her terms. Not his. Not ours."
I grab a dish towel off the counter and start twisting it in my hands. Need to do something. Anything.
"And if she wants to go back to him?" Pedro asks, joining our loose circle by the kitchen island. "If she decides, for whatever reason, that she'd rather be with Callum than stay here with us? What then?"
"She won't." Sergio's certainty is absolute. Immovable as granite. "I talked to her last night. In this kitchen. While we were making cookies. She's done with him. She sees what he is now. The blinders are off."
I drop the dish towel on the counter.
"But does she know what we are?" The question that's been burning a hole in my chest since she walked through our front door finally comes out. "Does she understand that this isn't just us being friendly? That we're not offering her a guest room out of the goodness of our hearts?"
I start pacing again, can't help it.
"That every single one of us has been in love with her for years? That we're not just helping out a friend in need, we're courting her? That we want her to be pack? To be ours?"
