“Okay,” he said, nodding his head because Benji was right. “But is it enough to break up with me for?”

“No,” Benji said simply. “But to her it might seem to be.”

Looking down at the ground, he sucked in a deep breath. “I won’t let her.”

“That’s all you, dude. But I don’t think she is over the past. Or maybe she is, but this just opened the wound all over again and now you have to figure out how to close it back up.”

“But how?”

Benji shrugged. “You know her best, Jordie. She’s your chick and only you know how to fix this.”

He thought that over for a long time, tracing the rim of his can with his finger. His life was one big mess that he was continually cleaning up, but she had promised she would always stay by him to do that. Now, she was freaking out over something that really didn’t matter. It was his past, and she had to accept that or they wouldn’t work.

And not working wasn’t an option.

Glancing over at Benji, he shook his head. “Why are you single, dude? You are one of those listening kind of guys that girls eat up.”

Benji smiled. “I watch Game of Thrones, I’m an alcoholic, and I play hockey. Not really a winning combo.”

He eyed him. “It works for me when my woman isn’t acting insane.”

He shrugged. “One day. It’s a battle every day, but I’m a warrior and I’m gonna make it. Just like you. You’ll fix this, because that’s been the theme of your life since you left rehab. Fixing yourself. And you won’t stop, you won’t give up, until she forgives you.”

“You’re right,” he said softly.

“I remember one time with Ava. She was big and pregnant,” he said with a fond smile. “Like two weeks out. And I went out with the boys, got shit-faced, and came home, ready to get some. She lost her shit, threw all my stuff on the front lawn, kicked me in the gut, and told me I was dead to her. When I woke up in my own vomit, she was sitting on the porch, watching me, and I looked up into those sparkling blue eyes and I came undone,” he said sadly, shaking his head. “I promised I’d never do it again, and I didn’t. Except for that one time, the one time she was killed and I lived. So yeah, this fight sucks, and you feel like you’re losing. But really, at least you have the chance to walk in there and tell her that you’re sorry and that you’ll never do it again. I don’t.”

Jordie’s eyes were wide, his mouth gaping. “I mean, shit, dude. I think you almost made me cry.”

He sucked in a breath as Benji nodded. “Yeah, dude, my life sucks, but yours doesn’t. And if I were you, I’d give her some time to calm down before I approached her again. I remember one time I didn’t leave the toilet seat down and she fell in. She hit me with a frying pan.”

Jordie snorted. “Damn. She was a violent one.”

“Yup, the ones who love the most usually are.”

“True that, brother,” Jordie agreed, seeing Kacey hit Natasha all over again, the way she wanted to kill his mother, and the way she’d looked at him with the fierceness of a thousand armies. Kacey didn’t play, she loved. And he had hurt her. There was no other option but to fix it. As he watched while Benji sat with a sad smile on his face, it was easy to see that Benji missed his family very much. Jordie felt for him. He was sure that’s how he would be if Kacey didn’t get her head out of her ass and forgive him. He couldn’t imagine living a life without her. Or their child.

It just wouldn’t work.

He loved her.

And he wasn’t going anywhere without her.

“Are you stupid, Kacey?”

Kacey rolled her eyes as she leaned against her hand, Lacey on the line hollering at her. Instead of chasing after Jordie like she knew she should have, she let him leave mad, and it rocked her to the core. She hated fighting with him, but she was hurting and she hated feeling like she was worthless. Like she wasn’t enough to help him.

“First, you hit some random chick when you’re pregnant. And then you send Jordie away for something that, I’m sorry, is dumb. He never cheated on you, never deceived you or even lied. He just didn’t share information about someone who didn’t matter to him.”

Shocked, she yelled, “I mean, shit, Lacey, whose side are you on?”

“His!” she yelled. “You said you let go of his past, but it’s obvious you haven’t.”

“I have!”

“No, you haven’t. If you had, you wouldn’t be holding him to this.”

“No, I’m not doing that. I just don’t like that someone else helped him when I should have been the one.”

“Oh my jeez, you prideful jerk. It doesn’t matter who helped, as long as they did!” she yelled and Kacey bit the inside of her cheek. Jordie had said the same thing. “He needed help, he got it, case closed. It doesn’t matter who held his hand, smacked his ass and called him Sally. All that matters is him getting through this, coming to you, and being the man you need,” she said, and it rocked Kacey’s soul. “You gave him a second chance for a reason, because you believe in him, because you love him. So get your head out of your ass and call him and apologize!”

She dropped her head as the tears leaked out the sides of her eyes. “I mean, I get that, but I wanted to be there for him.”

“And you are! Just at a different stage of his life. The part I’d rather be in because, let’s be honest, you two wouldn’t be together if you were trying to help him through his issues, Kacey. So you didn’t get your way. Who cares? You’re gonna throw away a love you’ve been praying for and begging to come your way because you are being selfish and insane, just because you weren’t the one to push him along in rehab?”