I can’t help but kiss her again, to somehow glue those words down between us because I never want her to forget she said them.
“I’m glad that jackhole showed up,” I smile, pressing my lips to hers yet again. “I don’t know how long I would have had to wait to hear you say that otherwise.”
She grins sheepishly. “I’m sorry.”
But I shake my head because I don’t want a woman who apologizes for protecting herself. “I understood your hesitancy. You’re a forking amazing mom. You were looking out for your guy.”
She turns to look at the collapsed man on her porch, then faces me again. “I’ll wait in the car with Jett.”
My chest inflates pridefully at the fact that she’d allow me to do battle for her. That she wants me to take this on, on her behalf. This isn’t some angryWheel Get Yourider or a technician trying to charge her too much to connect her fucking router. She’s asking me to deal with the last part of her former life, to handle him in a way that leaves her better off. It’s a big thing she’s giving to me, and I don’t take it lightly.
“Give me a few minutes,” I say, cupping her face to plant yet another kiss on her lips.
My casual Saturday morning basketball shorts, hoodie, and baseball cap feel like fire on my body as I quietly close the door to my car using my hip. Adrenaline is tearing through me at the speed of light, and as I close the distance between the driveway and the front porch, the first bead of sweat slides down my back.
Standing over him, I take a moment to study this fuckface before waking him.
He’s blonde, with one of those fucking douchey haircuts that requires styling everyday because the part is so extreme with one side long and the other near non existent. Only his hair isn’t styled nor does it even look clean—shoved to one side, dark with grease. Bloated cheeks covered in blonde stubble, long sleeved blue button-up wrinkled like he’s slept in it for days–Dustin definitely looks the part of trashy entertainment lawyer that was ridden too hard and put away wet.
With my sneaker clad foot, I kick the bottom of his dress shoe gently. His frame–shorter and thicker than my own–moves slightly, he snorts, his eyes flutter, but he doesn’t wake. I kick him again, really hoping he doesn’t wake and I’ll get to actually fucking kick this loser.
But he rouses, blinking at me a few times with confusion of all sorts evident in his beady, bloodshot eyes. “Who’re you?” he slurs, palming the concrete around him as he lurches forward, making the world's most pathetic attempt to get to his feet. After failing twice, I extend a hand to him.
He glares at my palm like I’m dog shit in human form and stumbles to his feet without my help.Yeah, because hugging a house is way more manly than taking a hand out. Okay Dipshit Dusty, whatever, man.
Ignoring his question about me, I shove my hands in my pockets and wait for him to look me in the eye. When he does, I say, “I’ll talk slowly, since I can tell you need it. And I’ll be very clear, so there are no excuses.” I step into his face, smelling weed and booze heavy on his breath. I turn my head to spit out a cough before facing him again. “You are a stranger to her. Strangers have no place in her life. You do not belong, she owes you nothing, you are entitled to nothing, and you are–and this is the most important part–not welcome here.Ever.”
I step back and watch him process those words. As expected, it takes him a few seconds to calibrate, his brain still laced with the bad shit. He leans against the brick, studying me, then smiles.
Fuckingsmiles.
God, do I hate this fuckhead.
“It’s funny to you that the woman you once loved and had a child with doesn’t want anything to do with you? That she’d changetownsto escape you?” I let out a low whistle, shaking my head to match. “That’s some sense of humor you got.”
He spits onto the grass nearby, reaching back to grip the wall. He’s too fucked up not to hold onto to something.
“She still wants me. You have no fuckin’ clue what you’re talking about.” He looks me up and down, his eyes stopping on my Nike sneakers before he gives a snort of disapproval. “What are you, like a high school student?”
I laugh at that. “What if I am? What’s it matter to you? You may as well be standing on the porch of a complete stranger. Because that’s what you are, man.”
“I’m here to see Beck, not you,man,” he adds, trying to be all condescending and judgmental but the thing this fuckhead doesn’t realize is that I don’t give a shit what he thinks or says because I don’t respect him.
I tap my chest. “Beck askedmeto talk to you on her behalf because she wants nothing to do with you.”
His lips curl into an eerie smile. “Is that why she showed up at my house yesterday?” He leans forward and the smell of yesterday’s booze sends a ripple of nausea through me. “Because she wants nothing to do with me?”
My eyes flick to the cab of my car ten feet away. I don’t want to look because then he’ll know she’s here, just feet away, but his words slice me open. I literally feel my heart fall out onto the dirty, chipped concrete of her elevated front porch.
“Ohh, shit,” Dustin draws out with impunity, patronizing me. “You didn’t know.” He shrugs. “You must’ve been in class or flippin’ burgers after school.” He mocks a pout. “Or did you have detention?”
He follows my eyes, and that’s when he turns–when he spots her. I drop a palm to the top of his shoulder faster than I realized I could, and spin him back to face me. “Nope.”
Jerking back, he practically runs down the porch and is at the passenger door, gripping the handle. But again, I’m faster than this slug of a man, and I yank him back. He stumbles a few times which is more because of him than my yank but whatever.
“Don’t fucking touch me,man,” he hisses, gripping his shoulder like the place I touched him is somehow damaged.
“You have no business being here, and you need to go. I can’t be more clear.”