Page 130 of When In Doubt

“What the hell are you doing here, Murph?”

“I just needed to crash.”

“Bullshit.” He shakes his head. “You live fifteen minutes away.”

“Did you not want to be alone?” Joni asks softly. Her words are a knife, cutting into the deepest part of me. “Did something happen with Freya?”

“Everything’s fine. We don’t need to spend every single night together.”

“You would if you could, though.” Mack stares at me, assessing. “Which means she told you to go.”

Christ, these two should get on a reality show. It’s a good thing I’m sitting down, else I think my knees might give out.

“That’s not what happened.”

“So, something did happen.” Joni looks like a spider who’s just caught a juicy fly in her web.

“We just decided to take a little space, it’s not a big deal.” I don’t want to get into the details with them, with anyone. It’s as if by talking about it, I’ll make it real. Right now I can almost pretend that the whole thing was a horrible dream.

“Why the hell would you need space? You do something to fuck it up?” Mack asks.

“I didn’t do anything,” I sigh.

“Then what the hell is going on? Because I’ve seen the two of you together. She looks at you like you hung the moon, and you don’t even want to know the way you look at her.”

“She just needed to put the brakes on.”

“Because of Justin?” he probes.

“Because of me,” I finally get out. Because that’s the truth, isn’t it? I pushed too hard, wanted too much, too fast, and I freaked her out. “I scared her.”

“Shit,” Mack says quietly. “Look, last night was a mess, and you didn’t exactly handle the situation gracefully, but she’s got to understand. Justin needed to be put in his place, especially with all the bullshit he was saying.”

“Mack filled me in, it sounded like Justin needed a slap,” Joni chimes in.

Mack chuckles, kissing her temple. “Always so vengeful.”

I stare down at my lap. I can’t look at them right now, not when they’re like this.

“She didn’t like that I called her my girlfriend,” I mumble.

“I thought that’s what she was?” Mack frowns.

“We hadn’t put a label on things yet.”

“So?” he asks. “Everyone could see what you two are to each other. Did it really need labelling?”

“That’s what I thought,” I say. “She’s got a lot of stuff in her past, and it makes her nervous about being in another relationship.”

You didn’t ask me.

I think of her face. Of course, she was upset. Everything she’s told me about the way her ex treated her, how he pressured her into things, and I go and do that? Just declare us a couple without ever discussing it with her? I know that it was in the heat of the moment, but fuck, how could I be that stupid?

Mack stiffens. “What stuff?”

“Did someone hurt her?” Joni asks carefully. Mack glances at his wife, his face grave. Something flashes between them and he loops an arm around her shoulder, pulling her against him.

I reach up to rub the spot between my brows. I don’t know how much Freya would be okay with me sharing, but I need to talk to someone about this. I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to navigating her trauma and I never want to do anything that’ll make things worse, but I’m flying blind here.