Page 70 of Just the Tipsy
“I know the feeling,” he finally says. “It makes you question everything about yourself.”
“Exactly.” Like how did I even let this happen, and mostly, was there something wrong with me to make him do that?
Now I can see that there wasn’t — Kyler is a douchebag who barely wanted to put in effort in our relationship. But still, at the time, I sobbed my eyes out until I could confront him.
“Did you get…?” I let him fill in the blank, and he nods again. “I’m so sorry, Waylon.”
“It’s in the past,” he says. But he doesn’t say it’s okay now. “I’m over her completely, but the mindfuck of catching her cheatingtwicestill has me questioning my own memories. Like I knew her but there was this whole other her underneath. We’ve known each other for so long but only started dating in college. Then that imploded around the time we graduated because she cheated. My biggest mistake is taking her back years later because she said she’d grown up. The whole second leg of our relationship was a disaster.”
“I can’t imagine how awful that is,” I say, leaning against him. “And it’s not dumb to take her back if she sounded like she was genuinely sorry. It’s on her for being a shitty person and betraying your trust.”
He doesn’t respond, he just puts his hand on my thigh and lightly squeezes it. I rest my hand on top of his. All the little bits and pieces I know about him start to click into place — his insistence on keeping things casual, the icy tension between him and his ex.
I felt like my whole world had been flipped upside down when I found out Kyler was cheating and we had only dated for two years. I can’t imagine the level of betrayal I would feel if I’d known him my whole lifeandif I’d given him a second chance.
“Sorry, it’s not about my own bullshit,” he finally says, shaking his head. “Ready to head back inside?”
“Sure, yeah.” I stand up and he takes my hand, just as naturally as ever. But after everything he told me, I doubt we’ll ever be more than what we are now.
TWENTY-TWO
WAYLON
“I should have checkedthe weather, sorry,” I say to Bianca, looking out the window. It’s pouring out, thunder rolling in the distance. “We’ll have to try camping another weekend.”
“It’s cool,” Bianca says. “To be honest, I just got a shipment of a bunch of my favorite snacks that I can’t find around here so I was going to lay around all day and watch TV.”
“That sounds really nice. And I’ll probably end up doing that too.” I lean down to pet Duke when he leans against me.
I rarely ever get days when I can just sit around and do nothing, especially when the weather is perfect for just that. I’m still working on not feeling guilty about it, a remnant of my years and years of constantly doing stuff.
“Would you want to hang out together?” she asks after a little pause. “I was thinking I’d rewatch Breaking Bad or something.”
My heart flips up into my chest. I’ve wanted to hang out with her one-on-one for longer than I want to admit, but I haven’t had the chance to bring that up organically. At least when I go help with the house, I have a reason to talk with her. Inviting her to just hang out felt like I was crossing some imaginary line.
“Yeah, that sounds great.” I try to keep my voice neutral, but I probably sound excited. “What time were you thinking?”
“Maybe in half an hour? Can we do it at your place? Your TV is probably bigger.”
I take a glance around my place. It’s clean enough, but thirty minutes will make it ‘clean enough for a guest” clean.
“Sure, yeah.” I grab a t-shirt I threw onto the couch after coming in from a run with Duke yesterday. “See you in a bit.”
I end the call and start throwing shit into the spare bedroom. My robot vacuum can’t do the whole living room in one go, so there’ll just have to be dog hair everywhere. Not that I can ever be completely free of all animal hair. By the time Bianca arrives, my house looks cleaner than it has in ages.
I wish I didn’t care so damn much. That isn’t part of the plan.
“Hey,” she says. She’s in a crop top, zip-up hoodie, and soft-looking leggings. Just the tiny bit of exposed skin across her stomach makes me want to touch her.
“Hey, come in,” I step back and pull her in from the rain. “Hope you didn’t get too wet.”
“Nope, we’re good.” She moves her arm to reveal Sadie in her bag. “And the snacks are good too.”
She follows me to the living room, where she places Sadie down on the armchair next to Duke. The two dogs cuddle up, with Sadie curling up against Duke’s belly.
“So what are these snacks?” I ask, blatantly taking in the view of Bianca from behind.
“You might think they’re gross,” she says, putting her bag on the coffee table and sitting down. “There’s a lot of fake cheese in here.”
