For some reason, just saying those words made my stomach clench and my fingers tighten into a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel. The jealousy that spiked through me just then wasn’t an appropriate response at all. I couldn’t stand this guy. I didn’t want his attention. Or at least that was what I was telling myself. So why did the thought of Rina with Jensen leave such a sour taste in my mouth?
His jaw ticked, the muscle working as he clenched his teeth together. “You can talk your friend up all you want. It won’t make a difference.”
I was secretly thrilled and scared to death by his response. “Let go of my door, please.”
“Where do you have to be?”
“Jensen,” I growled, using his name for the first time, “move away.”
He leaned closer, those eyes flashing with lightning. “Then answer the question.”
“Work!” I snapped, losing grip on my control, and it was all his fault. I’d never felt this unbalanced in my life. “I have to go to work, and you’re making me late! And for your information, this right here is why I don’t like you. You do whatever the hell you want without giving a shit to how it affects anyone else. Now move . . . back.”
For the second time in a handful of minutes, he surprised me by shooting up and stepped away from my car. I instantly yanked the door shut and started the engine. He was still standing there as I backed out of the spot and drove from the parking lot.
And as I glanced in my rearview mirror, I told myself I didn’t care about the flash of melancholy I’d seen chiseled into his features.
But I knew that was a damn lie.
Chapter Four
Jensen
“Come on you son of a bitch,” I grunted, my grip on the screwdriver tightening until the color bleached out of my knuckles. I put all my power into trying to force that screw to turn, only for it to strip, causing my hand to slip. My knuckles scraped against the wood, slicing open and leaving a trail of blood.
“Goddamn, motherfucker!” Throwing the screwdriver across the room, I stood up and gave the boards a solid kick, making the wood splinter and snap. “Stupid piece of shit!”
“So is this the infamous temper you been tellin’ us about?”
I looked over my shoulder to find Gage standing in the doorway, shoulder propped against the frame as he took a huge bite out of one of my apples. “I told you, asshole. If you’re gonna keep raiding my fridge, you have to put in for groceries.”
Laeth joined us just then, coming up beside Gage and lifting one of my beers to his lips. “What’s goin’ on?”
“Jensen’s beating up a poor defenseless piece of furniture.”
Laeth looked down at where tools and boards and screws littered the bedroom floor before arching a brow. “What’s that supposed to be anyway? A bookshelf?”
“It’s supposed to be a bunk bed set. But those assholes at Ikea don’t know how to make an instruction manual that people can actually read.” Stomping over to them, I snatched the beer from Laeth’s hand. “And you pricks need to stay the hell outta my fridge.”
Gage leaned closer to Laith and muttered out the side of his mouth. “I think it’s his time of the month,” before biting off another chunk of apple.
If I didn’t love those guys like brothers, I’d beat the hell out of them. But more than they annoyed me, I was thankful as hell to have them around. The truth was, I didn’t know where I would’ve been today had it not been for them. Aside from Shane and Brantley, they were the closest thing to family I’d ever had. We’d been in the service together. They had my back in more than just the warzones. The three of us owed each other our lives, both figuratively and literally. But it was more than that.
They knew everything about me, even the ugliest truths I’d never told anyone else. They knew about my past. About the nightmares I’d grown up with, about Shane. And they were still here.
When I made the decision to leave the Army, they hadn’t blinked at leaving with me. They knew why I had to come back home, and how hard that was going to be for me, so they’d packed up their lives and moved to Redemption without me having to ask.
With the skills and training we’d received during our time in the service, we’d come up with the idea to open Elite Security, a personal security business. We were based in Redemption, but we worked all over Tennessee, and sometimes the surrounding states. I’d worried at first that I wouldn’t be welcomed back in this small, tight-knit community, and that our attempt at starting a business would take a hit from that. We’d stayed afloat at first because of our contracts in other cities, but when a man named Jase Hyland hired us during a tense situation involving his woman and his parents, the rest of the town had seen the outcome of that case and—somewhat hesitantly and with a shitload of trepidation—welcomed us into the fold.
But I hadn’t come home to start a business. I’d come home for them, for the life and family I’d left behind. I’d come back because I’d left my reasons for existing behind years ago, and it was time to reclaim them. I’d left town as an angry asshole who didn’t deserve to be a father, and I certainly didn’t deserve a woman as incredible as Shane, but I had changed. I wasn’t that guy anymore. For years, I’d busted my ass to become a man worthy of the woman who’d held my heart in the palm of her hands from the first moment I laid eyes on her. A man worthy of the child we’d made.
I’d been back a little over four months now, and while my relationship with my son was working to fill an empty place inside of me, I still wasn’t any closer to winning Shane back than I’d been the day I stepped foot over the town limits. It was time to step up my game. Only, I didn’t have the first fucking clue how to do that.
“Those bunk beds mean Shane’s finally gonna let you have the little rug rat for overnights?” Laeth asked, a gaze of longing resting on the beer bottle I was holding. That look caused the skin on the back of my neck to prickle. It was barely after eleven in the morning on a weekday, and already he was drinking—something he’d started doing more frequently lately.
Glancing over, I caught Gage’s eye and we shared a look of concern. It wasn’t uncommon for Laeth to kick back with a drink every now and then, but he had slowly started to get worse. It went from every once in a while to hitting up the bars on Friday and Saturday nights and getting shit-faced with alarming frequency. Now he was popping the top on a beer in the middle of a weekday. It might have been his day off, but the pattern was becoming worrisome. Something was up, but no matter how many times we asked, he’d insist it was nothing.
“Not yet,” I answered, pushing past the guys and heading for the kitchen. They followed after me as I continued. “I’m hoping if she sees I’ve got a space set up for him, she’ll finally start softening to the idea. In the meantime, I want to have something ready for when or if it finally happens.”
I dumped the rest of the beer down the sink and tossed the bottle in the trash. Moving to the fridge, I pulled out three waters and passed them out before bracing my hands on the island and looking across to where they sat on the new stools I’d purchased a couple weeks back. My house was still a work in progress, but it was finally starting to come together. It was nice and big with four bedrooms, a separate study, a huge kitchen, and three and a half baths. I’d purchased it with every intention of eventually moving Shane and Brantley in with me so we could make it a home together. For now, it was just a sad, pathetic excuse of a crash pad with empty rooms and bare-bones furniture. I was still sleeping on a mattress on the floor of the master bedroom, for Christ’s sake.