Chapter 271: Jake
I’m half-listening to some guy from the docks drag me through his theory about prop pitch when I hear my name rip through the music like a hook. Charlie—sharp, urgent. Then Finn and Liam, overlapping, “Jake—now.”
I cut through bodies, shoulder-first, and I’m almost there when a voice I know better than my own rings out clear as a church bell: “I can handle him and his brother at the same time.”
For one feral, traitorous beat, heat licks low and I’m already saying yes you can in my head—and then I see what she’s facing.
Madeline is all flush and fire, eyes bright and wet and furious, small fists up like she’s ready to take on the whole bar. And plastered against Reid is Jessica, because of course it’s Jessica, Northhaven’s most persistent mistake, sliding her hands up his thighs and then higher with that try-hard pout we’ve said no to a hundred different ways.
Reid’s jaw is a blade. He’s got her wrists in his hands—not hurting, not yet—trying to peel her off with something close to polite, because he won’t be the guy who manhandles a woman in a crowded room, not even a woman who’s asking for trouble. Madeline sees red anyway. “You let her touch you too long,” she snaps at him, and I catch Reid’s look over her head—flat, fast: it wasn’t like that, deal with her before she gets hurt.
She surges, a little wild cat, and I’m already moving, already sliding an arm around her waist and hauling her back into me. She fights me, and God, she’s stronger than she’s been in weeks, legs digging, shoulder twisting like she’s going to launch straight through me to get to the girl. I’m braced, but she still manages to snake one hand free and—crack—lands a clean right to Jessica’s jaw.
I bite down on a laugh because my sweet, peaceful five-three girl just clocked a woman twice her size in front of the whole damn town and I have never loved anything more.
“Easy, baby. I’ve got you. Breathe.” I tighten, lifting her right off her toes the way I do when waves hit broadside, carrying her through the heat and noise and rubberneckers. Hands clap my shoulder, someone whistles, Charlie’s cackling, Finn shouts “attagirl,” and then the night hits us—cool salt, festival lights, that hush outside a loud room.
I set her on the rock ledge, crowd between her knees so she doesn’t drift toward the door again. “Hand.” She’s still breathing like she sprinted a mile, chest heaving under my shirt, eyes sparking. She gives me her fist, stubborn chin lifted like I might scold her. The skin’s angry and pink, knuckles blooming, but not split. I turn it over, press my mouth to each swollen ridge, slow kisses to bleed off the adrenaline. “Not broken,” I murmur. “You’re okay.”
The door bangs and Reid steps out, storm-black and breathing hard. Madeline rounds on him before he can speak. “You let her—”
“I didn’t,” he grinds out, voice low and lethal. “I was done the second she put hands on me. I won’t punch a woman, Maddie. Not how this town works. Not how I work.”
“I will,” she snaps, chin cutting up like a dare.
His mouth does something that isn’t a smile and isn’t not. “I noticed.”
He scrubs a hand over his face, then drops it and looks at her straight. “I should’ve shoved her off me harder, sooner. I’m sorry you saw any of that. I’m sorry you felt like you had to handle it.”
She looks away, the fury wobbling, guilt shouldering in where the heat was. I slide my palm over her thigh, slow circles. “Hey. Look at me.” She does, and it’s all that wild light and a shimmer of hurt. “From where you stood, it looked like hell. I get it. He didn’t want to light a fuse in the middle of the Seafoam. I wouldn’t have, either. But that doesn’t change what you felt.” I lift her bruised knuckles again, kiss them once more. “Next time, there won’t be a gap for anyone to wedge into. We won’t be that polite.”
Reid shrugs out of his jacket and tucks it around her shoulders like he’s wrapping a present he plans to keep. “You okay?” he asks, softer now.
She blows out a shaky breath. “I don’t… I don’t know why I was so angry. I wanted to rip her nails off.”
“Because you love us,” I say simply. “Because you’re ours.” The admission rolls out of me like a tide; her eyes flicker, and for a second the whole world is just that—her, wide-eyed, fierce, loved.
From inside, the song changes, a cheer rises, someone yells “LOBSTER SHOTS,” which is exactly as cursed as it sounds. Charlie cracks the door, pokes her head out. “Coast is clear. Under-cheeks has relocated. You good?”
Madeline glances at my thumb still stroking her thigh, at Reid’s jacket around her, at her hand in mine. She nods. “Getting there.”
“Good,” Charlie says, soft and smug. “Take a lap. Meet us when you’re ready.”
The door swings shut. I lace our fingers carefully, measure the flex of her hand. “Can you wiggle them for me?” She does, winces, then laughs at herself. I grin back, can’t help it. “Hell of a right,” I tell her again, because praise heals too. “And for the record? That line you dropped in there?” I lean in, mouth at her ear, voice just for her. “Nearly killed me.”
Color climbs her throat; Reid’s laugh is quiet and dangerous.