I took a few steps in that direction, mind and body wavering on following after her as I strained to hear the girls loudly explaining what happened.
“Get out.”
My head snapped up, eyes widening and body instantly tensing and shivering as I took in the man beside me. The anger and wrath mixing with the fear in his eyes.
One look at Beau like this, and I was brought right back to when I was six years old—to the first time I’d really seen him lose control. He’d had Hunter on the floor, hitting him over and over again, and I’d tried to stop him. Beau had shoved me back, and I’d fallen into the corner of the table, knocking the air from my lungs.
Every time Beau had gotten close to coming unleashed since, that icy grip on my lungs and feeling of helplessness surrounded and overwhelmed me.
Time hadn’t changed that.
“We had an agreement,” Beau continued. “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”
“I was invited.”
“Consider that shit retracted,” he sneered as he roughed a trembling hand over his face. By the time it was at his side again, it was already clenched tight in a fist.
I glanced in the direction Savannah had gone even though I could still hear her calming down her oldest son before focusing on Beau again. “You can’t do this,” I said, accusation weaving through my hushed words.
“Bet.”
“I’ve already ruined my life—” We both went still when there was a lull in the conversation from the other room.
When it picked back up, Beau said, “The thing about you truly being gone? After a while, you didn’t exist in my world.” His shoulders lifted. It was a faint motion, but everything Beau did seemed so big with his overwhelming presence. “Now that you’re here . . .” His words rang with meaning, screaming so many things that didn’t need to be voiced.
I existed. I brought the past rushing back. I made it real again.
But it had never stopped being real for me.
When he continued, his voice was low and lethal and sent a rush of icy fear across my arms. “Get out of my house. Get out of this town. Stay the fuck away from my wife.”
“Beau, you can’t demand that. That was—God, we were teenagers.”
“Your decision,” he reminded me through gritted teeth. “My acceptance. Our agreement.”
“An agreement we made thirteen years ago,” I countered, trying like hell to ignore the tremor in my voice. “I can’t keep living my life based off a decision I made when I was seventeen and terrified. I refuse to.”
“Remember the scenario I gave you before you left?” he seethed, stepping close enough that I could feel his anger and his fear pouring off of him. “Right now, it’s happening. And I can’t let it happen. Leave.” The last was a harsh growl as he turned and stormed out of the kitchen, disappearing just as Savannah came back in, blowing out an exaggerated breath.
“Tug-of-war over a toy they both have turned into an all-out war, and Wyatt got hit in the eye.” She waved a hand through the air, her eyes rolling. “Kids.”
“Was Avalee—”
“No, no.” A little smile pulled at her lips. “She’s so precious. She kept telling me that they weren’t supposed to fight. That they need to share.”
I pressed my fingers to my aching temple, my head shaking softly. “That girl,” I murmured. “So bossy.”
“Precious,” Savannah corrected. “Anyway, sorry about that—and Beau.” Her eyes widened comically. “That man, I swear. He’s gonna make it so no one is allowed here when he’s home. But don’t listen to him. He’ll come around, or he’ll get over it. Same as he did with his brothers.”
My smile froze, and I turned so she wouldn’t see the change in it. “I dunno, Savannah, maybe I should go.”
“No, no. Please stay,” she urged gently as she took her chair from earlier. “Don’t listen to Beau, he’s fine.” When she saw me hesitate, she reached for the seat I’d been in. “Please. You’ve been gone so long, and there’s still so much you don’t know. So much I don’t know.”
After another moment, I reluctantly fell into the chair and tried to hold onto my smile.
If only she knew how true that was.
“But did you see him?” Laura, one of my roommates, asked. Pretending to swoon as she flopped dramatically on the large chair in our new living room. “And the way he speaks? OMG.”
My mouth curved up in a soft smile, my head shaking faintly as I scrolled through Savannah’s social media page for the first time in nearly two years. Searching for that connection back home even though I’d had to sever it.
Searching for him.
Hunter hadn’t deleted his page, but he hadn’t posted anything in two years. No status updates, pictures . . . nothing.
And I hated how much I’d missed as I looked at my best friend’s page then. Seeing random photos of her and Beau, surly as ever. Pictures of her engagement ring . . . an engagement I hadn’t known about because of my decisions.
My agreement.
Two years later, and it still forced a stake through my stomach. It still crushed my lungs, stealing my ability to breathe. It still ripped me apart, piece by piece.
And that was just with Savannah.
It was why I hadn’t allowed myself to do this in two years, and it was why I needed to stop before I fell down a rabbit hole I couldn’t get out of.
I went through the motions of blocking Hunter and Savannah again, then slowly closed my laptop. Trying desperately to ignore the burning in the backs of my eyes as I focused on my two roommates.
“Don’t you think?” Jessica asked with a glazed-over look.
“Think what?”
“Earth to Madison—Rafael’s voice!” she said with a little huff like she couldn’t believe I wasn’t swooning away with them.
“The hint of his accent and the way his tongue just . . .”—Laura made a little half-circle with curved hands—“curls around each word. It’s delicious.”
“Oh, I bet he can do all kinds of things with that tongue,” Jessica said with a smirk before the two burst into laughter.
“How are you so immune to him?” Laura said, tossing one of the couch pillows my way.
I caught it and shrugged. “I’m not. He’s . . .” Words failed me for a moment as I thought of Rafael Preto. “Incredibly gorgeous.”
“Sinful,” Laura corrected.
“And he’s been charming and funny,” I added.
“Here we go,” Jessica cut in as the girls both groaned. “Miss Southern Belle is here to politely turn away another god for some Mr. Perfect back home.”
“He’s just not him,” the girls finished together.
I forced a tight smile as I watched them, trying to rise above the pain threatening to drown me.
I’d been rooming with these two since starting at the University of Washington. First in the dorms and now in our apartment. They’d watched me turn down nearly every guy who came my way, all with the excuse they’d just tossed at me.
But I hadn’t turned down Rafael. We were going on our third date in a couple hours.