“Azalea and I are having a private conversation,” he responded, his words slurring.
Azalea clenched her jaw. He stepped forward as Jewel came in closer. This was about to blow up. Jewel, as much as she said she was over it, was not, and Brady was drunk, and he was not a pleasant drunk. Azalea stepped back into the house, pressed her phone to her ear, and muttered, “Call Bridget. Now.”
She hung up and pocketed her phone before stepping out into the rain to join the two idiots in front of her. Jewel eyed Brady up and down, sneering at him as rain fell into her eyes. He tried to tower over her, and she could see exactly how the fight went down in the parking lot of the grocery store without needing to have been there.
“What the hell are you doing here, Brady?” Jewel opened up.
Water poured down Azalea’s face as she stepped close to get in between them if she needed.
“I’m here to have a private conversation with Azalea.”
“That’s Ms. Fuller to you.” Jewel’s upper lip curved.
Azalea put a hand out between them. “This is not what either of you came here for tonight. If you want to argue, don’t do it in the middle of a storm, in the middle of my front yard, while drunk.” She said the last pointedly to Brady. “You can do it over the phone if you want, but now is not the time or the place.”
Brady gripped Azalea’s upper arm as if to drag her toward the house. She twisted hard and broke his grasp, turning on him with a glare. “You will not touch me again, Brady. Do you understand?”
He put both his hands up in surrender. Then he turned on Jewel. “I can see I was right.”
“Right about what?” Jewel stepped in close.
“You’re obsessed with her.” He pointedly nodded his head in Azalea’s direction.
Jewel froze. Azalea turned on him. “That is inappropriate, rude, and flat-out mean, Brady. I thought you knew better than that. Whether or not you struggle with someone on the sexual spectrum does not give you permission to belittle and bully them. Get out of my yard, now.”
He threw his hands up again and walked backward toward his truck. Azalea put a hand on Jewel’s arm to hold her in place as she watched Brady leave. He drove to the end of the block and took a left, heading toward the highway. Just as his taillights disappeared, Bridget’s cruiser lights flashed.
Azalea walked right up to the side window and bent down as Bridget opened it up. “Hey, Brady was just here. It’s fine now, but he’s drunk and he’s driving if you want to give him another lesson for the night.”
“You sure it’s fine?”
Azalea glanced back at Jewel. “Yeah, we’re fine. It’s been handled for now.”
“You tell me if something else happens.”
“You got it.” Stepping away from the car as Bridget drove off, Azalea turned to Jewel and grabbed her by the arm.
Once they were inside, Azalea went to the bathroom and grabbed two towels. She tossed one at Jewel while she used the other on her hair. She wasn’t drenched, not as bad as Jewel. “What are you doing here?”
Jewel shrugged. “You didn’t answer my text.”
“It’s ten-thirty at night, and because I didn’t answer one text, you came over?”
Jewel rolled her eyes and collapsed onto the couch. “No.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Brady.”
“How did you even know he was here?”
“Asshole texted me to tell me where he was and what he was planning on doing.”
Azalea drew in a deep, slow breath, trying to figure out where to even go with the conversation. She did it again to give herself another minute to think. “What did his text say?”
“He was coming over here to ask you out.”
“So you just thought I couldn’t handle it?”