Page 69 of Filthy Player

I pulled up to Paige’s house and parked my truck in the street, hopping out before I’d barely had time to shut off the engine.

Jaxon had followed me and I waited while he stopped behind me and climbed out of his black Ford Explorer. He scanned the street, nothing casual in either his appearance or his intensity. He was on the job, taking it as a personal favor to me.

I’d owe him an arm and a leg but money didn’t matter when it came to protecting Paige’s safety.

After our meeting, we’d headed over to the police department where he’d gotten permission to photograph the letters already put into evidence. It was a pain, but Jaxon usually got what he wanted.

“You talk to Paige?” he asked, meeting me in the driveway.

“No. Didn’t want to freak her out on the phone.”

“Good idea. She won’t be freaked out at all when she sees me with you.” At a few inches shorter than me, Jaxon had buzzed black hair. It matched his black pants and black shirt perfectly. Not to mention all the treacherous looking ink covering both of his arms. Completing his badass look were a pair of black sunglasses and black combat boots.

He moved like a warrior and even though he might have been a bit smaller than me, no way would I ever fuck with the guy.

He could kill me in less than ten seconds, of that I had no doubt.

I jumped up the steps to the porch and knocked on the door. Melanie answered almost immediately.

“Hey, Beaux.” She grinned at me and then caught sight of Jaxon. “Uh. What’s going on?”

“Need to talk to Paige. Is Mike here yet?”

“Yeah.” Her brow furrowed but she stepped back. “And he’s being weird. Did you call him?”

“Yeah.” I might not have warned Paige, but I did call Mike. He’d want to know everything and I didn’t want to have this conversation more than once. Once was going to be hard enough.

All I’d wanted was to be there for Paige, date her, make her life easier, and being associated with me had made her life possibly, infinitely worse.

I loved the woman. Hadn’t told her yet because we had time and we were still new, but there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her. The fact she was going to be pissed as hell made me feel like shit.

She had enough on her plate without worrying about some psycho following her around, threatening to harm her.

“Hey, you,” Paige said, walking out of the kitchen. It smelled like Italian food, rich with garlic and spices. She was wiping her hands on a towel as she greeted me, rolling to her toes to kiss my cheek. “What are you doing here?”

Like Melanie had done, Paige took in Jaxon behind me and her smile disappeared.

“What’s going on?”

“Let’s get to the living room. Is your dad awake?”

“Yeah, he’s watching ESPN. Everything okay?”

I placed my hand on her lower back and murmured, “No. Let’s sit.”

She walked woodenly in front of me, glancing back at me, mostly at Jaxon behind me. A tremble ran down her spine.

Fuck. Fuck! I’d brought this to her. I’d never felt like a bigger pile of crap.

“Okay,” she said, once she and Melanie were sitting down. Instinctively, they joined hands. Jaxon and I stood. Mike was at the fireplace, elbow on the mantle, showing none of his usually carefree demeanor. His eyes were narrowed and he didn’t remove his gaze from Jaxon. “Tell me what this is about.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

PAIGE

The temperature in the house dropped twenty degrees as I sat on the couch. I was telling myself not to freak out but it was pointless.

I was totally wigging out. The guy covered in tattoos and black standing next to Beaux looked menacing, like he could kill a guy in five seconds. Snap their neck before they saw it coming.

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