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“I’ll talk to you later, Red.”
He walks off, and I stare at his back, the sheer size of him practically filling the hallway before he turns the corner and lets himself out through the front door.
Meanwhile, I’m frozen in place, my eyes watering, my body so cold that I can’t shake myself of the one thought that is destroying me all over again.
Ezra is done.
He’s gone.
Just like when I lost him after high school.
Except this time there will be no ringing phone. No efforts to talk to me.
Despite ten years of trying to let him go, I’ve somehow never felt so broken.
Ezra
“So let me get this straight. You fuckers abducted some chick, like went full white van and twiddling candy on her, planning to do fuck knows what to her, and she somehow managed to not only wreck the house where you kept her, but also flattened three sets of tires before stealing the only functional car left?”
Priest glances up at me, air hissing from the hydraulic jack as he lowers one corner of my Jeep to the ground now that the tire is fixed.
Standing against the side of Tanner’s SUV, I have my arms crossed over my chest, my jaw tense from waiting here an entire fucking day to get this shit fixed.
“Yeah, that sounds about right.”
Priest shakes his head and grins, his hands dirty as fuck from working on the cars, the chain hanging down from his belt-loop glimmering beneath the sunlight.
Standing up, he wipes his hands on his already raggedy jeans and laughs.
“Well, first, I need to meet this woman. Hell, as impressed as I am with what she did, I might have a crush on her. And second,” he glances at Tanner and the other guys before returning his attention to me, “all you assholes have some fucked-up ideas in your heads about how to charm women.”
Moving to my back tire to begin the process of fixing it, he shakes his head again.
“I mean, seriously. Let’s start with Mr. Stick Up His Ass,” he points at Tanner.
Tanner, who, like me, is done with this day, scowls.
“Fuck off, thug.”
Cocking a brow at that, Priest grins.
“That fucker has me wreck some chick’s car so she can’t get away from him. And then Gabe skips the entire charade of pretending to be there to rescue a chick, and just takes her.”
“Just fix the cars and shut up,” Tanner snaps.
Priest shrugs, not intimidated by Tanner in the slightest.
“Hey, I’m not the one abducting women to get into their pants. That’s some serious psychopath shit you assholes have going on, and I can promise there are easier ways to make women like you.”
Trying not to laugh, I roll my neck over my tense shoulders and hope Tanner doesn’t attempt to physically shut Priest up.
Tanner’s not a guy to be fucked with, but if it came to a physical fight, I’d put my money on the guy holding a heavy lug wrench at the moment.
Priest eyes me again.
“And that’s not letting you off the hook for fighting with your brother over a chick. I mean, shit, there’s plenty to go around. Just try not to steal one like those assholes.”
“What is he talking about?”