Page 20 of Safe With Me
“Geez, you’re a shitty friend.” I reached for my beer. Fuck, it was warm and gross at this point, but still. My hands were shaking. “She won’t listen to you, and you’re all ‘go for it.’”
“You sure are fighting hard against what you implied you wanted.”
I ground my teeth so hard my jaw ached. “I don’t want to be with Elizabeth.”
Jase lifted one eyebrow.
I scowled. “Shut up.”
Silence stretched, and I hated that as much as I did him poking at me. The silence was where I had to think, and I didn’t want to think too hard about any of this.
Half-gone on Hannah. He had lost his damn mind.
Yeah, I looked at her. She was gorgeous, really easy on the eyes – not as made up as Elizabeth, but she did this thing with her makeup that made her hazel eyes brighter, like sunlight filtering through an autumn forest. She was just pretty everywhere, from those bright eyes to her full, plum-pink lips.
And I was a guy. I noticed when she wore those painted-on Levis. She had a nice, curvy ass, and somehow the pockets on those make it even perkier.
Fuck, she liked Tick Calvert enough to go out with him three times? He was married, but there were other guys out there, single guys, and we didn’t talk about our love lives.
Mainly because I didn’t have much of one, what with me moonin’ after Elizabeth and because Hannah–
Well, she was usually with us on the weekends. I’d know if there was another guy, right?
“I can taste the panic from here.” Jase’s deadpan observation dripped with choked laughter. Mother. Fucker. Iwas going to . . . nope. Not hitting him. “How bad did you screw up anyway?”
“Bad.” I dragged a hand down my face. “She blocked me. Doesn’t want to see me.”
Jase whistled.
I shot him a glare. “You’re a lot of help.”
“Buddy, I don’t know if anyone can help you.” His shit-eating grin didn’t belie the sympathy in his eyes. I’d seen that same look there when Mama passed and I was completely out of control. I didn’t want to think about why he might be looking at me like I’d lost something important for good. “But I can feed you.”
He ordered an everything from Nick’s, and while we waited, I slumped on the couch – the used leather one he’d gotten as a hand-me-down from his grandparents, the one Elizabeth hated because it wasn’t new and linen and square – and pondered the fucked-up state of my life. My thoughts resembled a tangled mess of barbed wire, and I carefully turned over the idea of half-gone on Hannah, when all along I’d thought it was Elizabeth.
For years, I’d thought Elizabeth was why dating never worked. I’d take somebody out, and we’d have uncomfortable conversations while any interest the woman had in me slowly died because I was stiff and aloof. Every so often, a date ended in uncomfortable sex because, yeah, I was stiff and aloof in bed, too. I’d finally quit asking anybody out because I was a bad date all around and why inflict that on somebody who didn’t deserve it?
With hope gone and my life stuck like a tractor in deep mud, I’d lived for Saturday nights, whether we met up at the Millhouse or the Cue Club, Nick’s if it was football season or hung out at Trace and Sara’s. Hallmark Christmas movie season was the best, because Hannah loved those sappy things, and I’dtease her and nudge a knuckle into her arm when she cried. She wasn’t affectionate with me the way she was with Sara, so I couldn’t drag her into a hug or put my arm around her while she teared up when some city dipshit got his head out of his ass and realized he loved the small town girl who was everything he’d ever wanted.
Fuck my life, I might be a farmboy dipshit with my head up my ass.
My belly ached, and I doubted hunger was to blame. That knot, deep and low and tied tight like a constrictor knot, was exactly how I’d felt when Mama died.
Fuck. Me.
Another half-beer and a couple of slices of pizza that formed a cold ball in my stomach later, I headed out, still confused, but at least solid with Jase.
Man, it had been a shitty day, and I’d never sleep tonight.
My low fuel chime dinged. I groaned – in the shit of the afternoon, I’d forgotten to swing through the Tank and Tummy on my way out of town after lunch. I pulled into the Flash Foods, cursing because the parking lot was a freaking nightmare of awkwardness. Jockeying into the outside spot on the western-most pump as a nondescript sedan pulled to the inside spot, I swiped my card, starting fueling, and leaned on the side of the truck, eyes closed.
It didn’t help because my brain had no trouble conjuring up images of Hannah’s hurt face last night, her cold disgust today, like movies on a big screen.
I’d hurt her, and now she acted like she hated me.
Jesus, this mess really couldn’t get any worse.
“ . . . my flight’s at ten, and there’s a forty-five minute layover in Atlanta.” The beeping of the electronic keypad punctuated Tick Calvert’s words.
