The Fight for Us (16 page)

“No. You came here. Remember? Tell me what I need to be apologizing for.” His voice was getting that angry edge she recognized from her previous clashes with him.

“Forget it.” She barely got the words out as her voice lurched.

“No!” He reached around her shoulder, slamming shut the door she’d only just started pulling open.

“I don’t owe you any explanation for my past.” She stared straight ahead at the door, refusing to look at him and forcing her voice to stay strong.

“Not your past, no you don’t. But how about right now? You’ve been fucking your ex-husband, and it was clear to me when he walked through your door last night that he’d very obviously not gotten the memo that you weren’t any more. The man’s a dick. You said it yourself when he showed up with Randall the other week, and yet, you’ve continued to sleep with him, by your own admission, until just a few months ago. And had I not been there yesterday? What then?”

She finally turned back to him, but he gave her no time to respond.

“How does a woman keep sleeping with an asshole like that? Huh?” He cocked his head to the side. He was cornering her and chastising her. He was good at this. He was going to pick and prod until she either broke down or fled. She was in danger of doing both, and she could easily do them simultaneously.

He shook his head in frustration. “I was jealous. I’ll give you that. Bravo. Seeing a man waltz into your home as though he belonged there. Watching you let him.” He nodded his head as he stared at her chin.

It always made her nervous when people looked at her scar, and she instantly fidgeted with it.

“Finding out you’ve been sleeping with him…can’t say that helps matters.” His attention finally made it up to her eyes.

“I didn’t
do
anything.
He
showed up, and I—”

“You let him stay!” He resented the hell out of her for that fact given the fury on his face.

“You don’t understand!”

“I don’t
need
to understand! It doesn’t matter. Don’t you get it? I’m not going to fight for you! I don’t
want
to fight for you!” He snapped at her loudly, cutting her off before she could even defend herself and leaving her nearly choking at the harsh and unyielding words.

It killed whatever she might have wanted to think he could mean to her. Those words pierced through the ridiculous notion that she could ever move beyond Todd with a decent man, and her heart fell. But then she watched as his eyes glossed over, and he shook his head. It was almost heartbreaking to see the pain.

“I don’t have it in me anymore.” He shook his head as he stepped back into the middle of the foyer. “I just don’t.” He turned away from her.

When Joss opened her mouth, she let the words tumble out before the logical part of her brain could restrain them. “My ex-husband is a nightmare. I did what I had to do to keep him out of Harper’s life as much as possible. Affordable rent was a nice perk too.” Isaiah had put her in a position to be more honest than she cared to be with a man who clearly wasn’t going to be her friend, but he needed to understand whether he thought he wanted to or not. Or perhaps she needed him to understand. “Fucking him on occasion made him forget we actually share custody of Harper. I’m sure you can appreciate why I’d want to do that.” She took a deep, shuttering breath, and then she opened her mouth again and let him see all of the ugly. “And I was ashamed—Every. Single. Time. I. Did. It.” She clenched her fists into tight balls even as she whimpered in a pathetic attempt to hold it together. She wanted to slap him. She wasn’t sure he actually deserved this part of her life, and it left her wanting to fight him, even while she was trying to reach him.

But when he slowly turned back around, his brow flinched in what looked like pain, and her anger faltered.

“You were right. It was all my fault.” She sniffed back the tears that were threatening to fall, and he released a huff of breath. Shock if she were guessing. “My mistake. How dare I be such a whore?”

He stared at her feet, still saying nothing but his face contorted as he processed her words.

“How did your wife die?” She didn’t expect an answer, but she was guessing there was no reason not to ask at this point.

He slowly let his attention move back up to her eyes, and he studied her as she waited. She caught herself holding her breath, wondering if he would say anything at all. She waited so long, in fact, that she’d given up hope of hearing him say anything.

But then he swallowed and opened his mouth. “She put my service piece in her mouth and blew a hole in the back of her head.”

She covered her mouth before she could stifle the reaction. And then as she watched, his eyes filled with tears, and hers finally fell.

