Page 41 of Unspoken Confessions
15
Jameson
Talk about words I couldn’t take back.
I snapped. I couldn’t help it. Nick was acting like a caged animal, thinking everyone was against him. I didn’t want to frighten him, I only wanted to stop him from storming after his dickhead father. The look on his face was enough to tell me what he planned on doing once he caught up to the man. I guess he’d snapped too, in a way.
I didn’t have the first clue what kind of relationship the two of them had, but I could put enough ingredients together to get a whiff of what had been cooking in the kitchen for a long damn time. Oh, and it smelled really fucking bad.
And if there was one thing I knew, it was that words said out of anger never ended up being the answer to a problem.
I half-listened as Jen went on in a shaky tone about the things he hadn’t filled Nick in on. He was very careful not to use panic-inducing words like ‘stalker’ and ‘obsession’, though I could tell by the shift in the air around me that it was doing little to help.
Nick was smart. He might have played aloof and cocky most of the time, but I watched him out of the side of my eye often. I got little glimpses of that spark of fear in his eyes and the twitch of his lips that said he’d caught onto something silently. I could only assume the reason he seemed so shocked now was because he’d refused to let himself really think about why Austin and myself had been hanging around. To protect himself, he’d more than likely shoved everything away, believing whatever lame excuses Jen had thrown at him to explain why he thought our presence was needed. I couldn’t blame Jen. Maybe I’d have done the same thing too if I knew Nick well enough. It wasn’t hard to see that he was a little fragile even if he tried hard to hide it. Sometimes it was just better that way and Jen clearly thought that Nick needed to be handled with kid gloves in this situation.
“We’ve got it handled,” Jen tried to assure Nick.
The four of us took up way too much of this room.
This was supposed to be Nick’s hideaway. His sanctuary. And right now, we were all tearing it down. He’d never be able to come in this room again and not think about all the shit that happened to him today and all the things he’d been filled in on.
Nick looked at me.
That one look fucking broke me.
We were doing all we could but it wasn’t enough. So with that look aimed at me that begged for reassurance from me, well, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t lie to him even if maybe that was what he really needed.
“We have a whole team and they are looking into it,” Austin said as he stepped up. “We have the best security and tech out there and that’s what we put up here for your house.”
“Who are you?” Nick asked, his attention now on Austin. Then he turned to Jen. “Where the fuck did you get them?”
“They are Reed Willis’ bodyguards,” Jen answered.
I had to hold in a snort.
Reed Willis didn’t do bodyguards. Even less than Mr. Movie Star did. But I couldn’t let on to the fact that was a lie, which I might have hated a little. If I did, well, there would be too many questions that would arise. From that one statement, I gathered that Jen didn’t know much. Like Reed had fed him a small lie in order to help him out. But the connection I couldn’t make was how he knew Reed in the first place.
“Reed Willis? The tech guy?” Nick asked, confusion creasing his brow. Clearly, he was in the same boat as I was.
“Uh, yes,” Jen answered. “Okay, so this is probably not something he wants to get out, but I feel a little backed into a corner. You know how my aunt has that house and youth center for kids that had a hard time like I did.”
Nick nodded, but I could tell he still wasn’t connecting the dots.
“Well, Reed volunteers there. And so does one of his partners. They always come in together, but I suppose that’s not the point,” Jen went on. “I guess he at one time had been looking for a place for a friend, he didn’t really go into details, but that was how he found my aunt’s place. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out, but Reed said my aunt roped him into coming around. She’s good at that.” He let out a little laugh followed by a warm smile. It was easy to see that his aunt meant a lot to him. “He teaches the kids some programming stuff or something. He also bought a bunch of computers for the center. My aunt can’t stop talking about how much she appreciates it. I think she might have a crush on him but knows she doesn’t stand a chance. And his partner, Keith, teaches a couple of the kids how to play some kind of instrument.”
Jen shrugged and I could tell he was rambling a little. Something that was unlike him and I wondered if it was from nervousness or because he didn’t like to talk about this side of his life. Or perhaps, he was avoiding getting to the point for whatever reason.
“Cello,” Austin quickly provided.
I cocked a brow at him. How the fuck did he know that?
“I pay attention,” Austin said pointedly, glaring at me. I glared back. “Okay, fine, I hear things since I’m there all the time. So I care about my boss and his life. Sue me.”
I rolled my eyes and turned my attention back to Jen.
“Yeah, okay.” Jen shook his head as if saying he wasn’t getting in the middle of that. “Anyway, Reed caught me one day right after I’d gotten one of the letters. So, I asked him if he knew of any good security detail in Atlanta. His response was something about having too many of his own, and how he doesn’t really like bodyguards, so he wanted to cut back. I don’t know. I was a little freaked out and kind of only half-listening. Sorry. But he offered up some of his because he knew they could use the income. At least that is what he told me.”
“So you just trusted him? You didn’t do a background check on them or anything?” Nick was talking a couple of pitches higher than his normal tone.
