“I walked out,” she tells me quietly. “I might have said some things to her…”
“Might have?”
“Okay I definitely said some things — to both of them, but I couldn’t get out of there fast enough if I’m completely honest.”
“So, you’re not planning their wedding?”
She huffs out a laugh. “Hell freakin’ no. Are you insane?”
I nod my head even though she can’t see me. “Good,” I growl. “And yeah… Maybe.”
I’m pacing the room, I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m torn between screaming or punching something, but I can’t do either of those things with Katie on the phone.
None of this is her fault, but my carefully constructed, content little world has just come crashing down around me all over again.
This isn’t two steps forward and one step backwards, this is more like two steps forward and then a flat-out sprint in the opposite direction.
Right now, I’m back in the kitchen with Lizzie and she’s telling me that she met someone else. That she’s leaving. That we’re over.
I’m right back to having my heart broken.
“Are you okay?” Katie asks, and honestly, I’d forgotten she was still there, on the other end of the phone that’s pressed to my ear.
I can’t let her see this — the meltdown I can feel brewing. I’ve already put her through so much and given her so little in return, I don’t want her to see me like this.
“Can we take a rain check on dinner tonight?” I manage to choke out. “I won’t be very good company.”
“Jackson… Please don’t do this,” she begs.
She knows me well enough to know what’s going on right now — she knows I’m close to the point of falling apart.
“I’m fine,” I tell her, and it’s a blatant lie — the first outright lie I’ve ever told her, and I hate myself for it the minute I say it.
I’m not fine at all. She knows it as well as I do, and I can feel myself pushing her away when I know I should be holding her close, but I’m all fucked up.
She’s quiet for a long time and when she does speak it threatens to break my heart even more than Lizzie ever could.
“I really care about you, Jackson. I’m here if you need me, okay? Just pick up the phone and call me. I promise I won’t let you down… I’m not her.”
I don’t even get a chance to reply before the line goes dead.
I squeeze the phone in my hand and consider throwing it against the wall of my office, but I don’t. Even in my all-consuming rage, I can hear Katie’s words echoing in my head over and over again, telling me to pick up the phone and call her.
She’s always the voice of reason.
I won’t call her back — not while I’m in this frame of mind, but something inside my brain tells me that I shouldn’t eliminate the option entirely. I don’t want to let her down any more than I already have.
I settle for slamming it down on the couch and letting out a frustrated half scream.
I need a fucking drink.
I think I need about ten drinks actually and lucky for me, I’m in the right place.
***
“You know… it’s just bullshit… ya know?” I look around blindly, trying to find where I left Bryn.
“Right here, big guy,” he tells me as he sits down next to me and claps me on the shoulder. “And I hear ya, it’s bullshit.”
“Bullshit,” I mutter under my breath as I take another swig of my drink.
“This is going to sound like a cliché, but you know you’re better off without her, right? Let Grant have your sloppy leftovers.”
I glare at him and toss back another shot of I don’t even know what.
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“Well it should. Lizzie was a bitch.”
“Bitch,” I mumble in agreement.
I gesture Nick to come over and refill me, but Bryn warns him off with a wave of his hand. “You’re done here, boss man.”
“But this is my bar,” I slur.
Even I know I’m too pissed, but like a true drunken asshole, I’m not willing to go quietly. I’m like my own worst nightmare on a bar shift right now.
“You’re damn right it’s yours, and you’ve got a shit load of paying customers in here, so how about you stop threatening to make a scene and go up to bed quietly instead.”
I try to spin on my seat so I’m looking at him, but I somehow manage to end up falling to the floor.
“Ouch,” Bryn drawls. “The floor’s a really good look on you, boss.”
“I’ll give you ouch in a minute,” I say as I try and get to my feet and fail miserably.
“Oh yeah, you’re a real Rocky right now.” He chuckles as he helps me up and steadies me.
“Just give me a bottle and I’ll be on my way,” I barter with him.
“You’ll be on your way without a bottle,” he tells me. He’s not buying into my bullshit one little bit.
He’s leading me to the stairs, and I laugh to myself as I recall flashes of Katie trying to help me do this same thing.
“I really have to stop drinking this time,” I think aloud.
“Understatement of the fucking century, dude.” He grunts. “Shit, can you help me out at all here? You’re a god damn dead weight.”
I grin lazily at him as he struggles to help me up the stairs. He’s panting like a big dog. “Too much weights, not enough cardio,” I tell him, matter of factly. “You’ve gotta start going for runs, man… clears the… head,” I tell him as I tap my skull.
“Right… because your head seems so fucking clear.”
He shoves me so I’m leaning against the wall next to my door as he rests his hands on his knees and breathes hard.
“In you fucking go.” He points at the door.
I pull my keys out of my pocket and look at them in confusion. They all look a little blurry, and shiny, and most confusing of all, they all look the same.
