Page 17 of The Comeback Road (Leaving #2)

Lexie

I couldn’t help that my body sagged briefly in relief at his closeness, almost like it was waiting for him. But, unfortunately, my mind couldn’t forget all that had happened. I sighed in annoyance. “Jace. Now really isn’t a good time.”

Somehow, I was feeling drained and on edge at once.

I’d already started feeling like Rockland wasn’t my home, like I was an intruder on all that place was becoming.

Like the interchangeable piece, I didn’t really have any reason to be there other than Magnolia.

And Magnolia was flourishing, doing something really special with her upcoming clinic, and had found her forever in mending the fences of her past and in Sloan.

They had both grown up there. They all seemed to have grown up together, and their lives were threaded—threads of the past, present, and weaving into the future.

There was no place that I could fit to be stitched in.

I felt like a loose thread that was about to be carried away in the wind.

“It’s just—I just—I couldn’t let you walk away and leave it like that…”

I just continued to stare at him, confused as to why he was even there in the first place. Jace had made what he wanted abundantly clear. “Lexie, listen, I just—I don’t know…I don—”

I couldn’t help the bitter, emotionless laugh that erupted out of me. It was such a foreign sound, so unreal. “Why are you here, Jace?”

“I just—I want to talk. I want to try to get this straightened out so we can be fr—”

“Don’t you dare.” I whispered. How quiet I’d gotten made him instantly stop sputtering his nonsense. “Friends? Is that how you rationalize it?”

Jace stood, staring at me, and since he didn’t feel the need to respond, I kept going.

“You knew exactly what you were doing, what we were doing. We spent weeks building up to this. You knew my past, and you tossed it in my face. You took every conversation, every truth, and tainted it. Friends? We were never friends, and with friends like you, who needs them. I’d rather learn to live without you than learn to live with your disrespect, which is exactly what you asking to be friends is.

Disrespect. Disrespectful to me. Disrespectful to your wife .

” I couldn’t help but choke on the word.

It felt like it was being branded into my tongue. It felt wrong to say. So wrong.

Jace looked like I had reached out and smacked him. He almost looked green at my words, and I couldn’t find it in me to care, just like he didn’t care what he was doing to me .

“Leave. I don’t want you here.”

I turned on him before he could say anything.

I felt the air move as if he reached for me, but then I heard Remi before I saw her.

“She asked you to leave, Jace. Don’t make this something it doesn’t have to be.

” Her voice was smooth and low, almost as if she were talking to a toddler in the middle of a tantrum.

“Remi…” I didn’t stick around to hear what else they had to say.

I made my way back up to my room, knowing I needed to start packing, and that it was the perfect distraction from what was happening downstairs.

I decided I’d go down once I knew the coast was clear and fill Remi in.

Unfortunately for me, she would probably speak with Jace about what happened as well.

I knew it would probably be a few minutes before he was gone again.

In a methodical rhythm that gave a beat to my hollow feelings, I packed quickly, and instead of packing light, I fit everything I thought I could possibly need.

I packed for an extended trip. Anything else I needed, I’d just buy.

I must have gotten lost in the routine I’d perfected over the years.

One second, I was packing, and two blinks later, Remi was standing in front of me.

I titled my head to her in question at my closed door.

“I knocked.” She shrugged in explanation. “I owe you a debt I can never repay.” I couldn’t help but look at her questioningly. “For what you did for Raya. Putting yourself between her and Lance.”

I laughed for real that time. “Don’t ever thank me for that. She’s safe with me, always.” That startled her a little bit, which made sense. Not a single person knew the real me, and I tried to swallow the lump in my throat at that thought. No one.

“Still. Lance, he’s…Well, he’s all charm, no personality, and a short fuse. Makes for an ass of a person.” There was a look that crossed her features when she said short fuse .

“Has he ever hurt you?”

She shrugged, but didn’t answer my question. “He taught me how to take a punch, that’s for sure.”

That’s it. I really am going to kill this guy. I growled while looking at her. “Raya?” I was barely able to get the word out, but she was shaking her head before I finished asking.

“I got her out before that.” She kept her eyes on the ground, which only made me angrier. It was not at all the tough-as-nails single mom I’d started to get to know.

“Anyone ever teach you not to take a punch, but to throw one?” She looked up at me, a bit taken aback by my question. “No.”

“Hm. We’re going to fix that. I have to leave for a work trip, but when I get back, that’s going to change.”

“I thought you worked for Jace and Dexter.”

“Ah, good things come to those who wait.”

I did what I did best—avoided any real questions with humor.

“Thank you,” she whispered again, and squeezed my hand, her eyes brimming with tears.

“Don’t mention it.” I squeezed her hand back.

“I’ll let you get back to packing.” She got up and closed the door behind her.

I fell back onto my bed in between shirts that didn’t make the cut, and I stared at the ceiling, feeling like I was floating in uncertainty.

Floating in the wonder of what the hell would happen next and where I actually belonged.