Page 81 of Slow Burn (Driven 5)
Although, fuck, is it tempting.
Maybe I just want to get a reaction out of someone since it seems like I can’t get shit out of Haddie.
Zip. Zero. Zilch.
Anger, accusations, indifference … anything would be better than the silence.
It’s been five days since I went to her house and found her in the backyard. I can still see the look in her eyes, feel the desperate hunger in her touch. But riding next to that is the rejection on her tongue and the sting in her words.
And then she got me so goddamn flustered that I told her I loved her. Fucking loved her. Something I hadn’t even fully admitted to myself because thinking you feel it is one thing, but saying it aloud—putting it out into the universe—you can’t take that shit back. And then what did she do in return?
Nothing.
Not a goddamn thing.
Not a single Becks wait or Don’t go. Not a Wow this is too fast or Are you fucking crazy? She gave me nothing but guarded eyes and complete withdrawal.
I shove the hurt back down. Push away the unanswered phone calls and unread texts, the numerous times I’ve driven past her house to see if she’s home, and the time I spent pounding on her door last night because her car was in the driveway. My pleas for her to open up, to talk to me, tell me she’s okay, that she hates me, really chooses Dante. Something. Anything. This suspended state of limbo fucking sucks.
The woman’s reduced me to a needy son of a bitch, and I hate it.
My thoughts are racing faster than Colton around the track right now, and I just need to quiet my head for a bit. I shove up out of my seat, ignoring the looks I get from the rest of the guys in the view box, and grab my keys. I glance down at my cell and pretend I’m reading a text as I make my way to the door. “Tell Wood something came up, and I have to bail. I’ll call him later.”
I don’t wait for a response because I need to pull a Haddie.
Lose myself for a bit so that I feel a whole lot less. Fuck.
Listening to what my damn heart is saying is new for me. And it’s a
goddamn muscle, so why am I hoping that it can give me some answers?
Muscles may not be able to make sense of something, but hell if they can’t ache with pain when they’re used and abused.
And she sure as fuck did just that.
So why do I still want her?
Fucking love.
* * *
The music is bluesy, the lighting on the dark side, and the beer ice-cold as it slides down my throat. The best part about being in my favorite pub besides being left the fuck alone is that all I have to do is raise my chin to Vivian, and she brings me another round without a single word.
It may be her first week on the job and we’ve just met, but Viv’s my new best friend for that alone.
The texts have finally stopped after two hours of constant pestering. But not a single one is from the person I want.
I’m enjoying feeling sorry for myself, wallowing in a damn ocean of barley and hops with a few odd shots thrown in here and there. My lips are numb, my head is quiet—spinning but still quiet—and I still don’t have a fucking clue how she could choose him over me.
“More her type, my ass,” I mutter to myself, thinking of the last thing she said to me. Sweet fuck. I can blame my drunk mind on why I don’t understand, but the haze isn’t strong enough to forget that I’m drinking because I can’t make sense of it sober, either.
I raise my chin to Vivian again. Might as well add to the clutter of glasses lined up on my table.
I lean back in the booth I’ve commandeered at the back of Sully’s Pub and cross my legs, which are stretched out on the bench. I run through the possible scenarios in my head, trying to figure how we went from sleepless nights and that look in her eyes when I left her after the trip to Ojai to here.
I mean, fuck, it was hard not to go to the last Scandalous event a few nights back. Took everything I had to not go sit in a dark corner of the club and watch her, make sure she’s okay. Just see her—because damn, I miss her—but then that would be stalkerish.
I refrained by drinking a six-pack and watching the game.
