reason there was a ton of traffic going out of town. I was impatient and ready to have a fit of serious road rage by the time I finally got to Brookside. I tried to call her one more time and was sent right to voice mail. I almost crushed the phone in my hand when her recorded greeting cheerily told me to just leave a message.
I knew where her mom lived because I had been forced to pick her up more than once and bring her to our house when I still shared a car with Remy. I followed the car in front of me through the gates and found the house with no problem. There was a menagerie of all kinds of expensive and fancy cars that seriously had no place being in Colorado parked out front the chalet-style mansion.
I jogged up the front steps and rang the doorbell. I was expecting a maid or maybe some fancy-ass butler to open the door; what I wasn’t expecting was an older, harder version of Shaw. There was no doubt this woman was Shaw’s mother; they had the same white-blond hair, the same piercing green eyes, but where Shaw was delicate and lovely, this woman looked like she had been carved out of a solid block of ice. I saw her eyes narrow and sharpen when she saw me but I was on a mission and I didn’t care who this chick was—she wasn’t going to stand in my way, even if I had to run her over.
“I need to talk to Shaw.”
Her mouth pulled tight and she put her small body solidly in the doorway. “You’re Margot and Dale’s boy aren’t you?”
“One of them.” We weren’t friends, were never going to be, and she was making that clear.
“What do you want with my daughter?”
“That’s personal. I just need to speak with her for a minute and then I’ll be on my way.”
“You’re interrupting a private gathering; Shaw is here with her boyfriend and I don’t think she wants to see you.”
I fought back an eye roll. The lady was manipulative and delivered it like it was fact, but I wasn’t stupid so I just stared back at her.
“Davenport is a stalker not her boyfriend. Just get her for me, would ya?” I could see that my lack of respect was starting to get under her too tight skin.
“How do you presume to know what’s going on in my daughter’s private life? You’ve always just been a crush, and we all know you two aren’t right for each other. It’s time to stop playing childish games.”
“Look, lady, what’s going on between me and Shaw has nothing to do with you and I assure you it isn’t a game. I don’t mind making a scene if it gets me what I want, but something tells me that you wouldn’t want all your guests to wonder what the commotion was about.” I lifted my pierced brow. “Am I right?” I think she was about to tell me she was going to call the police or holler for her husband, but she didn’t get the chance because the heavy door was yanked out of her death grip and suddenly Shaw’s pale face appeared around the doorjamb.
“Rule? What are you doing here?”
Her hair was braided up in some fancy design that looked like it hurt. She had on a pearl necklace that looked like it was from the 1800s and a pink sweater that looked fuzzy and soft. She was also in a pair of loose cream-colored pants and had on a pair of pink heels that looked like they cost as much as my truck. She was so far removed from the Shaw that I was used to rolling around naked with I almost turned around and left without saying another word, but her green eyes were wide and sad and that slippery feeling in the center of my chest started to throb. I didn’t care that her mother was watching me with an eagle eye—I grabbed her arm and pulled her onto the stoop with me. I held her face in my hands and peered straight into her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She put her hands over mine and blinked up at me. “What?”
“I sent you a text last night. I tried to call you back all night and you didn’t answer me. I’m sorry. Sorry I pushed you away, sorry I acted like an idiot, sorry I don’t know how to do this thing between us right, I’m just sorry.”
“My phone is broken.”
“What?” I asked it on a laugh. I wanted to kiss her, wanted to scoop her up in my arms and take her somewhere so far away from here.
“I threw it against the wall because Ayden told me you went home with some girl Friday night. I shattered the screen on it.”
“Shit. I’ll buy you a new one.” She closed her eyes and squeezed my hands.
“Did you do it, go home with her?”
“No, I kissed her, which sucks on my part and makes me an asshole, but I knew it was wrong so I stopped it. I swear if we get this straight between us I will never let it happen again. I’m trying to figure out how all this works, Shaw. I hate that you’re the one who has to get hurt because of my learning curve.”
“You shut me out, you left me alone in the dark, Rule. I don’t think I’ve ever had anything hurt that bad.”
“I know, Casper; I know, but don’t give up on me now, okay?”
“You drove all the way here just to apologize?”
I nodded. “We have to fix this.”
She gave me a lopsided grin. “We need to learn how not to break it in the first place.” I gulped down the sudden surge of emotion in my throat and pulled her into a tight hug. It felt like coming home, a feeling I don’t think I had ever actually experienced before. I kissed her softly behind her ear and whispered, “By the way, your mom hates me, like, HATES me.”
She put her hands in the back pockets of my pants and stood on her tiptoes to kiss the underside of my jaw. “That’s okay, she hates me, too. Why did you cut your hair all off? It looks good, you look good, but I liked the Mohawk.”
I self-consciously ran a hand over my naked skull. “I don’t know. I just needed to change it.”
She looked at me with serious eyes and folded her hand in mine. “It makes you look more like Remy than all your other hairstyles.”
“Shaw, tell your friend good-bye and come back inside. We have guests and you’re being very rude.”
She peeked over my shoulder at her mother and I felt her grip on my hand tighten.
“I’m not coming in without Rule.” Oh shit, she was doing it again, putting herself between me and another disapproving parent.
“Hey, it’s cool. As long as we’re good I’ll just catch up with you when you get back to D-town. I can wait to see you later.”
“No.”
“Shaw.” Her mother’s voice was all whiplash warning. “This ends now. Send him on his way and come inside. You’ve made enough of a scene.”
“No. I’m with him. If you want me to sit through another meal where you’re going to blatantly ignore Gabe trying to grope me and purposely make me uncomfortable then I’m doing it with Rule there to keep him in check.”
“Shaw, he does not belong in there with this group of people.”
There it was, the judgment, the censure, the idea that because I lived on my own terms and in
