The Scars That Make Us (Second Generation Book 3)

Chapter 19

JACE

“Catty!” Nola bolted out of the door of her townhome when we pulled up and Catarina was out of the truck and out of my arms right away as well. They met in the middle of the sidewalk, clutching to each other like it had been a lifetime since they had seen one another. 

I tried to not feel jealous, she was Nola’s first, but the second she left my arms I was missing her warmth. I can’t believe I managed to survive without her for as long as I did. Deacon and I got out of the truck and made our way up the walk. Nola smiled when she saw me and gave me a huge hug. 

“Good to see you again, Jace. Thank you for being there for my girl.”

“You know I’d do anything for her.”

“I know, that’s why I’m only crying a little bit about her leaving me. If she was moving to be with anybody else, I may not be as understanding.”

“She’s in good hands, Nola. My family is already looking forward to meeting her. And you know you can come to visit whenever.”

“I will certainly be taking you up on that.” Nola and Deacon share a hug. I was confused at their familiarity for a moment and then I remembered that Deacon spent the night at the bar dancing with all the girls and Nola was certainly not one to say no to a dance floor. “Good to see you again, Deacon.” 

“You too, Nola. Bring down the walls at any nightclubs lately?”

“Every weekend!” She moves back to Catarina and the two of them link their arms together. “Why don’t you go ahead and come inside? Did you say that your step-dad was on the way, Jace?”

“Yeah, I gave him your address since I knew this was the meetup point so we could pack away everything that she left here.”

Nola’s townhouse is decorated exactly how I would expect with lots of color and pattern. We all take a seat in her living room on these bright red couches. Nola grabs us a round of water and I manage to pull Catarina down next to me and she snuggles into my chest. I dig my nose into her hair and take a long inhale, God I missed her scent.

“So what happened, besides what we kind of figured?” Nola asked Catarina.

“They were pissed off, which I know we expected, but it was still kind of jarring. They had the audacity to say that Jace was taking advantage of my emotional and mental state at the time. That one pissed me off.”

“Those fucking assholes.”

“Speak of,” I interrupt, “who is Lark?”

“Who the hell brought up Lark?” Nola pressed her hand to her chest as though she was clutching a set of pearls.

“Right after my….incident...my parents thought it would be good if I started dating again. So Lark was one of the guys in our social group and the entire thing was a total pity set up.”

“Incident?” Deacon asked.

I didn’t tell anybody about the things that Catarina told me, not even Deacon. Apparently, that surprised her because she looked up at me like she was surprised that he didn’t know. She looked back to Deacon to reply. I knew she was nervous so I gave her a quick kiss. “I have dealt with some levels of depression and at a certain point I had caused so much harm to myself that I had to be hospitalized.”

“Shit, sorry about that. I didn’t know.”

“Thanks. I’m actually delighted  to hear that Jace didn’t tell you.”