Quit Bein' Ugly (The Southern Gentleman 3)

He wasn’t sure which dangerous individual to focus on.

I didn’t blame him.

With how pissed I was, I knew for a fact that the anger showed on my face.

Flint’s did, too.

“Who?” Carmichael gasped. “And why would you accept?”

Bryan looked pained as he said, “I’m in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” Flint asked. “And does that negate the fact that you almost seriously hurt a teacher, who just so happens to be my sister?”

Bryan swallowed hard, his throat bobbing as he tried to think of something to say.

In the end, he decided to tell the truth. Which was good for him because I was working myself up to being quite pissed.

“Um, I don’t know.” He paused. “I…” He blew out a breath and scrubbed his cuffed hands against his face. “I got into trouble a couple of weeks ago. Some gambling debt. My father, uh, got himself upside down, and the guys that he owes the debt to said that he could pay it off if he rented me out. I run some errands for them. Do a couple of things here and there. And that was one of those things. I was told to, uh, hit her. Make it look bad. Make it bad. Break the computer and take it with me when I ran.”

I stiffened even further.

Flint, however, proved to have more self-control than I did.

He kept his voice slow and smooth as he asked, “Where did you meet these guys? How did they tell you what they wanted you to do?”

He patted his pocket. “I have a burner phone. They text me when they need me.”

“Did it ever occur to you to just tell me?” Carmichael asked. “Or Flint? Or someone?”

Bryan’s face took on a befuddled look.

“What would you have been able to do?” he scoffed. “The law is shit. Where was the law when my dad started to beat the shit out of me when I was four and my mom died? Where were y’all when I was hungry and hadn’t eaten in four days? When I got so hungry that I used to steal food out of people’s trash cans?”

Carmichael’s face went stricken.

“We didn’t know,” she tried.

“You might not have, no,” he agreed. “But the law did know. You know how many times I called the police on my old man? They’d take him away, put me in a home for a week, and then he’d be right back. Then he’d beat the shit out of me for allowing myself to be taken. As if I had any control over what those assholes did with me while he was in the slammer.”

I felt my middle tighten at his words.

“You still live with your dad, kid?” I asked, feeling sorry for the kid now that I’d heard a little about his situation.

“I live with him as far as the school knows,” Bryan hedged. “Why?”

“Because you’re what, seventeen?” I asked.

He nodded.

“You can emancipate yourself,” I suggested. “Get yourself away from here. Away from your father’s toxicity.”

“I’m going to jail, dude,” Bryan countered. “What’s it matter if I emancipate myself? You a lawyer or something?”

I nodded. “I am.”

He rolled his eyes and turned back to Flint.

“I wasn’t really going to hit her,” he grunted. “I changed my mind at the last second. That’s why you were able to stop me.”

Now that he explained it like he had, I had to agree.

Had Bryan wanted to hurt her, he would have. We’d been across the room at the time.

Flint made a disagreeing sound then crossed his arms over his chest.

Flint’s K-9 partner, Dooley, sat down blankly staring right back at the kid, as if he was only waiting for an excuse to attack.

I almost wished he would.

“There, you see?” Carmichael said, unaware of the volatile stare down between Flint, Dooley, and Bryan. “No harm, no foul.”

“Carmichael,” Flint replied stiffly. “Don’t you have a class to teach at the gym in a couple of minutes?”

Carmichael cursed. “Shit, yeah. I do. Camryn, can I hitch a ride with you? My car is low on gas, and I don’t think I’ll have time to stop for any.”

“Of course,” Camryn agreed, realizing what Carmichael didn’t. “Let’s go.”

Carmichael, for some reason, gave me a narrow-eyed look. “Don’t hurt him.”

I wouldn’t hurt him. But I wouldn’t stop him from getting hurt, either.

“Leave your keys and we’ll bring your car to you,” I suggested, holding out my hand.

She reluctantly pulled her keys out of her pocket and handed them to me.

“Don’t do anything stupid with it like you did last time,” she ordered.

Her idea of ‘stupid’ was actually me getting the car detailed. But Jesus, there was only so much of her car I could take. Honestly, I wasn’t quite sure how she lived like she lived.

Where her house and yard were immaculate? Her car was a completely different story. It was like she lived out of it.