Page 91 of One Last Rainy Day
Stalking down the hall, I slap open Sean’s bedroom door with my palm to see him alone, flipping channels, boots crossed on his bed, a beer in hand. He flashes me his signature smirk. “Sup man?”
Relief skitters through me as I jerk my chin. His lips quirk further as his eyes drift back to the TV. “I’m thinking maybe someone doesn’t want to say he’s sorry.”
“Fuck you.”
I turn to leave, and he calls to my retreating back. “She’s worth a lot more than an apology.”
I turn on a dime. “Yeah, what’s she worth to you?”
He uses my own tactic against me with silence—stupid question.
I glare over at him as he sips his beer. “What the fuck are we doing?”
“You know what you’re doing, same as me. We’re crossing an uncrossable line.” His shoulders roll forward with the weight of the admission. “But the difference between us is that I’ve already made peace with it,” he states in a tone that contradicts that declaration. “It’s harder for you, Dom, and no big mystery why.” His expression hardens into a look reserved only for those he’s about to pull the trigger on. “So, I’ll give you a fucking pass, brother, just this once, for thinking you’lleverbe able to rip that woman from my arms—especially if you so recklessly ever push her into them.”
“Oh, it’s like that?” I ask, tilting my head as if I didn’t hear him right.
“She’s my fucking girlfriend, asshole, and she’s destroyed right now because ofyou.She wouldn’t let me console her, so what the fuck kind of reception did you expect?”
He pulls on his beer as if he didn’t just threaten me for the first time in our lives, and I let that shit resonate before realizing I’m in his room for the exact same reason.
Regardless, the resentment that he did threaten me kicksin just as he speaks up. “I love you, brother,” he sighs, “more than any other, that’s the truth, but it’s notmeyou’re fighting. So, please don’t twist me into the enemy to justify the turmoil going on in that brilliant fucking brain of yours. It’s the decision that’s killing you softly, so make it and make your own peace with it, for all our sakes.” The warning returns in his eyes. “But know this. Your decision no longer has any bearing on mine. The time for that has fucking passed.”
I linger in his doorway for a beat, seeing the toll the decision is taking on him before turning, gut lurching as I recall the damning words I hurt her with.
Do I even have a decision to make peace with anymore?
The realization that that choice is no longer mine takes hold as the ache I’ve been dismissing slams into me.
By the time I reach my room, I’m on fucking fire with regret. Shedding my sweats, I pull on some jeans as perspiration dots my hairline. Shoving into my boots, wallet tucked in my back pocket, keys in hand, anxiety propels me down the stairs as a nauseating unease sets in.
If I have to break into Roman Horner’s fucking house to take those words back, I will.
Reaching the foot of the stairs, I’m freed of that burden when I see her on the couch stroking Brandy with absent fingers as she stares up at the ceiling. The sight of her tear-streaked face and blotched cheeks has remorse doing its thing.
Fuck this.
I open my mouth to speak, and she beats me to it. “I’m going to have a dog of my own one day,” she utters faintly as if talking to an empty room. “They’re so much nicer than people.” She leans down so she’s nose to snout with Brandy. “Definitely nicer than criminals who like convenient fucks.”She laughs, but it’s lifeless. I’ve hurt her, knowing her heart, gutted her, and I wouldn’t blame her if she wrote me off for good.
You don’t deserve the decision and never have.
“But I guess things would be easier if I were more like you, Brandy, huh?” she coos to the dog. “Silent,obedient, just waiting idly by for someone to order me around and tell mewhenandwheretolick.” She lifts to sit without a glance my way, and it’s then I see her resignation. “I was going to leave, but it was raining too hard.” She slides into the flip-flops on the floor in front of her. “Looks like this rainy day is over.”
She stands and folds the blanket we’ve huddled under a handful of times—a blanket she brought from home—deeming it our movie night cover. A blanket we’ve wrapped up in after doing a lot more than watching movies. That’sour shitshe’s holding for ransom and threatening to take out of this house along with her and away from me.
I stand there, like a fucking idiot, mad that I want her, boiling because I can’t fucking have her—not the way I want to...and pulsing to the brim with whatever the fuck is refusing to let me watch her walk out.
But I do know...I know exactly what it is.
I’ve been struck fucking stupid by the four-letter curse.
I’m. So. Completely. Fucked.
She grabs her purse and stops in front of where I’m standing. “I’ll see you around, Do—”
Snatching the blanket from her and tossing it on the couch, I ram into her like a linebacker and lift her, catching her harsh exhale as I whisk her up the stairs like a mindless fucking idiot before dumping her on her side of the bed. Shebounces on the mattress, eyes wide, lips parted, gaping at me incredulously before her face twists with fury. “It’s not raining anymore.”
“I don’t give a fuck,” I say, damn near pointing to her side of the bed in instruction.
