Lacey folded her arms, her jaw clamped tight.
He groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“Would that have stopped you from being here?” she demanded.
Mack stared at her, and the look on his face must have been enough of an answer.
She groaned again, pinching the bridge of her nose before shaking her head. “Mack,” she said, exhausted. “This has to stop. You can’t keep calling, messaging, or trying to get back into my life.”
“Why not?” he demanded. “I get that you’re scared, but you can trust me.”
Her head snapped up, and that sharp glare speared him with ferocity. “Can I? Because from what I can remember, you led a very different life as a teenager, and you neglected to warn me about any of it. How am I supposed to stick up for you when I didn’t even know there was a reason to?”
He flinched, but he wasn’t going to stand down. Mack just needed to get past her defenses and make her see that she needed him as much as he needed her. “You’re right,” he whispered, catching her off guard. “I should have let you get to know me a little better. But the truth of the matter is that we can’t change the past. No matter how hard we want to, there is no way. That goes for the dumb choices I made as a teen and the dumber choices I made just a few weeks ago.”
For a moment, he thought he saw her expression soften toward him. Good. He was breaking down those walls.
“Just… let me help.”
She watched him for a moment, as if considering for the first time that he might be able to do just that. But then her eyes hardened with pain and disappointment. “I can’t.” The two words came out in a raspy whisper. “I need to think about Bridger. He’s my whole world.”
You’re my whole world. Both of you are.
Those words rang through his head, dancing on the tip of his tongue, threatening to burst from him if he wasn’t careful.
But he refrained from saying them. Now wasn’t the time. She needed to be more open to the possibility of a future with him.
Mack swallowed hard and found his hands balling into fists at his sides. “You can ignore me all you want. You can run from me. You can tell me to leave you alone, but I’m not going to listen. You and me? We’re meant to be together, whether you like it or not. And I’m going to wait for however long it takes.” Without waiting for her response, he stormed back to the house. He didn’t give Caleb a second glance, nor did he utter a word to Sammie, who was swaying with the new baby in the kitchen. He needed to clear his head.
His resolve was cracking. Each and every time she pushed him away, he felt like he was losing a part of himself. He couldn’t allow her to slip through his fingers, and that might just happen if he had to listen to her tell him to leave her alone one more time today.
Mack losttrack of time sitting on the front porch of his parents’ house. After dinner, he’d slipped out here to just… think. He needed to clear all thoughts of losing Lacey from his mind so he could start next week fresh.
He had zero plans of breaking the promise he’d given her at Caleb’s house. Even if it killed him, Mack would show up at her work, her apartment, and anywhere else he knew she would be. He’d support her and Bridger in whatever ways he could. And he’d win her back.
The only thing that stood in his way was her parents.
An itch in the back of his mind had him chasing a ghost of a plan to get rid of that roadblock, but before he could solidify it, he heard his mother’s voice.
“Mack?”
He glanced up lazily as his mother and father left the comfort of the house to take a seat on one of the chairs they had on the porch. Even in the dim light, they looked concerned. But what else was new? They were always concerned about him. Disappointed with him. Wishing he’d just move on with his life and show that he wanted something more than the dull existence he currently led.
“Caleb told us what happened today,” his mother murmured.
He frowned. He and his brothers had chosen a long time ago to steer clear of airing their personal business to their parents.Nothing good came of that sort of meddling. If Mack wanted his folks to know what was going on, then he would have told them.
Sitting forward, he leaned his forearms on his knees and stared at his parents with a degree of distrust. “And what? You’ve decided to come out here and tell me that I need to give up on getting her back?”
They exchanged looks that he couldn’t read, then his father heaved a sigh. “Son, only you get to choose how you want to live your life. That’s why we never pushed you to attending college with that money we had set aside for you.”
Mack huffed a breath. “Yeah, but you made it perfectly clear that I’ve been a disappointment since the moment I chose to stick it out at home.”
His parents frowned in unison.
“See? Even you can’t deny that.”
“We’ve only ever wanted the best for you. We’ve wanted you to find a passion in your life that you could chase after and make your own. And when the time came, we wanted you to fall in love with a wonderful woman who could make you happy.” His mother sounded almost weary, as if this conversation was taking too much out of her already.
