by J. Lynn
I bit down on my lower lip as I stared up at the ceiling, only able to make out the shape of the quietly moving fan. In all honesty, it wasn’t like I’d gone out of my way, either. I mean, I hadn’t been sure what to do or how we should act.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I told myself that all I needed to do was wait. Tanner would show. He would. So I waited.
And I waited—waited while the seconds turned into minutes, minutes into hours, and my door didn’t open and Tanner…he never came.
Chapter 16
Andrea
Two. No. Three. Maybe it was four? Hell. I tipped the bottle of beer to the side, frowning as I stared at the label. Maybe I should ask Syd. She’d know. She always knew.
“It’s five,” Syd said with a troubled-sounding sigh.
Straightening the bottle, I looked at her. She sat in the chair across from where I was stretched out on the still-damp chaise lounge on the deck. It had rained most of the day and the sun had only peeked out behind the thick clouds a couple of hours ago. “Huh?”
“That’s your fifth beer,” she explained, reaching up and pulling her thick hair—God, I wanted her hair—into a ponytail. “You have that look on your face. I recognize it. You’re trying to remember how much you’ve drank.”
My lips turned down at the corners. “I have a look?”
She nodded. “Yeah, you do. The look usually comes before you ask me how many you’ve had.”
“Ha,” I laughed. “I was just about to ask you. Huh.” Tipping the bottle back, I took a huge gulp. Immediately, I felt the need to burp that baby out, but as I glanced to where Kyler and Tanner stood, I decided that wasn’t very ladylike.
Tanner.
Ugh.
I took another drink and then rested my head back against the cushion. I couldn’t even look at him without reliving everything that we’d done in, like, real-time, and that was just awkward. Really awkward, because as soon as I thought about what we’d done, I thought about the fact he’d virtually ignored me all last night and had never showed up. And then I had to acknowledge that I’d probably gotten played. I’d gotten played hard. What in the world had I been thinking earlier? I hadn’t been thinking. That was the problem.
“But if you’re counting the shot of vodka you did between beer number two and beer number three, I’d say you’re probably at six or seven,” Syd added.
My eyes narrowed on her. “I do not follow your logic.”
She glanced over to where the guys were. Since the storm had cleared out, we’d ended up grilling steaks. Ribeyes—the good, fatty kind. Like my thighs. Except I doubted my thighs tasted good when chargrilled.
God, I think I might be a little tipsy.
Opening my eyes, I turned my head to the side and my gaze collided with Tanner’s. I sucked in an unsteady breath. Kyler was talking to him, but it didn’t look like he was paying attention at all. So now he wanted to eyeball me like—like he had every right to do so. What the fuck ever. I looked away and I finished off what was left in my bottle.
I did not want to think about him. I did not want to think about how wonderful it had been the few fucking hours that I’d had him. And I sure as hell did not want to think about how…how nice it had been to just talk with him, to have that bond that I thought went beyond sex. And I really, super-duper did not want to think about how pathetic he must believe I was, because here I was, in love with him, and there he was, probably counting down the days until we would leave. Not that I’d told him that I loved him. Thank God. Anyway, I didn’t want to think about any of that.
“So what are you guys doin’ tomorrow?” I asked, and then grinned, because I was positive I didn’t slur my words.
Syd shrugged dainty shoulders. “I don’t know. What’s on the schedule, Kyler?”
“Spending all day in bed,” he replied.
I laughed—loudly.
She pursed her lips. “Yeah. No.”
He pouted, and I admitted to myself that Kyler looked good with a pout. A man pout. Ha. “Whatever you want to do, Syd. I’m at your service,” he added.
A grin crossed her face. “I like the way that sounds.” Looking at me, she shrugged again. “I really don’t know. I think we’re going to try to go hiking again tomorrow. Oh! Or go fishing. There was this lake we came across. It would be perfect. You’re more than welcome to join us.”
I laughed again and just as loudly as the first time. “No.”
