His Revenge, Her Freedom

Chapter 19- 'When did you become a coward?'

"No, you haven't seen the best of me.

I'm still working on my masterpiece."

Reagan POV

"Babe, no offense, but why are you here?"

"Yeah, there's no way I could take offense to that."

After rolling his eyes, Zayn propped his feet up in my lap, to my chagrin, and turned to stare at me. We sat in silence for a little bit, just looking at each other.

It had been a rough day for me since we left Ember's yesterday. I hadn't looked Louis in the eye once since it happened, and I couldn't even talk to Josh because he was still sick.

And I desperately needed him to check on something for me.

"Keating, seriously, why are you here?" His face turned serious, and my cheeks got hot. I wasn't ready to talk about this. "When did you get back?"

"From where?"

"From Paris. What do you mean? From death, Keating. I know that we've been focused on the de- loss of....Jade, but I'm getting through it and now I can focus on a pressing issue here. I thought you were dead."

"Yeah...about that." I shifted so I was almost in his lap, and he put his feet in my face, making me cringe. After laying my head on his chest, I knew that I had to speak up. "That kinda isn't true."

"I kinda already know that." He laughed and rested his chin on the top of my head. "That's not what I was asking. Josh filled me in on everything a couple of days ago."

"Are you mad?"

"I was. Very."

"But...?"

"But, Josh let me take my anger out on him. And then he explained to me how necessary it was. Plus, I know that you wouldn't willingly leave Louis or your children and especially not me." He ignored my chuckle at that and lightly pinched me in return. "I didn't agree with it, but Josh told me to put myself in your shoes and asked if I would've done something differently. The answer was 'no'. So, I wasn't mad anymore."

I'll have to thank Josh for that later. No part of me thought that Zayn would need a lot of convincing, but it's nice to know that Josh was willing to bat for me.

"My question is...why are you here? Why are you here with me?", he continued. 

"What are you talking about?"

"Let's face it. You and I both know what kind of person Louis is. I'm sure he didn't welcome you with open arms." That was putting it mildly. "How did it go when you showed up on his doorstep?"

"Well, he yelled. Yelled again. Didn't speak to me at all. Then yelled some more."

"Seems about right. And what did you do?"

"What did I do?" I shifted so that I was looking up at him, but his face was impassive. "What do you mean?"

"Did you yell back? Did you hit him? What did you do?"

"Uh, nothing. I just took it."

"You just took it?" The look of bewilderment on his face confused me also, but I wasn't sure what was causing it. What was surprising about what I said?

"Yeah. What else was I supposed to do?"

"Babe, as long as I've known you, and it's been over 8 years, you've never taken anything lying down. I mean, you didn't even take me when I put my-."

"Zayn."

"Just bringing up good memories," he winked and smiled at me, "But, I'm being serious. Since when have you ever been known to not retaliate when someone does something you don't like?"