Page 57 of Oathbreaker

“Are you going to hold on to this grudge so long, you’re going to alienate yourself from me?” Something flickers across his face, and I push. “From Frankie?”

Silence, long and tense.

Then he exhales and I finally see some of the stubborn fade away.

“No,” he mutters, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Relief pours through me. “Good.”

“But I need a little time to sort this shit through.”

“I can give you that, big bro,” I say softly.

We hug, and then, disappointed but not hopeless, knowing that time is the least I can allow him, I let him walk me to my car.

I’m just turning onto my street when my cell rings.

I jab at the screen. “Hello?”

“Hey, baby.”

I still, lungs hitching. Then murmur, “Hey, West. How are you?”

He fills me in on the road trip. I tell him the latest with the family and Frankie.

It’s not easy, not like it normally is.

There are too many pauses, and I stumble over Colt’s name more than once.

Just a hiccup, I know.

We’ll get back to normal.

“I should probably go,” I say after I sit parked in my garage, my car still running for a solid five minutes.

“Are you and Frankie still coming to the game tomorrow?”

Right. The game I promised both West and Frankie we’d be at.

The game I forgot about because my life is a shitshow.

“Yeah,” I tell him softly. “We’ll be there.”

He pauses, long enough that I think I’ve lost him.

But before I can ask if he’s still there, his voice comes back on.

“Is Colt coming too?”

I suck in a breath. “Is—would that be okay with you?”

Another pause. Then, “Of course. You’re my girlfriend, and he’s Frankie’s dad and Banks’s friend. We should spend some time together.”

“Oh,” I whisper. “Right.”

“I trust you, baby.”

The thing is…