“Then I guess Tanner’s going to skip, too,” Kyler replied blithely.
Tanner shot him a look that should’ve knocked him flat on his ass, but Kyler chuckled as he tossed his bottle in the trashcan on the deck.
I could feel Syd’s gaze on me, and whatever relaxation I’d gained faded as the muscles along the back of my neck tightened. She had been trying to get me to talk about what had gone down between Tanner and me while they’d been camping, but my mouth was shut. No way was I talking about any of that while I was still stuck in this stupid cabin and I was likely to lose my shit. “He can do whatever he wants,” I announced.
Tanner’s arms folded across his chest and his biceps stretched the sleeves of his shirt in a way that should’ve been indecent. “Thanks, Andy, for reminding everyone that I can do what I want.”
I snorted. “You’re welcome. That’s what I’m here for.”
“To point out the obvious?” he replied.
“Oh dear,” Syd murmured under her breath.
A wide smile tugged at my lips as I fastened my gaze on Tanner’s handsome face. Now this I could deal with. The smartass Tanner. That was who I was familiar with. Not the sweet and charming Tanner who made me think that I was different—that we were different—before painfully reminding me that in fact nothing was any different. “Well, if I don’t do it, who will?”
Tanner arched a brow. “No one else?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “Whatever. I’m getting another drink.” I glanced at Kyler. “Want one while I’m up?”
He opened his mouth, but I saw his eyes shoot to where Syd sat. “No. Thank you.”
There was most definitely something up with that, but I didn’t care. Swinging my legs off the lounge, I stood. And then I wobbled.
“You sure you should have another?” Tanner asked, stepping forward.
I shot him a nasty look. “Did I ask you for your opinion?”
“No. But I’m going to give it to you.”
A very unattractive snicker came out of my mouth. “I bet you’re going to try.”
“Um,” Kyler said.
Tanner’s jaw flexed, but before he could reply, I volleyed back at him. “But again, not something I’m interested in.”
Understanding flared in his eyes, and he barked out a short, dry laugh as he turned his head to the side. “Yeah, you know, that’s the funny thing about my opinions. You usually just ignore them because you know they’re right.”
“I don’t understand what is happening,” Syd said under her breath.
“You know what else is funny?” I asked sweetly as I dropped the bottle in the trash.
“What?” He looked bored.
Meeting his gaze, I raised my right hand…and my middle finger. “This.”
“Oh. Wow,” he said. “Keeping it classy, I see.”
My eye-roll was so powerful, I thought my eyeballs would roll back in my head, never to be seen again. “Oh, whatever. My middle finger offends you when every other word out of your mouth is ‘fuck?’”
“She has a point,” Kyler commented.
I bestowed him with an awesome smile. “Thank you.”
“Don’t encourage her,” muttered Tanner.
Choosing to ignore him, I turned and headed for the door. I walked inside, and not once did I stumble, so Tanner could kiss it.
My cheeks flushed with that thought. Okay. No kissing of anything, even though I liked the kissing. He was so damn good at it.
The bottles jangled so prettily when I opened the fridge door that I wanted to do a little
dance in tandem with the tune. I grabbed a beer and made a mental note to head to town tomorrow for more. I had a feeling I was going to need a twelve-pack to get through the rest of this trip. Maybe a forty-pack. Did they make forty-packs? God, I so hoped so.
Shit, I just needed a keg.
Screwing off the cap, I flipped it onto the counter with a sigh and watched it spin dizzily across the granite. As I stood there, the bottle cool in my hand, I struggled to put a name to the cause of the restlessness crawling across my skin. It wasn’t just Tanner. God, it was never just one thing. It was always a bag of stupid crap that had me feeling this way.
