Page 44 of Promise Me This Christmas
As she was thinking all this, she’d been closing the distance between her and Carson.Soon she would be able to see who was sitting in the booth seat opposite him.She wondered if Carson used dating apps.Maybe this was someone he’d hooked up with on Tinder or something.
Stiffening her spine, she let her gaze slide from Carson to the mystery person.At first all she saw was red hair.Then a profile.
Her step faltered.A beard?
Carson wasn’t meeting another woman after all.It was a man.She felt a flush of embarrassment, but she couldn’t retreat now.She would have to make the best of—
She stopped dead when it hit her.The beard had been confusing.But as soon as she’d seen those light green eyes, she’d recognized him.
Carson was meeting with Andrew McCardle.
For several seconds she felt completely numb.And then the tidal wave hit.All the emotions she’d struggled with over the years.Anger, shame, disgust, a cesspool of awful feelings she had tried to put behind her.
Andrew had met her gaze just long enough for her to recognize him.Now he was staring into his empty glass, looking like he wished he could disappear.Carson didn’t look very happy either, but at least he wasn’t trying to avoid her.
“I’m sorry, Larkin.You weren’t supposed to see this.Seehim,” he clarified.
“I don’t understand how this is happening.You told me you weren’t friends anymore.”
“We’re not,” Andrew said quietly.
“That’s for damn sure.”
“Then why…?”And then she understood.Completely disregarding her stated wishes, Carson had decided he would confront Andrew about what he’d done to her the night of the prom.“I told you I wanted to leave it in the past.”
“You told me you didn’t want to press charges.”
People were looking their way.Damn it, now they were going to be a public spectacle.Well, what did she care?
“Way to split hairs.”She was so angry, she wanted to slap Carson.And she wanted to slap Andrew even harder.But she’d done that, and more, on the night in question, and it hadn’t stopped him.
“This situation is impossible.Andrew, I’d hoped to never see you again.But since I have, there’s something I want to say to you.You better never harm another woman the way you did me.Forcing me to have sex the night of our prom.That was supposed to be one of the happiest nights of my life.Instead it was the worst.”
“I—I’m sorry.I didn’t realize that you didn’t like what we were doing.”
“What?”The word exploded out of her like a bomb.“I fought you!How could you—”
But Carson was already out of his seat.He yanked Andrew to his feet, then pounded his fist into the side of face.Dazed from the punch, Andrew slowly sank to the floor, his knees giving out.
Everyone in the bar went absolutely quiet.Meanwhile the Zac Brown Band’s song about “Chicken Fried” played incongruously from the sound system.Larkin stared from Andrew, moaning on the floor, to Carson, looking like he was getting ready to throw a second punch.
Then a gruff voice from behind the bar said, “Folks, settle your bill and take your party outside.You can come back when you’ve cooled off.That’s all except for you, Red.You I don’t want to see in here ever again.”
*
Andrew showed remarkablepowers of recovery once a little cold air was blowing in his face.He hurried to his Audi SUV, locking himself into the driver’s seat like he was afraid Carson was going to come after him again.
Carson wasn’t.He was more concerned about damage control with Larkin.She was some pissed and he couldn’t blame her.
“That was ugly.I’m sorry, Larkin.You weren’t supposed to be here.”He wondered why she’d come to the bar in the first place, but there were more pressing problems to deal with right now.
Hands on hips, she glared at him.“What was Andrew doing there?You must have called him.Arranged a meeting.But why?”
“Because of what he did to you.I couldn’t live with myself until I’d called him out.”
“More like punched him out.”
“He brought that on himself with what he said to you.”
