First

Chapter 26

Needles to say when my parents finally arrived my dad wasn't too happy to see me with Jace once again. Luckily I only had to deal with him; I did not want to have to face off against both my pissed off father and Levi. I braced myself for his torrent of anger and the grounding that would inevitably follow but to my surprise his anger didn't last long. My dad took one look at Jace and the way we were huddled together and whatever he had been about to say appeared to die on his lips. He didn't make Jace leave, tell me to stay away or get mad that I'd lied about where I had been. Instead he gave the two of us a long look and sighed. "You can stay," was all he said, nodding at Jace and then he walked away, miraculously leaving us alone.

"Should I be scared?" Jace asked once my dad was out of earshot, watching him warily.

I shrugged, as shocked as he was. "I have no idea. But I'm going to take advantage of whatever this is. Stay," I whispered. "Don't go home yet."

"I won't. I need my fix of you for a little while longer," he admitted. And I knew that was his way of saying he wasn't ready to go home yet.

For the rest of the night, my dad hung back and instead watched us closely. He watched our every move and our every interaction. I had no idea what he was watching for but it made me nervous. Once practice was over, Jace helped me pack up my things and I clung to him, scared to let him go; scared for him to go back to that house.

"I'm a phone call away. If things are bad when you get home, leave and come over," I said.

"It'll be okay; he'll probably be passed out by now. Always is. I'll be careful, though, I promise."

Just then, my dad approached and I closed my mouth and what I had been about to say. Jace and I pulled apart but he still had his hand wrapped around mine.

My dad stopped in front of us and held out his hand to Jace. He said, "I'm sorry," and I'm pretty sure both our mouths dropped to the floor. That had been the last thing either of us had expected from him. "For the way I reacted. I shouldn't have done that." Jace reached out and shook my father's hand and one of our biggest problems was solved. "Just watching you two tonight, I can see how wrong I was. I see how much you care for her, Jace. I trust you to continue with that.

"I would never hurt her, sir," Jace said solemnly. "I love and respect Kadence too much to do something stupid to mess this up. I fought like hell to get her and I'm going to fight like hell to keep her." I melted at Jace's words and I was pretty sure he had just won over my father. His words were so sincere and the way he looked at me while he said them was so loving that it was hard to doubt that he meant them.

For the first time in a long time, my father smiled at Jace. "I'm glad to hear that, son." Jace's face lit up like the sun at being called son and I could tell that it meant a lot to Jace. I could imagine that no one referred to him like that at home. My father turned to me now. "Kadence, it's late, we better be going and let Jace get home as well. I'm sure his parents are waiting up for him."

With that last sentence all my excitement over having my father and boyfriend finally on the same page disappeared; only to be replaced with dread and the new situation we found ourselves in. Sensing my downturn in mood, Jace pulled me into another hug. "It'll be okay." I nodded and kissed Jace.

As we walked out to the car, I stopped by the door and hugged my father. "Thank you," I whispered. "And I'm sorry too."

My dad shook off my apology. "Don't be. I'm the one who overreacted. I was just scared of you getting hurt. But I can see that you were just protecting him."

Once we got home, we had a long talk about everything that had happened and we slowly started to move past our disagreement. Things slowly started getting back to normal. I was talking with my dad and Levi and Jace and I started spending time together more openly.

But for Jace, things seemed to get much worse at home. Now that I knew, I was able to see the signs for what they really were. Jace's home life started to deteriorate and I watched from the sidelines helplessly as it all crumbled around him. He was spending more and more time at either my house or Max's and I knew that he was sleeping in the barn on more than one occasion. Each time I looked out my window only to see his truck hidden behind the barn my heart would crack. I didn't know what to do. It was getting harder with each passing day to keep Jace's secret. I was scared for him. The two of us couldn't continue to keep this secret and face the fall out for much longer; it was all becoming too much.

Jacekept saying he just had to hold out till he was 18 and then he'd be free. Hewould fantasize about getting his own place and he eventually roped me into hisdreams. We planned out everything we would want in our house. It became ourescape. But as things got worse, I didn't think we'd be able to make it.Something was going to happen sooner or later that would decimate everything;it was inevitable with the path we were on. Until he could escape, all we coulddo was take precautions. Jace started keeping a journal and pictures of theincidents with his dad as an insurance policy. I felt a little better butnothing could soothe the fear in the pit of my stomach.