Page 158 of Story of My Life
“The kind that isn’t relevant now,” she said. “I was lying in the dirt in the front yard being pissed off about it when Levi asked me if I wanted a drink.”
I was back to being mad. But this time it was mostly directed at my idiot brother. “My brother asked you out.”
“He asked me to go for a drink,” she said, as if it were an important clarification. “I was eighty percent sure it wasn’t a date and that he wanted to talk to me about something, and that made me curious enough to forget about being upset.”
“So twenty percent of you thought my brother asked you on a date and one hundred percent of you showed up for it.”
“Another point for you. Yes. But I was just getting ready to text you to give you a heads-up when Levi started talking about the thing he wanted to talk about, which has nothing to do with being in a relationship or having sex with me.”
“What did he want to talk about?” I demanded.
“He asked me not to tell anyone, and I’m not going to. So if you want to know, you’re going to have to take it up with him.”
“I’m taking it up with you.” And as soon as I was done taking it up with her, I’d be taking it up with my brother…using my fists and maybe my feet.
“Cam, I’m giving you the chance to not completely fuck this up. Yes, I made a mistake by not giving you a heads-up, and I can absolutely understand how frustrating it is that I’m not telling you why Levi wanted to talk to me. But if you’re looking for an out, this is a pretty shitty, cowardly one.”
“So you were twenty percent sure you were on a date with my brother, and now you’re keeping secrets with him from me. And you’re saying if I stop having sex with you because of that, I’m a coward.”
“No points for selective hearing. Try again.”
I ran my tongue over my teeth and clenched my hands into fists. This woman was so much fucking work. “Fine. My brother wanted something mysterious from you, and you being you got all curious about it, so you agreed to go for a drink with him. You were too pissed off about your own mysterious news—that you also don’t feel like sharing—and then too enthralled by whatever the hell conversation you two were having to bother to give me a heads-up. But apparently none of that actually matters because we didn’t have an agreement about monogamy.”
“Okay, there are some bitterness and immaturity mixed in there, but overall, I think you get it.”
“So if I wanted to ask some woman out for drinks, I could and you couldn’t get mad.”
She rolled her eyes. “No. I could still get mad because you can’t legally agree not to have emotions. But I couldn’t claim that you had broken any promises to me since you never made that specific promise.”
We stared at each other for a long beat.
“So you don’t want to date my brother?”
“No. And to be fair, I don’t want to date you either.”
“Do you want to have sex with my brother?”
“Not if I’m still having sex with you. Do you want to ask another woman out for drinks?”
In a move so immature I refused to acknowledge I was doing it on purpose, I let the question linger in hopes that Hazel would feel a sliver of the stupid jealousy I’d felt. “Not if I’m still having sex with you,” I admitted finally.
“Well, if and when we figure out if we’re still having sex with each other, I’d suggest editing our original agreement for clarity.”
With that, she walked away from me.
Levi sauntered over, hands in his pockets. “My place?”
“Yeah.”
Levi’s placewas a small timber cabin nestled into the woods on the lake between town and the lodge. There were no chickens in the coop, I noted as we circled each other under the trees.
“You’re a real fucking asshole, Leev. You know that?” I said, giving him the first shove.
He rolled back a step, shaking his head ruefully like he couldn’t believe I was making him do this.
“Out of the two of us, only one deserves that title today.” And then his fist was ramming into my jaw and snapping my head back.
“Shouldn’t have pulled it,” I said with a bloody smirk before firing back with a left hook to his face.
