Page 133 of Fifty First Times (Sharing You 0.40)
I’m playing the tormented emo guy, an inclination that left me when she did. My gut had sworn that she’d cared for me back then, but her words continually contradicted my instincts. It had been impossible to be sure enough to push her. I hadn’t wanted to push her farther away.
“I heard you were getting married.”
“I am. The day after tomorrow.”
“And you’re happy?”
“I’m happy, Tressa.” Or I was until she walked into this bar. Wasn’t I? “You didn’t drive all the way to Iowa City, unannounced, to ask if I’m happy. If you really wanted to know, Sammie or Wade would have told you. Or you could have called.”
“I wanted to see your face when you answered. And . . . well, I was hoping we could talk.”
Those six words shore up the cracks in my defenses. The last time she’d wanted to talk, I had refused to hear her confession, and I don’t want to hear it now. Too little, too late.
Her eyes fill with tears, and my heart aches with every beat. Hurting Tressa has never been easy for me—even that night, drunk off my ass with Al at my side, it had been agony. I had felt every blow as though they’d somehow boomeranged and assaulted me with double the force.
But Tressa doesn’t understand that life doesn’t wait. Not for me, not for her.
Not for us.
“We are talking.”
“Later. Maybe in the morning, over coffee? Or late night at Steak and Shake?”
My brain hands down an unequivocal no in response, but the heartbreaking expression of sorrow and hope in her eyes stalls my tongue. The smell of her skin and her hair takes me back to the days when denying her anything never entered my mind. What will it hurt, to hear her out?
It won’t change anything. I can resist her. I taught myself how, practiced, and after a while, it became a learned behavior that doesn’t feel impossible anymore.
“Okay.” We finish the dance and stop moving. “Do you want to join us? I know James would love to say hi.”
“Sure.” A tentative smile curls her full lips as her eyes cut to our table. “Just for a minute. Do you want to hit late night or talk in the morning?”
“Tonight.” Alice expects me out late, but shirking any day-before-the-wedding activities will be impossible, unless I turn into Batman overnight.
The air at the table shifts with her appearance, fills with apprehension. They all know her—Wade and James, of course, and Braden, another of my brothers, and two other friends who have been around since college—and despite how things ended, they all like her. We have more good memories than bad. I think.
She says hi and then we lapse into silence. Her trademark jumpiness infects me in the space of a breath, tightening my own stomach into a twisted ball. Strange, how the two of us spent so much time incapacitated by anxiety, but when pretenses and expectations dropped away, we didn’t need words at all.
“It’s nice to see you guys again, but I think I’ll go back to the hotel and talk to Sammie.”
“She’s with Al and the girls at the spa,” I supplied.
“Oh.”
“Let me text Miranda,” Wade offers. “She can ask Sammie to run back to the hotel.”
“Thanks.” Tressa twists her fingers together, her face green and a little sweaty. This can’t all be over seeing me.
Or maybe it is. How many times did I work myself into a sickened, nauseous state while preparing to push her into another discussion about us, about the future that never materialized?
She reaches over and takes a swig of my beer without asking, then grimaces. “You and your fucking Budweiser. Ugh.”
The comment breaks the tension, and everyone laughs. We’re all carefree again, playing games on the porch, Tressa warm at my side, always at my side. No matter how hard we fought it, we had something people wanted. Something they could sense and see, and treated with a strange reverence.
“It’s better than Keystone or Natty,” Wade argues.
“Keystone, yes. That shit tastes like wet charcoal. Natty, I don’t mind. It reminds me of college.” She cringes again. “Budweiser is gross.”
“Snob,” I tease, finding the remnants of our ease underneath my stunned, slightly numb reaction to her surprise appearance. I would say it was the remnants of friendship, except Tressa and I had never been friends. Could never be friends. The connection that crackled between us was innate, like breathing. Even now, little magnets flick on under my skin, urging my arm to wrap around her waist. It takes all of my willpower not to lean over and see if she still smells like summer.
