“It’s not your fault, baby girl.”
It kind of was.
“What did you mean earlier about the police not helping us with Jacob?” Keelan asked.
I told them what Jacob had said to me. How he had a guardian sheriff looking over his shoulder.
Both looked really pissed off the more I spoke.
“I hate to say this, but you’re going to have to call your uncle,” Keelan said.
Knox nodded, agreeing.
My shoulders slumped. I wasn’t looking forward to that.
Logan knocked on my door later that evening. I let him in. “What’s in the bag?” I asked, spotting the grocery bag in his hand.
He held it up. “Ice cream. It’s a peace offering.”
I bit my cheek and took the bag from him. “Would you like to have some now?”
He looked slightly surprised. “Sure.”
He followed me into the kitchen. I grabbed two bowls from the cabinet and took the ice cream out of the bag. He’d gotten me strawberry, one of my favorites. He watched me as I began scooping the ice cream into each of the bowls and then slid one of the bowls across the island toward him.
He just stared down at it as I picked up my own bowl. “I need to say something before you tell me what happened today,” he said.
“Go ahead,” I said and took a bite.
“I have no idea how to be a parent or be accountable for anyone other than myself. Your mother always made it look easy.” He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “When I became your guardian, I didn’t know what the hell to do. I regretfully treated this guardian role as a mission. Get you better. Get you somewhere safe. Get you trained. That was my first mistake—to view taking care of you like that. I did you wrong by looking the other way when you started drinking and again when you started smoking. I didn’t know how to help you and the one person I would normally call for advice was gone.” His eyes got glassy and he cleared his throat to regain his composure. “When I found all those empty bottles under your bed, I knew I really fucked up. I thought that if my sister was looking down on us, she would hate me. I tried talking to you about the drinking. You seemed to listen, but then you started running and I could see it was another unhealthy coping mechanism. I looked away again. Ian started calling about that time and told me about all the shit that was going down with X. I wanted to help. I wanted a chance to find X so I could make him pay for what he’d done to our family and make sure you were safe. I got it in my head that if I caught X, everything would be okay. You would be okay. When we sparred the other day, you made me realize how epically I have failed you and I don’t know how to express how sorry I am.”
I set down my almost-empty bowl and exhaled heavily. “I haven’t been handling things with you in the best way, either. Instead of talking to you, I lashed out. I’m not very proud of myself for that.”
“You had every right to lash out like you did. I responded poorly to it, especially last night. I didn’t mean what I said. I don’t blame you at all for what X did. I promise. I just want you to be safe.”
“I know you do,” I said, eyeing his untouched ice cream. “Your ice cream is melting.”
Logan didn’t remove his hands from his pockets. “I changed my mind. Now, what happened at the gym?”
I put my hand to my chest as I looked from his bowl to mine. My eyes briefly flicked to the carton of ice cream next. There hadn’t been a plastic seal on it. How hadn’t I noticed that? It took everything in me not to react. Everyone had repeatedly told me I was a terrible liar. Right now, I needed to be the best liar there was, because my gut was telling me that I was in danger. I grabbed his bowl. “Since you’re not going to have any, can I have it?”
“Go ahead,” he said.
As I dumped his ice cream into my bowl, I asked, “Can we go sit in the living room? My body is a little sore from where Jacob grabbed me.” I picked up the bowl and my cell phone off the counter.
He nodded. “Of course.”
As I came around the island, I gestured for him to walk ahead of me. He hesitated at first, but eventually moved with me a step behind him.
“So like I said on the phone, Jacob showed up at the gym…” As soon as we were passing the hall to go into the living room, I dropped the bowl of ice cream and ran toward my room. I made it and slammed my door behind me.
As soon as I turned the lock, Logan began banging on the other side. “Shi, open the door.”
I leaned against the door and clicked the home screen on my phone. I pulled up my last calls and clicked on Keelan’s name. The phone rang once before he picked up.