“Oh, for the love of God,” he huffs as he snatches them from my hand and finds the key without much effort at all.
“How’d you do that?” I ask as he opens the door and shoves me inside before following me in.
“I’m going back downstairs to close up. You — go to bed.”
I salute him as I stumble inside.
“I fucking mean it, Jack, just go to sleep, alright? Don’t make any phone calls or any of that shit, you’ll just make a fool of yourself.”
“Sleep. No calls,” I repeat back to him.
He shakes his head at me and strides across the room to the door.
“Love you, B,” I yell after him.
He turns and laughs at me as he pulls the door shut.
I look around the empty apartment and frown.
I manage, with a lot of freaking effort, to toe off my shoes and flop down on the couch.
I want to call Katie, but first I need to shut my eyes for a few minutes, I decide as I feel my lids growing heavy before they close altogether.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Katie
He hasn’t called me. Not even one damn phone call.
It’s been hours, and if I know him as well as I think I do, he’ll be well and truly wasted by now.
Drowning his sorrows yet again.
The man is so emotionally damaged and the only kind of coping method he has is one you find at the bottom of a bottle.
My life feels like it’s all coming to a point where it’s all going to explode. The lease on my apartment is up in a month, Tillie’s wedding is in three weeks, and I’m in love with a man who is still obsessing over his breakup with his ex.
All these things, they’re coming to a head — I can feel it. As much as I love my best friend and want her to be happy and have a beautiful day, I absolutely can’t wait for her wedding to be over.
I need some air.
That’s why I came out here, to the beach he brought me too. But it’s not giving me the same sense of p
eace that it did when he was here with me.
It’s not the same without him.
Out here now I just feel lonely and confused, and neither of those emotions are something I’m particularly accustomed to feeling.
It’s funny how finding someone you want to share your life with can make you feel whole yet empty at the same time.
I don’t like it — this feeling of giving up control and putting my fate into the hands of someone else.
I know Jackson feels things for me — these past couple of weeks have been the most incredible weeks of my life, but like my dad always used to say, ‘what goes up, must come down’, and I’ve got a pretty good idea that the ‘coming down’ is happening right now.
I brush the sand off my hands and get to my feet. It’s nearly pitch black out here, and it’s freezing.
It’s time for me to go.
Where I’m going, I have no idea… But I know I can’t sit here static forever. Whatever is going to happen in my life requires me to be in it; I just have to ride it out and see where it takes me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Jackson
I wake with a start and realise it’s my own snoring that has dragged me from my drunken slumber.
I blink a few times against the harsh ceiling lights.
“What the fuck,” I mutter to myself as I sit up and run my hand through my hair.
I’m still wasted. I can feel the alcohol thrumming through my veins.
I’m home at least, and alone by the looks, so those are both wins.
But my ex-girlfriend and mate are getting hitched, and that certainly isn’t a win.
I pick up my phone and stare at the screen as I think about what to do next.
The more rational part of my brain is telling me to hit the hay and call it a night, but the little devil that sits on my shoulder — the one who seems to get bigger and louder every time I drink — is telling me that I’m still pissed off and I need to do something about it.
I slide open the screen of my phone and dial the number I have saved for the cab company.
I don’t even realise exactly what I’m doing until I’m giving them my address for pickup and telling them where I want to go.
I know it’s a bad idea, I do, and if someone was here to save me from myself right now, I’d be fucking grateful, but there’s not.
There’s just me, the silence and my pathetic wounded heart.
I manage to get my shoes back on my feet and before I know it, I’m down the stairs — the exterior ones, I can’t risk Bryn intercepting me — and into the waiting cab.
I must be drunker than I thought, because I swear I blink and we’re there — outside the house that is all too familiar to me.
“Keep the meter running,” I say with a point of my finger. “Got it? I just gotta say a couple things and I’ll be back… Keep the meter running.” I shake my head at myself. “I said that already.”
“I’ll be waiting,” the driver tells me.
I think he wants me out of his car, but after I clamber out and walk up the path, I look back and he’s still there.
I give him a double thumbs up and he gives me an awkward one back.
I approach the door and knock hard.
I’m not expecting her to actually be here, so when the door opens inwards and she’s standing there in front of me, I say her name aloud like I’m shocked to see her here — at the place where she lives.
“Jackson?” Lizzie asks in confusion. “What are you doing here?”
“I used to live here, you know,” I say as I sway a little bit. “Why are you here?”
“Are you drunk?” she asks, her voice rising an octave.
I look her up and down out of habit — she’s a beautiful woman, but there’s something wrong, she still looks the same, all tall, blonde and skinny, but there’s something missing. She just looks wrong — that’s the only way I can explain it.
“I might have had a couple. Katie says I need to stop drinking.”
“I think you should listen to Katie,” she says as she looks anxiously up and down the street.
