And would he listen to what I had to say?
Or would he continue to ignore me?
I’d find out in ten seconds or less. I knocked loudly on Trey’s door. “G! Fancy meeting you here,” Trey said, a huge smile on his face. He was holding my tiny, girl puppy in his arms.
“Hi, little baby. Have the boys been nice to you?” I cooed petting her head.
“These puppies get spoiled at Uncle Trey’s house, you know that, Mommy,” Trey said in his own version of baby talk. It made me giggle every time he did it.
My eyes found the angry beast I’d been looking for. “Beau? Can I speak to you for a minute, please?” I asked him. Trey’s eyeballs nearly fell out of their sockets.
Beau shook his head. “Nope,” he said, taking a long drag from his bottle of beer.
I rolled my eyes and let out a long sigh. “One minute.”
“I said no, Martin.”
My backbone straightened, and I kept my eyes on him the whole time. “Fine. You don’t need to protect me, Beau. Smythe is just spewing shit. That doesn’t mean you need to bash the guy’s face in.”
“Yeah, it does.”
I placed my hands on my hips. “No, it doesn’t.”
“It does.”
I sighed, looking up to the ceiling. “No, it doesn’t!”
“Yeah, it does. You know why?” he asked, sitting forward in the chair, dangling his beer from his long, thick fingers.
“No, why?” I said too loudly. My voice sounded frustrated—which was exactly how I was feeling.
“Because I know firsthand that the shit he’s spewing is not true. He’s not allowed to speak about you like that.” He sat back in his chair and took another drink. “Nobody is.”
“Well—finethen.”
“Yeah, fine.”
Oh my gosh, this was not playing out well.
At all.
“And—thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Neither of us said anything. We just continued to stare at each other.
No one around us said so much as a peep.
After a minute, I turned around and left.