Chapters (58)
“Fucking hell.” Vincent took a deep breath, sounding as if this was the last thing he’d wanted to hear. “Look, Jess, you have to be careful, okay? Reagan isn’t safe. I don’t know how much Manson has told you, but that guy is a fucking shitbag. I wouldn’t put it past him to start something if he knows you’ve been spending time with us.”
Dread roiled within me as I replayed the incident in my mind. The way Reagan had looked at me, how hard he’d gripped me — yeah, he wasn’t a safe person. And he’d seen me that day with Vincent, so it was likely he’d made the association between me and them.
Vincent went on, “If you need to go someplace, call us and one of us will drive you. Seriously.”
“I’d be calling almost every morning,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ll be careful.”
“No.” His voice was firm. “It’s not enough for you to be looking over your shoulder every time you walk somewhere. I’m not going to risk that guy catching you alone. He’s the reason I have a gun in the house, Jess. I need you to understand that.”
This was even worse than I’d thought. My fingers clenched on one of my pillows, and I dug my nails into the fluffy surface.
“It doesn’t make sense for you guys to drive me back and forth from the gym at 7 am every other day,” I said. “That’s too much.”
“I’ll talk to the others. For now, if you go anywhere besides the gym, tell me. Location and address. I know that sounds overbearing as fuck, but I’m serious. Do that for me, please?”
He sounded genuinely concerned, even fearful. The fact that he was so protective of me, when I shouldn’t have meant much of anything to him at all, made my growing fear lessen a bit. At least I didn’t have to deal with this alone. “Okay. Okay, I will.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise, sir.”
Finally, I heard a smile in his voice. “Good girl. All right, I’ll talk to you soon. L—” He cut off abruptly and cleared his throat, as if he’d stumbled over the word. “Later.”
41
41
Vincent
If there was ever something serious going down, we handled it together. I’d fucked up when I hadn’t told Manson about his dad right away; that was my bad. But I wasn’t going to make that mistake again, not now.
Not when things had already escalated.
We were all gathered in the living room after dinner, tired after another long day. Jojo had wedged herself between Manson and Lucas on the couch, her mouth hanging open as she slept. Little Bo was curled up on Jason’s lap, as usual, and as for me?
I had a big bag of weed.