All day I’d been stressing over a lot of things—the phone call with my mom, going back home, being stuck in life when everyone else was moving on, and of course, what was going on with Tanner. And for some reason, I started thinking about what I’d said the first night with Tanner, about how I felt when I’d been going down on Tanner. Had I been forced before? None of the guys had pressured me. I’d gone home willingly with all of them, but had gone under the impression they were expecting something from me. After all, why else would they be taking me home? That pressure… God, it was inside me. Nothing they had done that I could recall. But it was me. I’d felt that pressure to do it, to avoid the actual sex, because why else would they be with me?
Why else had Tanner been so nice to me? He’d obviously wanted some and he’d gotten some. He hadn’t even really had to work for it. I’d just handed it right over.
I wanted to bang my head off a wall, because it sounded so pathetic, like the way Tanner had looked at me when we’d talked about my past experience with guys.
This was stupid.
Everything was stupid.
I sighed again. Great. I was moving from happy, I-don’tcare-about-anything buzz, to go-stick-my-head-in-the-oven buzz. I winced the moment that thought completed itself. That wasn’t cool. Not cool at all.
“Andrea.”
I jumped, and sticky beer sloshed over my hand. “Jesus.” I turned around, finding Tanner standing on the other side of the island. “What are you doing? Stalking me?”
“Yeah,” he replied blandly. “That’s why I called your name, because that’s what stalkers do when they are trying to be stealth.”
“Really stupid stalkers would do that.” My heart slowed in my chest. “Get what I’m saying?” As soon as I asked that, I felt like the ass, but anger…anger had always been so easy to grasp onto.
His shoulders rose with a deep breath. “You’ve been avoiding me all day.”
“Have not.”
He cocked his head to the side and raised both brows. “You practically hid in your room or attached yourself to Syd all day.”
“I was…I was spending girl-time with her,” I said. “And napping.”
“Andrea…”
He’d been right. I had avoided him. Apparently, I wasn’t doing that great of a job at it.
“The same with last night. You barely talked to me.”
“What?” Dumbfounded, I felt like screaming that word. “I barely talked to you? You ignored me.”
He stared at me. “Andy, I—”
“This is stupid. This whole thing is stupid.” I lifted the bottle.
A moment passed and he asked, “Do you really think you need another beer?”
Annoyed, I slowly brought the bottle to my mouth and took a long drink. “Does that answer your question?”
The hue of his blue eyes deepened. “Look, I’m not trying to be a dick—”
“You might want to try harder. Just sayin’. Might just be my opinion, but thought I’d share.”
He opened his mouth and then snapped it shut. Several seconds passed. “You know, I didn’t say that shit to you to piss you off.”
I wanted to point out everything he’d done to piss me off, but…but shit on a brick. Anything that I told him would betray how I felt about him, and well, I was already embarrassing myself enough without going there. “You breathed,” I decided, nodding, and totally proud of myself. “How about that?”
Shaking his head, he rested his elbows on the island. “You can usually do better than that.”
“It’s not worth my time to do better.” I flounced past him. Well, I might have staggered past him, but in my head, I flounced like a Grade A Uppity Chick, and it was awesome.
“I wish you wouldn’t drink so much.”
My feet stopped. Dammit. My feet had a mind of their own, and they had stopped because he’d said that so quietly, not with an ounce of derision or scorn. Actually, it sounded like a plea. The alcohol churned in my stomach. All I could see was his look of pity.
“Why do you drink like this?” he asked.
To relax. To not act like a freak. To forget. To remember. To be funny. To have people like me. To not care if they do or don’t. To have fun. To just not care. A burning sensation rolled down my back as my head continued to shout out the answers. I just didn’t want to care.
I didn’t say any of that. “You drink.”
“I do. And sometimes I drink and I get drunk, but not every time.”
Slowly, I faced him. He wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were on the island. “I don’t get drunk every time.”
He shook his head again. “Andrea, you either get plastered or damn near close. Every time.”
“That’s not…” I trailed off, and yeah, even I could see where he was right. I could probably count on one hand how many times I’d only had two beers or two shots and then stopped. Come to think of it, I wasn’t sure if I ever had.