“I should.” I agree with a vigorous nod. “She’s a smart woman.”
“Why are you here, Jackson?”
“You’re getting married.” I don’t say it like a question, I throw it at her like an accusation.
She blushes deep red and dips her chin in embarrassment.
“Katie told me,” I add.
“Did she tell you she yelled at me?”
I shrug.
“I guess I deserved it,” she says, and even drunk, I’m surprised she’s admitting to deserving anything other than a happy ever after.
I stuff my hands in my pockets and try to stop swaying from side to side.
I think I fail.
“Katie says I need to stop being mad at you.”
“You’re still mad at me?” she asks, and if I didn’t know better, I would have sworn that this information hurt her in some way.
I must really be drunk — Lizzie doesn’t get hurt. She only does the hurting.
“Really fucking mad,” I say.
“Grant and I—”
“Grant and I,” I interrupt her with a poorly done impression of her voice.
She winces.
“I don’t give a fuck about you and Grant,” I say, a slur creeping into my voice.
“Then why are you here?” she asks me gently.
I shrug again.
Truthfully, I don’t really know why I’m here. I thought I cared about her still, I really did, but standing here in front of her, I feel nothing. She’s the wrong woman.
“I’m really sorry that I hurt you, Jackson, I am, and I know that my opinion doesn’t count for anything anymore, but I think you need to open your eyes and see this Katie woman. Really see her. Because it seems to me that she’s telling you all the right things, and judging by the way she stood up for you today, it looks like she’s doing all the right things too. She’s in love with you, Jackson, and the way you say her name makes me think you could fall in love with her too.”
“I’m already in love with her,” I snap at her, and the words shock me so much I look around to check that it was me that said them.
“Well… shit,” I mutter. It’s like someone just opened a door inside my brain, or maybe being here and letting go of all this bullshit unlocked it for me and shoved me through to the other side.
I don’t know what was holding me back before, whether it was fear or something else, but now that those words have left my mouth and found their way out into the universe, it seems like the most obvious thing in the world.
I love her.
I’m in love with Katie, and I’m ruining it. I’m screwing the whole thing up.
“Go home, Jackson,” Lizzie says, and I snap my eyes back up to her face.
“Maybe I will,” I say — totally unwilling to admit that maybe she might be right.
I can feel the slur growing thicker in my voice. I should get the hell out of here.
“I really am sorry, Jackson. I know there’s nothing I can say, but I do hope you’ll be happy one day.”
I’ll be happy sooner than one day. I’m already happy, I just didn’t know it.
“Good talk,” I say as I turn around and make my way down the path. “I still really don’t fucking like you, but good talk,” I yell over my shoulder.
I climb into the cab without so much as a backwards glance.
“Back home?” the driver asks me hopefully.
I shake my head at him. “Nope. I love her.”
“So, you’re getting back out then?” he asks in confusion as he looks up at the house.
“Not her,” I say with a scowl. “Just drive, man, I’ll tell you the way.”
He mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like ‘drunk ass’ before taking off down the street.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Katie
“Katie!” I hear the voice yell. “Katie
? Are you there?”
I rush over to the monitor on the wall and listen to make sure I’m not hearing things.
“Katie! Open up, dimples,” he yells again.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter.
It’s late… or early, depending on which way you look at it, and Jackson is loud as all hell.
I press the button so I can talk back to him. “Jackson?” I ask.
“The one and only,” he drawls, and I can hear that he’s been drinking.
“What are you doing here?”
“I need to come up,” he says in a voice so loud I have to move my ear away from the speaker.
“You’re drunk as hell, can you please keep it down?”
“Lemme up.”
I close my eyes and deliberate for a minute.
On the one hand, he’s here, when he could be god knows where else instead, but on the other hand, he’s drunk — again.
“I caaaan’t stop, and I wooooon’t stop.” He starts singing Miley at the top of his lungs, and I slam my hand on the button to open the door for him before he can wake up the entire neighbourhood.
“Sweet Jesus… Be quiet on your way up,” I hiss at him.
I cover my face with my hands and groan. I don’t know what I’m doing, or what I’m hoping for, one thing I do know is that him turning up in the middle of the night when he’s been on the turps is probably not a good thing.
I hear a noise at the door that sounds a lot like a single finger tapping lightly against the wood.
“Good luck to me,” I mumble as I open the door.
He’s leaning against the door frame and he wobbles a little bit as the door moves.
“Katie,” Jackson says, and the way it comes out sounds like pure relief. “I’m so happy you’re home.”
“Shhhh,” I hiss as I grab his arm and drag him inside. “You’re seriously the loudest human in the world.”
“Do you really think I’m the loudest?” He looks at me with wide eyes. “Should we call the record books?”
I can’t help but laugh. He’s so drunk, but so funny.
Mr. February: A One Night Stand Romance (Calendar Boys Book 2) Page 10