by Abigail Lee
“I never drink because I own a bar and watch what it can do to people and relationships on a daily basis.” He shook his head and looked back at me. “I’m so sorry. I won’t shut you out again and will probably never drink again. I’m never drinking fucking whiskey again.”
He took my hands and kissed each of my palms before bringing them to his chest.
“Do you think you can forgive me?” His eyes were pleading with mine.
“The forgiveness part is easy.” I sighed and leaned into his chest. “It’s the forgetting part that’s hard.”
He settled back into the chair on his side, taking me with him in his arms. We laid in silence for a long time. Listening to each other’s heartbeats and breathing in the other’s scent. I loved this man with all of my heart. It scared me the amount of emotion he could stir up in me. Last night was something that could be forgotten eventually. I knew I wasn’t ready to give up on us yet.
“What’s this from?” he grabbed my forearm and looked down at my wrist. We were packing our suitcases and about to get into Trey’s truck to head back to Austin.
“It’s nothing.” I tried to pull my arm away.
He tightened his grip and ran the fingertips from his other hand over the bruises on my wrist. His other hand moved down, and I could see his chest deflate when he saw the bruises lined up with his fingers.
“This is from me?” He looked sick.
“You grabbed me when I was walking to the bathroom at the club the other night.” I ran my free hand down his arm and to his hand, encouraging him to let go. “It’s fine. It doesn’t hurt.”
“You can’t be nice about this.” He shook his head. “There’s no excuse for leaving a mark on you. Why didn’t you tell me?”
I shrugged and looked down at my suitcase. He pulled me into his arms before lifting my wrist and kissing every part that showed a purple mark.
“I’m so sorry.” His eyes were shut tight.
“I know.” I leaned up and kissed the tip of his nose. “We already talked about this.”
The ride home was long. Suffocatingly long. Luckily, I was able to sleep most of it, but in the confines of the truck, I couldn’t escape the overbearing, apologetic form Luke had taken on. After last night on the beach, we made it back to our room, and ordering a pizza and watching a movie sounded better to both of us than going out and meeting everyone at a bar. Sleep found us before sex did, and to be honest, I was perfectly fine with that. Luke was walking on eggshells around me, and after he saw the bruise this morning, he’d gotten even more careful with me.
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t justify anything that happened, but we chose to move past it. So, in my mind, that was what we should be doing. It was early Friday evening when we pulled up at our apartment and were finally home.
“I need to go in to work for a little bit.” He dropped my suitcase on my bedroom floor.
“Okay.”
“Do you want to come with me?” he asked. “You could go to my apartment if you don’t want to be down at the bar.”
“No, I’ll just stay here.” I needed some time to breathe. “Do some laundry and unpack.”
“Okay.” He stood at the door as if he didn’t know what to do. “I’ll just see you later then.”
I smiled at him and stopped him as he began to turn into the hallway. Pulling on his shirt, I stood up on my toes and lightly kissed him on the lips. He ran his hand up my back and sighed into my mouth.
“I love you so much,” he whispered.
“I know,” I replied. “I love you, too.”
He let out a small smile before he released me and walked toward the door.
I looked down at the suitcase and decided sleep sounded like more fun than laundry. After a quick shower, I changed into a clean pair of shorts and a tank top and crawled under my fluffy gray comforter. It was way too early for bedtime and way too late for a nap, but I was exhausted. My pillow caught my head, and I had drifted off within seconds.
I thought I had only been asleep for about an hour when I sat up in my bed. My phone glowed a different reality when it showed it was a little past two o’clock in the morning. I checked my phone and saw that I only had one missed text message, and it was from my mom. It was kind of odd that Luke hadn’t tried to call or message me this entire time.
I was still hurt and confused by what had happened on the trip and honestly I wanted some time alone to process everything. I loved him, and he loved me, no doubt about that. But I couldn’t fall back into another relationship that forced me to be a certain way or where the guy controlled everything. Before I could analyze things too much further, I drifted back to sleep.
“Hey, sleepyhead.” Hannah was laying on the couch when I walked into the living room the next morning.
“Hi.” I walked to the couch and claimed my spot for the day. “Where’s Trey?”
“He went home,” she answered. “We needed a break from each other. Where’s Luke?”
“I guess at his apartment.” I knew I sounded defeated. “I haven’t talked to him since he left here yesterday.”
“Really?” She looked shocked. “Have you guys spent the night apart since you’ve gotten together?”
“I guess you and Trey aren’t the only ones who needed a break today.” I sighed.
“A lot happened in Padre, Riley. It’s okay if you want to be alone and figure some things out.”
Sometimes I hated that she knew me so well.
“I think I’m going to tell him that I’m going to my parents’ house until Monday. Even though I’m really just going to be here.” I looked at her to see her reaction. “That will give me a couple days to think things through.”
“I like that plan.” She smiled at me. “I’m going to tell Trey that I went with you.”
We both laughed as we turned our attention back to the TV and attempted to forget about the two men we knew we both loved.
