Page 40 of Barefoot Lake

His threat is laughable, literally. I chuckle, and he pulls back his arm to hit me.

I don’t hesitate, swinging until my fist, with the ring still inside, connects with his nose. He falls against his car again, this time grabbing at his face where blood has already begun to gush.

I hear a squeak from behind me and turn to see Alice near her door with her hands over her mouth and her eyes wide in shock. She catches my gaze for a moment before scurrying up her steps and inside, the door slamming shut behind her.

I’m immediately afraid that I crossed a line when I punched Reid, maybe frightening her, but Reid pulls my attention back to him.

“You motherfucker! You broke my nose!!”

I know I didn’t. There was no telltale crunch. The guy just has a nose of glass. As he shrieks at me, I feel like I might not have hit him hard enough since he can still speak, and the sound is grating. Maybe I should have broken his nose.

I grab the front of his suit and resist the urge to pull on that stupid tie when I heave him upright, and I lean in close.

“Lose her number. Lose this address. She made it clear that she wants you gone, so go.”

Again, I keep my voice low and calm, but I let the hatred I feel for this scum drip from every word. The fear in his eyes says he thinks I might kill him.

“Fine!” he sputters from beneath his hands. “Give me the ring and I’ll go.”

I’m about to drop it on the ground when he adds, “You can keep the bitch. I’ve already used her, anyway.”

I heave Reid up and throw him back into his car, enjoying the satisfying sound of him smacking into the metal. I run toward the lake between my house and Alice’s until I’m close enough to launch the ring into the water. Watching it drop under the surface with a satisfying “plink,” I turn back toward Reid, who is slumped against his car, mouth hanging open. Blood drips from his chin onto his fancy suit.

I come back up the incline with long strides. Reid fumbles with the car door behind him, seemingly afraid to tear his gaze away from me until it’s open. He’s in his seat when my hand reaches out and grabs the door he’s trying to close. I bend low to look at him.

“I never want to see you near her again. Do you understand?” It’s a rhetorical question. I stand up and slam the door. He starts his car and hits the gas, his tires spinning for a second before they gain purchase, and the car lurches away.

I look toward Alice’s house and see the curtain beside her front door shift.

There’s a small step ladder beside the patio and lights hanging from the home. She must have been decorating when Reid showed up.

I wait, but Alice doesn’t come back outside. I look down at the blood on my hands and drag myself back to my house to take a breath before I try to talk to Alice.

So much for keeping my distance.

Fuck.

CHAPTER 19

Alice

Islide down the wall next to the door and land with an ungraceful thump on the ground. I look down at my left hand and see my finger and wrist are red. I think back to the grip Reid had on my forearm like my bones were being ground against one another, and I’m disgusted. I move my wrist and fingers gingerly, and I’m grateful that, while a little sore, things seem to move the way they’re supposed to.

I feel a wave of shame over having let such a brute into my life and for having put up with him for so long.

I still can’t believe Reid came all the way up here, expecting to haul me back to Boston. Actually, he expected that I’d go willingly and maybe even thank him for going through all that trouble to find me. I don’t even know how he got the address. It must have been written on something I left behind. This was more effort than I remember him ever putting into our relationship while it still existed.

I cover my face with my hands. Jake came to my rescue. He just accepted that I wasn’t here to “bring down the neighborhood,” and now my presence invited that fiasco right outside of his home.

I’m humiliated.

I’m also a little jealous that he’s the one who got to punch Reid in the face. I hope he didn’t hurt himself on Reid’s hard head. I can’t help the deranged laugh that bursts from me. The shot of ill-timed glee over Reid getting what he deserves dissipates as quickly as it arrives.

Jake and I had been doing so well, I think. Yesterday was a really good day, and now I feel like I’ve ruined it all. I want to thank him for what he just did, but he went straight back to his house as soon as Reid left. I doubt he wants to see me.

I heave myself off the floor and walk the few steps over to my couch, pulling an oversized blanket off the back and cocooning myself in it. As the shock of Reid’s visit starts to wear off, my tears start again. Reid took so much from me, and now it’s like he might have taken the peace I feel at Barefoot Lake, too. I mourn the joy I fear I’ve lost until I cry myself to sleep.

I wake some unknown amount of hours later to knocking on the door. Based on how frantic the tapping sounds, I expect I slept through at least the first attempt to get my attention. I jolt upright when the events of this morning come back to me.