“Kind of.” I felt my cheeks turning pink with shame. “I was upset and pissed and when I saw him I just started swinging.”
Dad’s mouth snapped closed and he shook his head twice before letting out a laugh that seemed to come straight from his soul. “That’s my girl.” He carefully released my hands and wrapped his arms around me in a hug that pushed all the air out of my lungs. “I’ve never been more proud of you than right now, Lu.”
Chapter 12
Harris
The doorbell woke me up.
Groaning, I lifted my head and squinted my eyes at the digital clock beside my bed. Fuck.
Two thirty-six. PM.
Fucking, fuck. I needed to get up and head to the club.
I was going on maybe three hours of sleep. I’d left the club at ten the night before and gone out to look for Lucy when her dad had called to see if she was still with me. I’d torn the entire city apart hoping to find her. Around three that morning Jesse had finally texted me that she’d made it home. I’d gone back to First Bass, exhausted and stressed to the max and hadn’t gotten home until after nine that morning, still trying to get Lucy to call me back.
Her phone had still been off and I’d fallen into bed, unable to keep my eyes open for another second. My cell was still lying on the bed beside me where I’d left it, but there were no missed calls or texts. She was killing me, fucking killing me.
Not answering her phone. Wouldn’t see me again while she was in town. Leaving on Sunday. Not coming back.
Killing. Me.
Well, fuck that. I didn’t care if she wasn’t going to make this easy for me. If I wanted easy I would have moved on. Hell, I never would have waited for her in the first place. Lucy Thornton was anything but easy. She was the exact opposite and that was just one of the million and one things I loved about her.
She was still killing me, though.
The doorbell rang again, and this time the person pressed and didn’t let go. Shit.
Jumping out of bed, I grabbed the shirt I’d tossed on the floor that morning and headed for the front door. If it was Jace, I was going to punch him in the face. He knew I’d been out looking for Lucy and had promised to call if he or Kin talked to her.
My tired brain realized it probably wasn’t Jace by the time I got to the living room of my one-bedroom apartment. He was probably getting ready to head out to Virginia with Kin for his sister’s graduation that weekend. Muttering a curse because I had no clue who was at the door, I paused to look through the peephole.
Seeing the blonde standing on the other side—still holding down the doorbell—had me groaning. Unlocking the door, I pulled it open and glared down at Angie. “What?”
“Holy shit. Who gave you the fat lip?”
I grimaced and touched my swollen lip with my tongue. Lucy had gotten some good hits in the night before. I was fucking proud of her. “Lucy.”
“Oh.” Angie grinned.
My glare turned harder. “What do you want?”
“Jenna won’t let me in.”
My brows lifted. “And?”
“So give me the fucking key,” she growled at me, putting her hands on her hips and tossing her long blond hair back. “She can’t just sit up there and sulk.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, that’s all she does these days.” I turned away from the door and opened the drawer to the little table behind me. Pulling out a set of keys, I found the one to my old apartment and handed it over. Jenna would probably call me later and bitch, but Angie was right. Jenna needed to stop sulking so much and get out.
After everything that had happened in January, Jenna had become a hermit. She rarely left the apartment we’d once shared. Natalie had completely cut herself off from her sister, but Drake and Shane still came around. Without their wives or kids, though. No one, not even Drake, was happy with her after she’d kept her time in rehab from them. That she’d babysat Drake’s girls during a time she had been high—something I’d had no idea about—had turned Lana and Harper Stevenson against her. Drake still tried to help her stay clean, but it would take a miracle before he let his daughters around her again.
Jenna was an outcast now, and she didn’t help matters any by just staying in her apartment, painting dark emo shit and not talking to anyone.
The only shining light in Jenna’s life these days was Angie, who had taken it upon herself to help Jenna. Most days, however, Jenna tried to keep Angie out, but Angie being Angie, she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Neither was I. If Angie helped my friend even a little bit, then I would give her the key to the apartment and anything else she needed.
Snatching the key from me, she twirled around, making her hair hit me in the face and headed for the elevators. “See ya.”