“I’d left for a run. Nat was going to a friend’s to study for the night. She forgot one of her books.” He nodded slowly as his tears sat on his lower eyelids.

Joss let out a quiet sob at the thought of how that must have played out for Nat, and then a tear fell. Not hers—hers were already streaming, but his. Just one down his cheek as she watched him. His face was so remarkably calm and blank, but his eyes glistened.

He opened his mouth, but then closed it again. And finally, when she thought he had nothing left to say to her, he opened it again. “I’m not strong enough for you. It takes everything I have to be strong enough for Nat, and most of the time, I don’t think I am.” He looked at the floor for a moment, swallowing over a lump, and then he looked back at her again. “I just don’t have it in me anymore. I’m sorry.”

He looked at her for a moment longer and then turned and walked away. Joss took a deep and shuttering breath, and then she walked away too. She sat in her car, staring at his small rental cottage in the woods. When she eventually put her car into reverse, it was well over five minutes later.

She wasn’t sure she had any business driving after that, and she found herself sitting in the parking lot of Bristol Realty before she knew it. She hadn’t intended on gracing the office with her presence, but she couldn’t seem to think of anywhere else to go.

When she walked through the door, Steph looked up in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Is it too early in the day to drink?” Joss blew out a long and deep breath as she sank into the chair that sat in front of Steph’s desk.

“I’m afraid so. What’s wrong?”

“Buckle in. This is gonna take a while.”

While Joss relived the past twenty-four hours of her life and backtracked a bit further into her Isaiah past to fill in some missing holes for Steph, Steph
oohed
and
awwed
at all the appropriate times. Joss lost track of how many times Steph’s brow wrinkled, she gasped, or she out and out cussed, and when story time was over, Steph was propping her head up with her elbows planted on her desk. She looked about as exhausted as Joss felt. She stood then, grabbing her coat and heading for the door.

“Where are you going?” Joss asked.

“To the store. Orange juice and champagne are at least appropriate.” She shrugged and then darted out the door.

Chapter Fourteen

“What do you think?” Isaiah watched Natalie look around the house that would be theirs in little more than a week’s time. In fact, they’d barely have time to move in before Christmas, but he’d decided moving into a larger home was a good Christmas present in and of itself.

“Can we really afford this?” She was smiling the entire time she said it. She loved it. He could tell, even if she’d not said it yet.

“Well, houses sell for considerably less here than Chicago, and your mom and I were very aggressive in paying off our house in Chicago in the fifteen years we lived there. So, when it sold, we…” He took a deep breath as his eyes flashed to hers. “
I
came out ahead. Yes.”

“I love it! It’s great—”

“She’s right, sir.” The inspector stepped up from the basement stairs, smiling at him.

Steph had called him to let him know when the inspection would be scheduled, and he’d panicked the entire day, having no idea if Joss would be there too. Of course there was part of him that desperately wanted her to be, but the other part of him was terrified she would be. He’d even gone so far as to pull Nat out of classes for the afternoon, so he wouldn’t have to face her alone. Since Nat hadn’t yet seen the house, it made sense, but really, he just needed her there for moral support, not that she had any idea of that fact.

But Joss hadn’t shown up. In fact, it seemed she was literally going out of her way to avoid him. Steph had picked Harper up from volleyball practice a few days that week, and the other days, the most he caught of Joss was her car pulling out of the parking lot of the school. She couldn’t even seem to bring herself to come into the gymnasium. Even the few volleyball games over the past week or so, she’d gone to great lengths to avoid him. She’d sit by the exit, ignore him the entire time, and duck out and wait in her car the moment the final match was over. It pissed him off more than he cared to admit, even if he was completely responsible for it.

Now it was Friday afternoon, and he was walking through the house that Joss had helped him find to start his life in Bristol. He didn’t question this was where he wanted to be, even if he didn’t quite know how he was going to handle such a small town with her in it.

