Page 93 of Lake
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Lake
A month went by.
In that time, B-ry had his fight. It didnotgo well and though I wasn’t there to see him go down, I saw just how hard he went down afterward. Hey, someone had to take the patrol shift that night, it wasn’t like I didn’t want to support my brother. It took him a few good weeks to recover. And Laurel, well, she was pissed. I suspected it had more to do with the fact that she wasn’t told about what he was doing until it was over. Not like we could keep it a secret afterward because you couldn’t exactly brush off the kind of bruising he had as something else. ‘I tripped and fell’ wasn’t going to be believable.
Though he lost and Pyotr said he was going to put money on B-ry, there hadn’t been any blowback from it. By the way some of the brothers that had been there went on, it seemed like Pyotr was oddly amused that B-ry lasted as long as he did. And it wasn’t like the guy didn’t make a killing from that night anyway, from what I’d heard.
Thanksgiving came and went and it was all I could do not to drive down to Florida. It was the last holiday that Bridget got to spend with her dad. She wouldn’t come right out and say how hard it was hitting her, but I could tell. She tried to stay strong and I did my best to let her.
That wasn’t to say that I didn’t call her and spend the night watching her beautiful face on video as she ate her sad frozen meal of turkey, cranberry slop, and green beans with almond slivers. She said it wasn’t so bad but I knew it was nothing like the homemade spread that Gwen, Abigail, and Chris had made for everyone. I tried not to brag too much. Just enough to let her know what she was missing.
It was hard. I wanted to push her into making a choice. And the only one that I thought was acceptable was the one where she moved here. But I didn’t. I held back and let her know that I missed her without being overbearing. In the end, I wanted her to make the choice that was best for her. I just prayed that it was me.
We hadn’t put any sort of label on what we were doing. I think that neither one of us could handle that right now.
Me, well, I knew that if I told her that I wanted her to be my woman— for lack of a better term— I knew it would shatter me if she ended up staying in Florida.
And for her, I figured it was best if she didn’t have the pressure of a title.
That said, I wasn’t sleeping with anyone else. I wasn’t even looking.
Let’s be honest, when you had the best thing ever, why would you even try to find a substitute? Not only were the women that hung around not appealing, they just didn’t do a single fucking thing for me.
Bridget was unique. Irreplaceable. Everything.
“Hey, man,” Mouse said slinging an arm around my shoulder.
We each had a fresh beer and the bar was full which wasn’t surprising for a Friday night.
“Hey,” I said smiling because even though Bridget was miles away, I was determined not to let it get me down.
“Knock that shit off.”
“What?” I asked with a joking innocence in my tone.
“Look, you miss her, I get it. But either go for it and lay it all out there or move the hell on.”
I eyed him for a long moment feeling like he was almost trying to say something more in his words.
“Look, that chick at the bar has been eyeing you all fucking night,” he said in a drunken tone, which was a little loud.
I took him in with semi-sober eyes for a moment before turning and looking in the direction he was. There were two women sitting at the bar. Their bodies were turned toward one another, only the brunette’s head was looking in my direction while her blonde friend chatted away.
My body did not respond in any kind of way.
But that didn’t matter because Mouse was now pulling me by his hooked arm around my neck in the direction of the two.
“Mouse,” I tried to say but it did nothing to slow him down.
“Hi,” I said with a forced smile because I was feeling super awkward.
“Hi,” the brunette said back breathlessly. “I’m Carla and this is Amber.”
Mouse gave a hello that was smoother than I thought he’d be able to give in his intoxicated state.
Okay, I just had to say something because Mouse was not a drink-to-get-drunk kind of guy. I could probably count on one hand the times I’d seen him drunk and most of those happened the last few months. I couldn’t pinpoint what the hell was going on and I felt like I really should have pulled him away and asked.