I fell back onto my couch and stared at my phone.
Hey, I’m going to my parents’ house until Monday. My mom has been begging me to come home.
I didn’t want her to leave. If she left, she might realize that she didn’t need someone like me in her life. I wanted to jump on my bike and go straight to her apartment. Instead, I just sent a text back.
Okay, be safe. Let me know when you make it there.
There was no reply, but I would bet that she was sitting and staring at her phone, too. How had things gotten so out of hand this past week?
I rarely drank. When I did have a drink, it was beer. My days and nights were spent watching others use alcohol to numb their current problems or create new ones. It was something I rarely allowed into my own life.
Bits and pieces of that night were coming back to me. My vision had gone blurry after she walked down the stairs in that tight black dress. Every part of me had screamed for me to pick her up and take her back to our bedroom. Of course, I didn’t move a muscle. As soon as she was out the door, I drank the entire bottle of Jack before throwing it against the wall.
From that point on, everything was a blur. We went to dinner, I think. I ate a hamburger, I think. We went to the bar and waited on the girls, I know. Then she had shown up. Even in my drunken, angry haze, she was beautiful. When they walked up to the bar and another guy approached them, Trey and Adam had both stepped in front of me to keep me from attacking that poor kid. He was lucky I was too drunk to stand up straight.
When she told me the part about me trying to fuck her against the wall… That part of the story still made me sick. I didn’t know how she could ever get past that. Or how I was ever going to forgive myself for that. She deserved better than that. Much better than me.
It was going to be a long weekend without her, and I needed something besides the bar to keep me busy. The air released from my lungs in a long breath before I stood and made my way to the door. After a long bike ride, I found myself at the place I’d been going to a lot lately. It was an older house, but with the remo
del I had in mind, it would look as if it were just built.
One of the walls had been completely removed, and the walls in most of the downstairs rooms had been painted last week. The new baseboards had come in while we were out of town, and I began opening the boxes. I wasn’t sure how long I had been working when I turned and saw Mel standing in the front entrance, admiring the transformation.
“It looks good.” She smiled. “Really good.”
“Thanks.” I wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my arm.
“I didn’t realize you had started working on it.” She walked around and looked at all of the changes. “You should have done all of this while I lived here.”
“I’ve needed a distraction lately.” I tried to shrug but couldn’t even manage that. “It keeps me busy.”
“Everything okay with Riley?” She knew it wasn’t before she even finished the question. I could see it in her eyes.
“Not really.” I began gathering up the empty boxes and piling them in the empty hallway.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I was an asshole.” I didn’t have a better answer than that. “Basically, that’s what happened.”
“So.” She shrugged. “My husband is an asshole sometimes. That doesn’t mean we aren’t okay.”
“You make it sound so simple,” I said sarcastically.
“No, I’m not.” She laughed. “It’s actually really hard. Relationships are hard. Marriage is hard. You have to work at it, little brother. It’s not going to be simple. It’s never simple.”
I stared at her for a few seconds before I threw the last box into the pile.
“I need to get back to the bar. You coming tonight?”
We walked toward the front door, and I locked the door.
“Nope. Tonight is family night with family other than you.” She pulled me in for a quick hug before releasing me and turning toward her car. “Get your shit together, and go remind Riley you aren’t an asshole all of the time.”
I fell back onto my couch and stared at my phone.
Okay, be safe. Let me know when you make it there.
I dropped my phone to the couch, unable to reply back. He believed me, and I felt horrible for lying. However, I did feel like I was owed some time to myself and would justify this lie by telling myself he would be more hurt if he knew that I just didn’t want to see him right now.
Two hours later, I sent him a message that I had made it, to which he replied with one word – okay. I knew he was hurting, too, but space was what we both needed right now. He needed to figure out if this was also what he wanted.
Hannah and I spent the next three days spacing in and out of bad reality shows, cleaning the apartment, driving to restaurants and a movie theater on the other side of town, and taking turns being the other’s therapist.
By Sunday, I had decided that she was in love with Trey, however, she didn’t take my free opinion. She was still unsure, especially since she wanted to leave Austin after we graduated in a couple of months.
She had decided that Luke truly was the love of my life, and I would be insane to walk away now. However, she made the executive decision that we wouldn’t contact either of them until Monday night, because in her opinion, they needed to sweat just a little bit more.
I had cheated and sent Luke several text messages throughout each day. My heart missed him, and my body was starting to feel his absence.
It was after nine o’clock on Monday night before I sent him the text that let him know I made it back. I was ready to see him and had decided yesterday that the whole Padre incident was something I could move past. He wasn’t a project to me like Chris had been. Luke was someone I could see myself spending the rest of my life with, and I wanted to see where we could go from here.
I made it back. You still at work? Coming over tonight?
Just finishing up. I was going to head upstairs unless you want me there with you.
I stared at the screen and tried to figure out how to take that text. Did he not want to be here with me? Screw it, I was calling him. I selected his name and the phone icon and waited until he answered.
