—Since you’re not responding, I’ll take that to mean you’re pissed. That’s selfish, L. I would do the same for you that I did for her.
Yeah, somehow, I doubted that.
Although I couldn’t write my mother off indefinitely, I could bring this thing with Wes to a close, so I typed up my response.
—No worries. Not mad. She needs you, and you need her. You should dedicate time to working on what the two of you have.
If only Wes could’ve left it at that.
— Are you breaking up with me? Seriously. Over text?
And if only I could have.
—I think you took care of that last night when you took your drunk ex-girlfriend back to your place. It’s all good, Wes. Really.
And, of course, Wes needed to get in the last word.
— That’s rather presumptuous of you, L. What makes you think we had sex?
I laughed, the sound booming off the concrete surrounding me and causing Waldo to pop up.
“The fact you jumped to that conclusion, Wes,” I said aloud.
I wasn’t the one who mentioned sex. He was.
“Sorry, Waldo,” I said with a smile, gesturing toward my phone. “Stupid people, you know?”
His head went back down, and he let out a cute doggy sigh.
I could’ve ended it easily by telling Wes I was married, but I decided it would be easier to let him have the last word. I solved both of our problems by blocking his number.
If only I could do the same with my mother. An hour later, I received another text from her.
—I talked to Wes. He said you broke up with him. Is that true? Why? I thought the two of you were happy. Did Rule have something to do with this?
“I think the bigger question is, why do you even care?” I muttered, tossing my phone aside.
I refused to play this game with my mother.
Not today, at least.
Today, I was going to bask in my post-wedding glow.
I mean, hey. Why the fuck not?
* * *
Jinx
The crash that sounded from Rule’s officecould only mean one thing.
The man was frustrated.
It happened from time to time. When things didn’t go the way he anticipated or an obstacle he couldn’t predict landed in his path—in this case, Laikyn—he let it get the best of him. These were the easy things to deal with. The difficulties arose when Rule did something that went against every fiber of his being. Such as killing a man who’d been torturing his childhood best friend. After Rule killed that crazy bastard who had literally whipped Creed Granger to shreds, he’d gone down a dark, dark path. It had taken me nearly a month to get him back to the light.
Luckily for both of us, in this case, I knew just what to do to stop the tirade before it got out of control.
“Tell me you’re going to do something,” Red Wally grumbled, leaning back in his chair at the conference table and angling to see into my office.
