I pick up the boxes and head downstairs, and this time I let the laugh out.
Lola is leaning against the truck in the parking lot, the sun hitting her red hair, wearing my T-shirt just tucked into her sweatpants at the waist, looking like she belongs in my life more than anything I’ve ever owned.
“Did Violet just threaten you?” she asks, biting back a smile.
“She did.”
“She’s the best person I know,” she says.
“Yeah.” I set the boxes in the truck bed and turn to face her. “I can see that.”
She pushes off the truck and then wraps her arms around my waist.
“Thank you for this,” she says. “For all of this.”
I hold her tight and kiss the top of her head. Breathe her in.
Then I pull back. “Violet, Luke—you two ride with Colten. He’ll take you to the ranch. Get you settled in the guest house.”
Violet frowns. “Why? Where are you going?”
“We’ve got one more thing to take care of here.”
Lola looks at me then, at Ace, who’s leaning against the other truck with his arms crossed and a grin spreading slowly across his face.
“What kind of thing?” Lola asks.
“The fun kind.”
Violet opens her mouth to argue, but Luke gently steers her toward Colten’s truck. “Come on. I think this is a them thing.”
She glares at me over her shoulder the entire way. I give her a wave.
Once Colten’s truck disappears down the road, I turn to Lola. “This is Reese’s apartment.”
“Yeah. I’m aware.”
“He owns the furniture. The fixtures. The appliances. Everything that’s left in there belongs to the man who put his hands on you.”
She stares at me. I watch the realization dawn across her face. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Ace opens the truck bed and pulls out a baseball bat. Holds up a second one. “Ladies first,” he says.
Lola looks at the bat. Looks at me. Looks at the building.
And then she smiles. This time it’s more wild. “Give me that,” she says, taking the bat from Ace.
The three of us head back upstairs. The apartment is empty now. Stripped of everything that belonged to Lola and Violet. What’s left is Reese’s—his couch, his coffee table, his kitchen stools, the TV he mounted on the wall, the bathroom mirror with the stupid backlight he probably bragged about when he gave them the tour.
Lola stands in the middle of the living room. Bat in her good hand, my hat on her head.
She takes a breath, then she swings.
The coffee table goes first. The glass top shatters on impact, and she lets out a scream that’s been building since last night; it almost seems cathartic. She brings the bat down again, and the legs buckle. Again, the frame collapses.
Ace whoops and puts his boot through the TV.
I take the kitchen apart. Stools cracked against the counter. Cabinet doors ripped off their hinges. His fancy espresso machine launches across the room and explodes in a shower of plastic and chrome.