Page 3 of Between the Stars

I stared straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge it. I swallowed and waited for the next set of words. I knew how he felt about me, and a DUI certainly didn’t help my cause. He didn’t trust me any longer and I couldn’t blame him on that one. I wasn’t good enough for someone like Abigale.

“And I expect you to let her go. You hear me, son?”

Again, I offered nothing. It wasn’t that I didn’t respect Kurtis Lockett, but I was not about to go public with Abbi and me. She made me swear I wouldn’t, especially to her father.

He didn’t need to let me know I wasn’t good enough. Those words were enough. I wasn’t meant to be hers and she would soon be onto something better.

When the nachos arrive,thankfully the talk about the wedding isn’t mentioned again.

You might be wondering why I’m worried about a wedding. It’s not mine, but I bet if you had to guess, you’re gonna say girlfriend, right? Nope. Just like the mystery girl with Barron, my relationship with the bride-to-be is even more complicated.

“So this chick.” Rhett takes a drink of his beer, looking over his shoulder at Kacy. “You know anything about her?”

“Not really.” I pick at the chips smothered in cheese. I’m with Sev who looks like she’s wearing most of them. I’m not sure she’s successfully gotten any in her mouth at this point. I hand her a napkin. “Stop wiping your hands on your shirt, kid.”

She ignores me completely and takes the cheesy palms of her hands and wipes them right down the front of her shirt. “I not.”

“You literally just did.” I love this kid, but Barron’s girls are excellent birth control for most of the guys in the shop.

“Where’s she from?” Rhett asks, his blue eyes drifting to the table where she’s sitting with Barron still.

“California,” Camdyn tells him, climbing up onto a bar stool. Camdyn is Sev’s older sister and completely unlike her. Two kids, same parents, and polar opposites. In looks, personality, pretty much every way possible. “I don’t even know where that is.”

I think about what Camdyn said about the mystery girl. California. I smile thinking Barron’s wife, okay, someday ex-wife when he actually signs the fucking papers, left him for California. She’s a model now. Granger jerks off to her photos on Instagram. Don’t tell Barron. He’d fire his ass in a heartbeat. Not only do I like Granger, but I’m not about to work by myself for Barron. He’s needy and a bastard sometimes. Plus, I just got all the gravy work. If Granger gets fired, I have to do all that shit myself.

When Sev’s finished with her nachos, I take her over to the dance floor to give Barron some time with California. Maybe if I occupy his kids, he’ll get laid tonight and will ease up at work. I don’t know if you’ve figured it out yet, but I work for Barron at his dad’s repair shop. Small-town shit. We live in the wind-stricken cold as shit in the winter and hot as the devil’s ass crack in the summer. That would be what some refer to as Amarillo. And this bar, pretty much where I’ve lived out the last four years before I let the girl go.

Ah, yes. Back to the girl. Are you surprised?

Didn’t think so.

“Turtles All The Way Down” blares through the bar as I dance with Sev. She has her head on my shoulder, nearing sleep and twirling the button on my flannel between her fingertips. Pressing my lips to her temple, I think about Abbi. I think about what it would be like if she was here and we had kids. I imagine if she was, we probably would.

I remember the last time I saw her. She was alone in a feeling I didn’t return and the air between us filled with everything I couldn’t say. To this day, my lack of words haunts me deeper than her expression. Predictable, right? Girl asks for more and the guy leaves her hanging.

“I’m leaving.”

I could feel it in the air before she said the words. I knew. Girl like her, she wasn’t meant to stay in this town. She deserved more. She’d gotten into the University of Tennessee, and I didn’t. I suppose it had something to do with not applying. I wouldn’t leave this town. My future was here, in Amarillo, and not with this girl. Her daddy told me so. And though I would never agree with Kurtis Lockett, he was right.

Without looking at me, she blew air into her hands, and I could barely draw in a breath. “Are you going to say anything?”

I stared out the windshield and into the field. Same field I chased this girl next to me until she let me kiss her. Same one I tackled her in years later and made her swear nobody would ever hold her heart like I did.

I glanced over at her, the light in her eyes had disappeared with my lack of words. She didn’t want to be alone in this feeling. She wanted me to tell her to stay. For us. But had there ever been an “us” publicly? No. There’d always been the secret of Jace and Abbi.

I could barely see her eyes as the radio crackled, but I knew this was the end. I couldn’t hold her here any longer, because what the fuck did a ranch mechanic have to offer a girl like her?

Love?

That wasn’t enough.

“Say something.”

What was I going to say? She was crying again, digging deep for me to react. Stranded in a feeling I didn’t understand, I hated those words because what the fuck did she think I’d say? We were toxic. To everyone around us. We’d been lying for seven years. Parents, friends, lovers… we’d hurt so many people along the way, including ourselves. Eleven years old, I kissed her for the first time and told her not to tell anyone. Why? The week before, my best friend and her brother—warned me to stay away from her. I didn’t listen and neither did Abbi.

And now here we were, seven years later, still sneaking around and hurting everyone including ourselves.

“Fuck,” I growled, gripping my hair at the roots, but it didn’t stop the regret. “What do you want me to say? To beg you to stay? You know I can’t fucking do that, Abbi. That’s not fair to you.”

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