I shuddered and turned my body so I didn’t have to see Randy anymore, not even in my peripheral vision. “Do you need help to watch him? I can take shifts along with Axel and Micah or—”
“What?” my uncle interrupted, his eyes narrowing as he looked past me down the dark hallway. “Are you telling me those guys are here? Right now? With you?”
The tone of his voice made me immediately defensive. “What if they are? You didn’t mind when they were out risking their lives to help find me, did you?”
“You know that’s different,” he snapped, starting to walk toward me. “I sure as hell don’t want to see them in this house—in your bedroom.”
My first instinct was to flinch away as he came closer, but no. Not tonight. Not after everything else I’d been through. I wasn’t the scared little girl that he’d bullied and beaten year after year.
If he wanted to yell, I could yell right back. I was more than ready for that fight.
He stopped a few feet in front of me, though, but his attention wasn’t on me.
I turned and looked over my shoulder to see Axel and Micah stepping out into the hallway. They moved to stand on either side of me but still gave me plenty of space. Maybe even too much space, since all I wanted was to feel their arms around me again.
First, though, I needed to deal with my uncle.
“What happens in my bedroom isn’t any of your business,” I said. “I’m not a child. This isn’t even your house, Uncle Jeff. Why can’t you just... just leave me alone for once? Why do you always have to be so mean?”
“So fucking disrespectful,” he muttered. “After everything your mama and I have done for you? But now you’re so high and mighty, and Miss Big Shot out in Hollywood.” He grunted and rolled his eyes. “Give me a fucking break. You’ll come back here with your tail between your legs one of these days. You mark my words. And when you do, you’d better hope it isn’t up to me to take you in again.”
“Jeff...” Mom sounded tired and exasperated as she gave him a pleading look. “Let’s not do this right now, please.”
Before either of them said anything else, though, Micah spoke up. “She won’t need to come back here with her tail between her legs,” he said, making me wince.
I appreciated the support, but I didn’t want to see a confrontation between my uncle and my two guys. There was too much potential for that to end badly, especially with everyone already so worked up over the whole Randy incident.
“If she does ever move back from L.A., she’ll have her choice of places to stay.”
“That’s right,” Axel chimed in, making me smile on the inside even if he probably wasn’t helping my case with my uncle. “She’ll stay with us before she ever begs you for anything.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. Even if I had planned on moving back to Covington—which I hadn’t, for the record—I would have happily pitched a tent in the woods all by myself before I would’ve been caught dead asking my uncle for help.
Plus, staying anywhere with Axel and Micah sounded good to me—in theory, at least. Unfortunately, the practical side of that plan wasn’t quite as cut and dry as they’d made it sound.
For the moment, though, I was happy to go along with the fantasy, especially if it allowed me to stand up to my uncle and his bad temper.
“You boys think you have it all figured out, don’t you?” Uncle Jeff had a disgusted look on his face as he shook his head. “You don’t know when to mind your own damn business, do you? Not that I would expect anything better from a Stevenson boy and his dumbass friend. And you,” he turned his attention back to me. “I ought to really—”
“That’s enough, Jeff,” my mom cut in, her voice hard as nails. She stepped in front of me, placing herself directly in my uncle’s path as she spoke to him. “You aren’t gonna talk to Jasmine or these two young men like that. Not in this house. You might think you can talk to them any kind of way, but you aren’t going to disrespect them in front of me.”
I opened my mouth and closed it again when no words came out. I’d never heard my mom talk to her brother that way.
Like, ever.
Judging by Uncle Jeff’s face, it wasn’t something he’d expected, either.
“We’ll leave,” I said, turning back toward my room. “It’s not worth arguing about, and I honestly can’t do this right now. I won’t do it.”
My mom put her hand up to stop me. “Wait a minute, Jasmine. You aren’t going anywhere in this storm.” Turning back to my uncle, she continued. “I’ve barely seen my daughter in years, Jeff. That’s been hard enough on me as her mother, but now... knowing that I almost lost her last night...” She shook her head. “I won’t let that happen again.”