“You said you would either way.” I raised my eyebrows.

“I would have if I needed to.”

In my opinion, this incident fell firmly under the “needed to” category. Clearly, I wasn’t the only stubborn one in this relationship.

I shook my head, my lips drawn in a thin line. “James.”

Her phone vibrated again.

Easing down onto the foot of her bed, I nodded at it. “Mind if I see?”

I liked to keep tabs on what Morrison was saying and doing because he pinged my crazy radar—which, generally speaking, was pretty spot on. Taking the temperature of how he was behaving at any given time was important. Just in case.

Was this that worrying thing Ward was talking about last night? Whatever. It was necessary. Justified too.

Bailey shrugged. “Sure.” She stood and came to sit beside me, handing me her phone. But her expression was off—almost like there was something she didn’t want me to see. Weird.

The latest one said: Answer me.

My grip on the phone tightened. Oh, I’ll fucking answer you.

I scrolled back to his previous string of messages.

Luke: It’s rude to ignore texts, Bailey.

I scrolled again.

Luke: I could have taken care of you. And your family. Now your parents have to sell their house. They’re going to lose everything because of you.

The blood in my veins turned to hot molten lava. What a piece of shit. The fucking nerve of this guy. I was too angry to read any more. Strong chance I’d break her phone if I did.

With a death grip on the device, I glanced up at her. “Can I please write this motherfucker back?”

“If you want to.”

You bet I wanted to.

Bailey: Hey asshole. It’s Carter. Text this number again, and I’ll fuck up a lot more than your knee.

I hit send and locked her phone, handing it back to her. I doubted it would deter the creep anyway. Changing her number would probably be a whole lot more effective than blocking him.

With that said, there was a more urgent issue at hand.

“Not trying to pry,” I said carefully, “but is it true that your parents are selling their house?” Or losing their house, from the sounds of it, but I was trying to be delicate. It wasn’t my strong suit, so I was trying really, really hard.

“Yeah, they are.”

“Morrison knew that, and I didn’t?” I asked, putting my arm around her shoulders and pulling her closer. Her hair smelled like something tropical, maybe coconut and pineapple.

Bailey looked down, placing her palms on her dark jeans and refusing to meet my eyes. “Derek must have told him.”

“Circling back to the me not knowing part,” I said gently. “Why didn’t you tell me?”