Page 259 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 5
I needed another drink. And to talk to someone who actually understood. Someone who hadn’t frozen me out. I fired off a text and headed to the closest bar.
Matchmaker - Chapter 4
Thursday
“Hey man,” Tanner said and slid into the stool next to mine. “What’s up?”
I could always count on Tanner. No matter what he had going on, if I said I needed to talk he’d show up within 10 minutes. Honestly, I didn’t know how he managed it with the ridiculous traffic in this city. It was like he could teleport or something.
I didn’t respond. I just downed my glass and slammed it on the bar top.
Tanner grimaced. “That bad, huh?”
I nodded. My parents had forced me to go to therapy after Brooklyn died. And I did that whole thing for years. But it didn’t help. I just needed someone I trusted to talk to. Back and forth. Not someone staring at me taking notes. My best friends growing up didn’t want to talk about Brooklyn. Or anything high school. I got it. I was pretty sure they felt as guilty as me. But they’d all moved on. And I…couldn’t. Tanner was my only friend who seemed to care to listen. And he’d become my therapist of sorts. He never seemed to mind me talking about the past. He liked talking about his too.
I slid my phone over to Tanner.
He looked down at the text from Mr. Pruitt. “Again? What a dick. It’s like every time you start to move on, he pulls you back into this shit.”
It was kind of Tanner to say, because we both knew I was never even close to moving on.
“Maybe you should just answer him and get it over with,” Tanner said as he ordered us another round.
“I have nothing to say to him.”
“I know. But he clearly has something to say to you.” He handed me my phone back.
I looked down at the text. I could practically hear Mr. Pruitt’s voice: “Matthew Caldwell, it’s Richard Pruitt. We need to talk. It’s urgent. Please stop by tomorrow at 7 pm. The staff is expecting you.” He even put his address.
Pretentious prick.Why would he just assume I was free tomorrow at 7? I wasn’t. And I knew his freaking address. His apartment was ingrained in my head, no matter how hard I tried to forget. The last place I ever saw Brooklyn. Her crying in the foyer. I’d left her alone with that monster. My stomach turned.
Tanner leaned over to see some of the previous messages. “Today’s message is different than the others. Apparently now it’s urgent.”
“Everything with Mr. Pruitt is urgent.”
Tanner laughed. “Why do you still call him Mr. Pruitt?”
Tanner was weird about titles. It was respectful to call someone Mr. or Mrs. that was older than you. Especially someone that I grew up around. I’d never heard Tanner call anyone Mr. or Mrs.even if they were 50 years older than him. “I just always have,” I said. I hadn’t spoken to Mr. Pruitt since the funeral. He’d let me take a few of Brooklyn’s things. And that was it. He was going to be my father-in-law. And now I wanted nothing to do with him. Because as much as I blamed myself for what happened to Brooklyn? He was the real reason she was dead. And even though Brooklyn was his daughter, I was the only one that seemed to care that she was gone. Mr. Pruitt could go to hell.
“Want me to set his car on fire or something?” Tanner asked without a hint of humor in his voice.
I laughed even though he definitely seemed serious. Car fires sounded a lot more like something Mr. Pruitt would do. And I didn’t want to stoop to his level. “Maybe some other time.”
Tanner shrugged. “Just let me know. In the meantime, maybe you should change your number again.”
I’d changed my number five times. The messages still came. Mr. Pruitt was officially stalking me. “I’ll just ignore it.”
“You can’t ignore it if you get this shaken every time he texts you,” said Tanner. “Living life in fear is no way to live.”
“I’m not living my life in fear. And I’m not shaken.”
“Whatever you want to call it. These messages clearly get under your skin. And if I’ve learned anything in my time on this earth, harboring resentment is no way to live.”
His grand proclamation was a little shaky since he was a few years younger than me. “It’s not just his text that’s botheringme.” I stared down at the glass the bartender had just placed in front of me. “I thought I saw her again.” I didn’t tell him that I almost got in an accident because of it.
Tanner winced. “I’m sorry, man. Did that thing happen again? Where it was hard to breathe?”
I nodded and lifted the glass. “I hate the autumn.” All the memories came flooding back every fall. It was like she was still here.