“My dad got shitfaced all the time,” he continued. “Never thought that I’d be interested in a girl who was the same way.”
My brain registered two things at once. He was interested in me, which wasn’t a big duh. I mean, he’d had his hands in my pants more than once, so yeah, I should’ve known that. But he compared me to his dad, a man I’d recently discovered he pretty much loathed, which pretty much canceled out the first part. Hurt invaded every cell and festered under the skin. The back of my throat burned and I wanted to rush away.
But I didn’t. “That kind of makes you twisted.”
Another weak laugh came out of him. “I guess it kind of does.”
My hand shook as I lifted the bottle, but I didn’t take the drink. I just stared down at it, hurt and angry and a thousand other emotions I couldn’t even begin to sort out. “Then maybe you should spend some time reflecting on that instead of on my drinking habits.”
“Did you ever think it’s because I care?” Pushing off the island, he angled his body toward mine. “Has that ever crossed your mind just once?”
“When?” I laughed, and then I did take a drink. “Was it between fucking random chicks? Or when you ignored me as soon as our friends showed up?”
“Ignored you?” His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable—”
“Why are we even having this conversation?” I interrupted, and anger—that ugly, red-hot feeling—sank its claws in me. “It’s stupid, and I’d appreciate it if you’d mind your own fucking business for once.”
“You think I’m going to mind my own business after what happened between us?”
My laugh came out like a snort. “Why wouldn’t you? Doesn’t seem like what happened between us changed a damn thing. It doesn’t matter anyway.” The words hurt to speak. “It was just a good time. It didn’t mean anything.”
Tanner stared at me as his lips thinned and frustration flashed across his face. “No wonder you’ve been single the entire time I’ve known you,” he said, turning away.
An icy hand trailed down my chest and fisted in my stomach. “What?”
“This.” He faced me again, throwing his hand up in a wide circle. “You’re always fucking drunk, and when you’re not, you’re actually a decent person to be around. But that shit doesn’t last long enough to put up with this mess.”
Chapter 17
Andrea
I couldn’t move as Tanner�
��s harsh words settled over me, seeping through my skin and digging in deep, below the muscles and bone. I stared at him as this God-awful burn started in the pit of my stomach and crawled up to my chest, getting lodged there.
I wanted to fire back with something clever. I wanted to act like his words didn’t bother me and what he thought didn’t matter. I wanted to tell him that I didn’t care about being a mess and being single, but I couldn’t get my tongue to work. It was glued to the roof of my mouth and his face had started to blur.
A tense moment passed and then Tanner cursed under his breath. He lifted a hand and ran it over his head as he looked away, a muscle flexing along the strong cut of his jaw. “Andrea, I—”
“Don’t,” I cut in, my voice shaking. I wasn’t sure what I was telling him not to do, but the last thing I wanted to hear was an apology. Even though my thoughts were a little fuzzy, I knew you couldn’t own those words and then take them back. But under that hurt, the truth was just as painful, if not more. It wasn’t like I was a victim in all of this. Tanner’s words were harsh, but they were dipped in fact, and even being half-drunk, I could recognize that.
And that’s what made all of this so much harder to swallow.
“You can’t take that back,” I whispered. “You can’t take that back.”
He flinched.
I drew in air, but it seemed to get stuck in my throat. A series of fine shivers rolled down my back. “Fuck you, Tanner.”
Setting the bottle on the counter, I turned and started walking toward the steps. My hands shook.
Tanner wheeled around, blocking my path. His eyes were wide. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said, not like that.”
His words hit and bounced off. “Get out of my way.”
“Andrea—”
“Get out of my way!” I screamed so loudly that a streak of pain shot down my throat. I stumbled back as the tips of my fingers started to tingle. “I get it. Okay? You regret being with me—”
“Wait. What? I never said that, Andrea. I don’t regret a moment of being with you,” he said, shaking his head. “If you don’t believe me, I’ll walk right out there and tell both of them exactly what we did and what it meant to me.”