My colleague (Rob Jetten x Jesse Klaver)

Chapter 23

Jesse Klaver POV

Forgot that he didn't know about that... 

He's been messing with my focus and it's frustrating. I don't know what it is about him, but it needs to end. I came to The Hague to do a job, not to get caught up with some random brown-haired, lean, gorgeous... 

Cut it out! 

I take a deep breath, pushing the annoying thought away. This is not what I need. Jolein knows not to call me this late at night, there must be something wrong... 

She used to live down the street, always wearing two braided ponytails on each side of her head. She looked ridiculous but I never had the gut to tell her. She was kind to me, something I didn't know at that time. By the time we became teenagers, I pushed her away. I guess she didn't want to stay with someone like me either, and I don't blame her for that. 

It wasn't until two years ago that we rekindled. She called me one night, I'm still not sure how she remembered my parents' phone number from our childhood, but she did. I'd been staying there for the summer to take care of my mother's funeral. My dad was nowhere to be found, as usual. He would always leave when things would get difficult. I haven't seen him in over a decade this winter. 

Which is a good thing. 

For him. 

I couldn't make out what she was saying that evening over the phone. Her words were drowning in tears and the sound of breaking glass and hearts. 

She gave me an address and when I went to pick her up it didn't take me long to figure out why she was crying. I had to physically rip her from this asshole's hands, her two children as well. 

She begged me not to beat the shit out of him. 

He shouldn't have touched her then, too bad. 

She explained to me later why I shouldn't have done that and how he holds a lot of power through his function as a promising detective. 

Promising my ass. 

I wanted to drop her off at her parents but she begged me not to, they loved him apparently and would blame her for angering him. 

I didn't know Jolein's parents that well, but her mother had a stick up her ass ever since the first day I saw her. Jolein was putting some makeup on my left eye to cover up the bruise my dad left. We were roughly eleven when her mother found us in the bathroom. 

I never wanted someone to find out what was going down at my house, but somewhere deep down inside there were a few moments in my childhood where I'd hoped someone would. 

However, she didn't react the way I wanted them to react. She was angrier about me putting makeup on my face and how that stuff was for girls than a quarter of my face being swollen and colored a deep purple. 

It didn't catch me by surprise that her parents would get their priorities screwed, they were messed up like that. 

I offered to take her to a shelter and she agreed, but the moment we pulled up to that place and Jolein reached for the door handle, I locked the car. 

I recognized the look on the faces of the boys in the backseat through my rearview mirror all too well. I've seen that look on my own face way too many times when I was that age. 

I took them to my childhood home and told her they could stay however long they needed to. About six months later she came home with tears staining her face again. But this time it wasn't physical pain radiating her body, it was emotional. She met up with her lawyer that day, apparently, Mr. small dick filed for custody.