“Hey.” He sounded tired.
“Would you rather stay at your apartment tonight or come here?” I asked, cutting to the chase.
“I just hadn’t heard from you, so I figured you wanted to be alone,” he answered. “Or that you were already asleep.”
“That’s never stopped you from coming over here before.” I was ready to see him and getting annoyed that he didn’t seem the same way about wanting to see me.
His silence on the other end of the line was starting to frustrate me.
“Okay, whatever. Just do what you want to do, Luke. Goodnight.”
I didn’t even wait for a reply before I hung up the phone and crawled into my bed. We had never had a real fight before this entire episode, and neither of us was handling it well. He wanted me to give him another chance, but he was the one who was acting weird. I didn’t know if I could handle this unsure, nervous Luke. What happened to my confident bad boy who couldn’t wait to rip my clothes off? He drank too much whiskey in Padre, my conscious reminded me. That was what happened to him.
I heard a motorcycle pull up next to the apartment and the engine die. Thank goodness, he came here. At least he made one good decision about us today. I listened as the front door shut, and seconds later, he opened and closed my bedroom door. I watched in the dark as he pulled his shirt over his head, let his pants drop to the floor, and crawled under the blankets with me.
“Were you wanting to sleep in your own bed?” I asked as I slid into his arms.
“Baby, I can leave if you want to be alone.” His hand that was running up and down my back froze.
“No, ugh.” I let out a long breath. “I meant, do you want us to go sleep in your bed. If you sleep better there.”
“I sleep best whenever you’re by my side.” He started moving his hand again. “It doesn’t matter what bed we’re in.”
“I missed you,” I whispered.
“I missed you so much, baby,” he whispered back. “Are we okay?”
“Yeah, we’re okay,” I answered honestly. “We’re more than okay.”
I smiled as his arms wrapped tightly around me, and I moved my lips to his neck. I missed his touch. It had only been five days since we’d last been together, but it felt a lot longer than that. I felt him harden against my thigh and continued kissing my way up to his ear.
“I need to be with you,” I whispered.
He stiffened underneath me. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I answered. “If you don’t touch me soon, I’m probably going to die.”
He let out a quiet chuckle as he turned me onto my back in one quick movement and began kissing me from my neck down to my breasts. I let out a low groan when he reached my breasts and took a nipple in his mouth.
“I’ve missed this.” I could barely talk because I was already breathing so hard.
“Good.” He pulled up and kissed my lips. “We’re going to do a lot of this for the rest of the night.”
I only had a month left before graduation. My final senior project had been turned in, and my internship had offered me a full-time position once I had officially earned my degree. Luke and I had fallen back into a routine with our Padre trip far behind us. He was even letting Roger take over the management part of the bar, which allowed him to leave early a few nights a week.
“Dammit.” He slammed his phone down onto his desk and ran his hands through his hair.
“What happened?” I looked up from the textbook I was reading from the couch in his office.
“My other bartender called in sick tonight. I have to find someone to cover his shift.”
“Can Mel not do it?” I asked.
“She’s already working,” he answered right as she walked into the office.
“Where’s my other bartender?” She seemed out of breath. “It’s starting to pick
up out there.”
“He just called in.” He was glaring at his computer screen. “I’ll find someone.”
“I can help.” I jumped up from the couch.
“No.” He turned and glared at me. “No way.”
“Why not?” I challenged. “I know what I’m doing, and you guys need help.”
“That works for me.” Mel had her hands on her hips. “You’ve bartended before?”
“Yes, I worked at a bar some last year.” I took off my jean jacket and adjusted my fitted black tank top over my black shorts. I quickly applied some lipstick and ran my fingers through my hair.
“You aren’t working the bar.” Luke stood up from his desk, but I raced to the door and grabbed Mel’s hand.
“Wish me luck, honey.”
I saw his eyes narrow even more as the door slammed shut. We made our way behind the bar, and Mel showed me where everything was kept. I hadn’t mixed a drink since last summer, but I liked being back behind the bar. It took more than several customers before I got the hang of things and figured out the cash register.
Mel and I laughed and made jokes with the men sitting in the bar stools. It was Wednesday night so the crowd was older and much better tippers.
“Thanks for stepping up, sweetie,” Mel said toward the end of the night. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”
“This was fun.” I smiled at her and stuffed more dollar bills into the tip jar. “I think I should get a part-time job here.”
“I don’t think the boss would approve of that.” She raised her eyebrows.
“Good thing I know how to handle the boss.” I wiggled my eyebrows back at her.
“Gross.” She laughed.
“How can you work all day and then come and work here?” I didn’t know much about Mel. “Aren’t you exhausted?”
“Most days I am.” She shrugged. “If this hadn’t been our dad’s place, I wouldn’t help Luke as much as I do. But I want it to succeed, so I help out three nights a week. It’s hard to find honest bartenders who always show up when they’re supposed to.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”