“I’ve admired this house for years, Mr. Henry. It’s quality craftsmanship, and with the updates the previous owner made, you’ll be set for some time. Roof looks great, furnace is efficient but adequate output for a home of this size. I’m seeing nothing of concern with the A/C. Electrical looks good. I’ve tested all of the outlets and all faucets. Everything is working fine, no leaks, good water pressure, no signs of corrosion. I’m seeing no signs of termite damage. I really do think you’ve made a wise choice. A lot of Bristol residents are going to be jealous of you.” The man, Tim, chuckled as he walked toward Isaiah, holding his hand out. “Congratulations, Mr. Henry.”

“Thank you.”

“Well, that’s it for me. You folks ready to go?”

He glanced at Nat. “I don’t suppose we could lock up on our way out?”

Tim looked at him for a moment. He was asking the man to break a rule for him. When Tim looked up at the ceiling and then chuckled, Isaiah knew he was going to get his way.

“Sure. Long as you keep that between us. Don’t see any harm, seeing as you’re going to own it in a week.” He shook Isaiah’s hand once more before leaving them.

“You’re sure Bristol is what you want?”

Nat looked around the room as she considered his question. “Yeah. I’m sure.” But then her eyes glanced away quickly before returning to him. “Are you sure it’s what you want?”

He studied her for a moment. “If it makes you happy—”

She cut him off with her eye roll. “Come on, Dad. What’s going on with you?”

“What makes you think anything is? I’m fine.”

She actually laughed at him then. “Yeah, right,” she scoffed. “Then what’s going on with Ms. Verna?”

“Nothing.”

“But something was.” She was baiting him. She wasn’t stupid. Hell, it wasn’t like he was really hiding it from her.

“It’s—”

“So help me God, if you say
it’s complicated
, I’ll scream.” She smirked.

It was his turn to roll his eyes. “I was
going
to say, it’s…difficult.”

“Gee, Dad. A synonym.” She rolled her eyes again. She was good at the eye roll. “Harper says her dad’s a real tool. It’s almost weird how much she doesn’t like him. Like, you’d think she has something good to say about him,
some
good memory, but literally…nothing. Can’t say I blame her though. I mean,
hurting
Ms. Verna like that.”

He nodded for a moment until he realized he’d just missed something important. “Wait, what? What do you mean hurt?”

She grimaced as she realized she’d dropped a bombshell on him. “I guess I thought you knew about that.”

“Knew about what?” His heart was pounding as he waited for more.

She looked leery. “Crap,” she muttered. “I maybe wasn’t supposed to tell you. I mean, maybe it’s a secret. I figured you knew, because you and Ms. Verna are friends.”

“Tell me or you’re grounded.” He was almost serious when he said it, and as his heart pounded harder in his chest, he started gnawing on his thumbnail.

“Dad, it’s against the rules to ground for something like that.”

He finally blew out a breath of air and smiled at her. “Fine. You’re not grounded, but I need you to tell me.”

“You know that scar on her chin?”

He nodded.

“I guess she got that when he threw her into a bathroom vanity. It broke the mirror above it, and she somehow cut herself on the glass. I don’t know, but he did it. Harper saw it happen. She told me about it. That was when she left him, or soon after that. But from what Harper says, it happened other times too. At least a few times that she can remember before they divorced.” Nat looked out the window of the living room, shaking her head. “Who would do that? And to
her
?”

She seemed incredulous. It
was
incredible to think. But he was constantly surprised by what Nat still had the capacity to think was incredible after all she’d seen. It was almost comforting to know she still had the ability to hurt for someone else and be shocked at the inhumanity of the world.

“Wow.” He joined her in a stupor, staring out the window.

“You would have been a good boyfriend for her, I think.”

He almost laughed at just how borderline inappropriate it was for her to say that, but he was struggling a little too much at the moment to laugh.

He would have made a damn good boyfriend for her if he’d been able to get his shit together. As it was, he’d been completely honest with her when he’d said it wasn’t in him to fight for her. Life had felt exhausting since Delia’s death, and he didn’t feel capable of much of anything anymore. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her feelings when he said it. Of course it would, but he needed her to understand he was broken. The world wasn’t what it once was to him anymore, and that left him feeling impotent—at least emotionally. She needed more of him than the shell that was left.