Ryan sped up his driveway, paying no mind to the snow. He slammed the truck door and knew he should calm down before seeing her, but it had been too long already. And for absolutely nothing. He was at her door before he could stop himself. When it opened, he did not expect Cameron, or the anger and regret that pummeled him from the inside out.
“You son of a bitch,” he said.
He stepped into the house and led with his right. His fist plowed squarely into Cameron’s jaw, knocking the man back several steps and causing a fair amount of screaming from Chloe and Frankie.
Frankie raced toward Cameron, making Ryan’s haze redder.
“Ryan! What are you doing?”
He saw Chloe from the corner of his eye going to Cam’s side, touching his jaw, watched him jerk away from both women.
“You told me she’d lose them with me in her life,” Ryan said, anger turning to despair. His shoulders slumped when he realized it wasn’t only anger burning him but the gnawing worry that it was too late.
Frankie froze in front of him, her eyes shining with tears. “What are you talking about?” Ryan’s breathing leveled but his chest was still tight. He looked at Frankie, drank her in, the sight of her quenching the thirst that had haunted him since the moment he’d said goodbye. He stepped over to her and cringed when she stepped back.
“Frankie.”
“You should go.”
They stared at each other and he sent a hard look to Cameron, who still rubbed his jaw. He pointed at him. “What the fuck are you even doing here?”
Cameron’s eyes zipped back and forth between Frankie and Ryan. His shoulders slumped but Ryan didn’t care. He held Ryan’s glare. “I came to apologize to Frankie.”
A low growl erupted from Ryan’s chest. Everything, his skin, his bones, everything inside of him felt brittle. Ready to snap. “You better fix this.”
Cameron nodded. “I’m trying. He has every right to be mad, Frankie.”
“He has no right to hit you or stomp around like a child. You made your choice, Walker,” Chloe said.
Had he not been fueled by the desperation to pull Frankie into his arms, he might have admired the way she went toe to toe with him.
Cameron cleared his throat. “I told him you wouldn’t get the boys if he stayed with you.”
Chloe’s gasp of surprise was muffled by Frankie’s demanding words, “You what? Why?” “Because he’s an asshole,” Ryan offered.
“Screw you, Ryan. Leslie told me the social worker was concerned about his past,” Cam answered, looking at Frankie.
Frankie shook her head, like somehow she could make the information settle in a way that made sense.
Frankie looked back and forth between the two men. “But why would she call you?”
Cameron ran a hand through his hair and Ryan enjoyed seeing the disheveled look on the man’s face. “I felt badly about things so I…uh…I went to see her and…well, you know she likes me, and she told me—”
Frankie didn’t let him finish. She kept shaking her head and walking back and forth, agitation showing in her quick, hard steps. She whirled on them, pointing at Cameron. “So, you decided to go to my boyfriend and scare him off.”
Ryan folded his arms over his chest. “Which you had no right to do.”
Frankie’s eyes met his. “Shut up, Ryan. You thought rather than talking to me like an adult, you’d go running? What the hell is wrong with you? Oh wait, I forgot, that’s how you deal with things. You run away,” she said.
The words sliced through him, leaving him speechless, raw. “I was doing what was best for you.”
“You can’t decide what is best for someone, Ryan. Not someone who is capable of making their own choices. You didn’t think I might want to know? That I might want to be given a choice between losing you or not?”
He didn’t have any fight left in his voice. “Your choice would have been them.”
The truth had diminished his anger. Frankie’s eyes blazed with unshed tears as she stepped toward him and drilled her finger into his chest. “You’ll never know, will you? And now I’ve lost all of you,” she said.
Chloe moved toward her but Frankie stepped away. “Frankie.” Chloe tried again to close the distance but Frankie kept backing away. Ryan wanted to pull her back, even stretched his hand out to do so before realizing there was no point.
Frankie’s voice cracked. “You should all go. Please.”
She escaped down the hall, leaving him standing there with Chloe and Cameron, all of them in a strange emotionally charged standoff.
“Well done, boys,” Chloe said.
“I was trying to do what was best for her,” Ryan said again.
“So was I.” Cameron was speaking to Chloe but it was Ryan who replied.
“You were in no position to need to. You aren’t with her,” Ryan said.
“Neither are you,” Cam spat.
Chloe threw up her hands with a growl of frustration. “It always amazes me how much damage can be done when people try to do what they think is best for others. Why not just fucking ask? Why the hell are men so stubborn?” She grabbed her boots and started tearing at the laces, her movements as jerky as her voice had been. “If either of you care about anything other than yourselves, you’ll find a way to show her that.”
She stepped close to Ryan and he could feel the anger radiating off her like rays of the sun. An angry Amazon, he thought. Frankie deserved no less of a protector. It should have been him. He should have been the one to protect her instead of being the one to tear her apart. The look in Chloe’s eyes told him she knew this.
She poked him in the shoulder. Hard. “Prove I wasn’t wrong to believe you were the one for her.” Grabbing a jacket, she stormed out, slamming the door behind her.
Cameron shoved his hands in his pockets. “That went well.”
“No shit.”
“Ryan, I am really sorry.”
Ryan looked down at his feet, seeing that his boots were leaving water on Frankie’s floor. It seemed fitting; he left a mess wherever he went. “I know.”
Ryan was too mad at himself to hang onto his anger at Cameron. He’d spent too long blaming the people around him and yeah, they were part of the problem, but he made his own decisions. At some point, he had to start facing them. Now seemed as good a time as any. He opened the door, and without a backward glance, walked away from Frankie’s house. But this time, he assured himself, it would not be for good.