“I’m not fucking yelling, Ivy. I’m just—”
“Mum won’t give us her support to get married,” she blurted. “She wants me to leave you and move back in with her.”
My body tensed for the fight it knew was coming.
“What the fuck?” I roared, trying desperately to control both the thoughts raging through my mind and my response to Ivy. “You spoke to her already? Without me?”
“That’s not the point here, King.”
She was right, it wasn’t, but it pissed me off that she’d done what I asked her not to. I shoved my fingers through my hair. “What did she say?” Fuck, I’d go over there myself and sort this shit out if I had to. I refused to allow anyone to come between Ivy and me.
Her hesitation almost caused me to explode, but I managed to keep my frustration in. When she finally answered me, I heard every ounce of distress she was feeling. “She said that you’ve changed since you joined Storm and she doesn’t want me to marry you if you stay in the club.”
“How the fuck have I changed?”
“She didn’t say—”
“You didn’t ask her?”
“I didn’t get a chance. King—”
“Why? What the fuck else did she say?”
“King! This isn’t my fault! I hate that—”
Fuck it, I was goi
ng over there. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll sort this out.”
“No! Don’t you go over there! You’ll just make it worse. Let me talk to her again.”
“It’s me she has a problem with, Ivy, not you. I need to go and see her and find out what’s going on.”
“Please don’t go. I really think you’ll just upset her.”
“I’m going now,” I said forcefully. “I’ll call you once it’s done.” I hung up without waiting for her response. Before we got into a fight over it.
Half an hour later, I stood at Bethany’s front door, fuming with anger over what she’d said. I clenched my fists by my side as I attempted to rein that anger in. This had to be a huge misunderstanding, one that a conversation would solve. Fuck, Bethany had always been there for me. Why would she turn on me now?
“Zachary,” she said curtly when she opened her door to me. “I don’t know why you are here. I’ve said everything I’m going to say to Ivy.”
I stared at her in shock. And not fucking much shocked me anymore. Where was the kind woman who’d patched my cuts and bruises when I fell off my bike as a child? Or the woman who’d asked me to look out for her daughter at school when her friends turned against her?
I didn’t wait for an invitation; I pushed my way into her house as I said, “And now you can say it to me.”
Bethany’s home had always felt warm to me. Welcoming. Between the multitude of quilts strewn across her well-worn floral couches, the white lacy curtains, lamps dotted all through the house, and dog-eared books piled in every spare cranny, Bethany’s house was more than a building where she raised ten foster kids. It was the home those kids never had a shot at without her. The place they came home to after school, with warmed Milo and homemade cookies waiting on the kitchen table where their foster mum would help them complete their homework. A complete contrast to what they would have come home to at the hands of their own parents.
She sighed and closed the door after me, following me into the kitchen.
I turned to her when we reached the kitchen. “You don’t want Ivy with me anymore. Why? What’s changed? And don’t give me any shit about you and Mum. That’s got nothing to do with me and you.”
Her lips flattened in distaste. Bethany and Mum had been raised strict Catholics, and both hated my swearing. Usually, I tried to respect their wishes, but I didn’t have it in me when I was this worked up.
“You’ve changed,” she said, as if those two words would be enough to explain her stance. They were far from enough.
I pushed my shoulders back and demanded, “How?”
She motioned at the table. “Please sit, Zachary. I don’t want to argue with you over this. I’d rather do it as civilised adults.”