Page 136 of A Better Place

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

James

I’ve been gone for six days packing up the rest of my house and signing the paperwork for the sale. I’m grateful it sold but hated being away from Carly and Jack, especially with knowing Vince is in the area. It’s been the longest six days of my life.

It may be awful of me to say, but I’m praying Jack isn’t at her house when I get there. Not that I don’t love the kid. In the short amount of time I have known him, we’ve built a good relationship. He’s an amazing kid, someone who’s fiercely protected his mother from things no kid should ever see. But instead of it breaking him, he used it to make him stronger. To make her stronger.

I still can’t get over how well he handled hearing the news of Vince being back. After we took Carly’s new car to her house, we knew we needed to tell him. She showed me a picture of Vince and sure enough, it was the same guy I sparred with at Tate’s gym, which means it’s the same guy who was sitting outside Carly’s house at Christmas. After finding her car tire not just flat but what looked like possibly slashed, we felt like Jack had to know.

“Hey, kiddo, James and I have something to tell you.”

“What’s up?” he asks us wearily.

“First off, I need you to understand something.” I look at him square on and wait until I have his eye contact before I continue talking. “You and your mom… you’re with me, you know? I would never let anything happen to you. I want you to really get that. To really understand it, okay?”

He nods his head. “I get it, but you’re kind of freaking me out,” he admits.

“Jack, son, Vince is in Michigan.”

We both wait for the news to register, and when it does his face goes pale and his body rigid.

“What?” he whispers. “How do you know? Has he been here? Has he hurt you? Did you see him?”

He asks questions in rapid succession then stands up and paces around the room.

“Relax, kiddo, we haven’t seen him. Well, I did. At the gym – when I went to bout with the guy. Figured out it was him. But… He hasn’t hurt your mom. We don’t know how much he’s been here. The how we know is a little weird. Tate and my buddy Will from the shooting range actually ran into him at a bar a few towns over. He came around with a picture of the two of you, asking everyone he saw if they knew you guys. No one admitted to knowing either of you, so we were hopeful he wouldn’t stick around. But lately, well, there’s been a few…”

“A few what?” He turns wild eyes to his mom, so I let her take over.

“Instances. Nothing major, I promise you. James ran into him at Tate’s, like he said, and we’re pretty sure Vince knew who he was. We think he was parked by the house on Christmas, and the morning we bought my new car? We came out of James’s and one of my tires was flat. You need to know, okay? He would never hurt you. Ever. I know that deep in my bones. And I know how to protect myself. My amazing son made sure of that.” Carly winks at him when she grabs his hands in hers.

“But…”

“I don’t want you to worry, okay? Just… be aware. If you see something you think is fishy. If you hear anything… if you start getting weird phone calls or whatever. Just be alert and know that we’re taking care of it.”

He sits in the chair, quietly taking it all in. His shoulders rise and fall once before he looks up with determination in his eyes. “What do I do if I do see something weird?”

And just like that, we moved from Jack being scared, to Jack wanting to be prepared.

There’s no sign of Jack’s pickup in the driveway, which makes me reach for the door handle a little quicker. I’m barely out of the car when I hear something that makes my stomach drop and heart pound.

“Ahhhhhh!!! Too much! It hurts! Mdfoghsjeruhajn!!”

Carly’s pained voice pierces my ears as I bound up the stairs and burst through the unlocked front door.

“Carly!? Baby!?” I holler, praying that I didn’t somehow miss seeing a strange car parked outside, praying even harder that Vince hasn’t decided to make a reappearance and found her after all this time.

“It hurts! No more! Mother-fmmfmf!”

Her voice is coming from what sounds like her bedroom. I race toward it, grab one of Jack’s lacrosse sticks that was sitting in the living room, heart still pounding. Her bedroom door is open, but the door to her bathroom that’s attached to it is closed.

I open the door with the stick raised over my head, ready to take on whoever is hurting my girl, but what I see… a man can never, ever… ever un-see. Carly is sitting on the edge of her bathtub in just a bra, one foot on the ground, the other foot resting on top, but her thighs awkwardly stuck together. Her head is tilted down, and she has what looks like a strip of goo dangling from her fingertips. Tears are in her eyes, her hair that looks like it was once in a messy bun is now completely disheveled, she has the same dark-colored goo in a couple places on her forehead, and mascara streaks run down her face. She’s still beautiful — but funny. Definitely funny.

“Next time I see Tess and Lauren I’m so-o-o-o kicking their asses. I can totally do it, too. They told me this wouldn’t hurt. This. Flippin’. Hurts!” she mumbles to herself.

“How’s… it going?” I ask from the doorway, the smile evident in my voice, even to my own ears. I lean the lacrosse stick against the wall, pretty positive I don’t need to be fending off any dangerous intruders.

Her head jerks up, and nervous eyes land on me.

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