Page 71 of Good Time Boyfriend
I was just so tired of everything. I had been wrong. Everything hurt, and I couldn’t fix it.
I had family dinner that night, and I couldn’t get out of it. Not when I had thrown the bombshell I had before. Well, throwing another one tonight would be fun. My body ached, and all I wanted to do was go to sleep.
It turned out that Heath Cassidy was a first for many things. The first man I had made love to.
The first man I had fallen for.
And the first man that had broken my heart.
Go Heath.
I washed my face in cold water, trying to wake myself up. I had to do this family thing, then I could go home and hide under the covers. Then I could figure out how to be strong again. Because I had fought back. I’d fought for myself. I lost, but I had fought. So this crying jag just needed to go away.
The doorbell rang and I stiffened. It wouldn’t be him. He wasn’t coming back. He had made that clear. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, but when someone started pounding on the door, and a familiar voice yelled through it, I knew who it was.
It wasn’t my family; they didn’t know. They had no idea that he’d broken my heart.
But apparently I hadn’t been able to hide the tears at work after all.
I opened the door to see Paisley and Addison standing there. Addison with fire in her eyes, Paisley with a sense of understanding in hers.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Addison asked as she stormed in and threw her arms around me. I let her hold me as I looked over her shoulder at Paisley.
Paisley shrugged. “You didn’t have to say anything. I saw it on your face this morning. I knew we were both busy, so I tried to let you be. But then you didn’t tell Addison. So I decided to intervene. Tell us what happened.”
Addison let me go but took my hand and pulled me into the living room.
“He broke it off. I don’t really know what more to say.”
“It doesn’t make any sense. He loves you. Anyone could see that.”
I snorted, but it was more like a rough chuckle with a sob in the middle.
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“He did. I saw the way he looked at you,” Addison said softly. “There’s no way someone could look at you like that and not love you.”
“But he broke it off.”
I looked at Paisley, who still wasn’t saying anything, and explained about the dinner.
“His parents sound like royal pains in the asses. Abusive and horrible.”
“I agree. Horrible, horrible people. But he can’t see past that. He sees them and somehow thinks he’s going to do the same thing. It doesn’t make any sense. Because he has tried so hard to cultivate a relationship with his family, and then as soon as things got hard, as soon as his family reminded him of how he’d grown up, he went back. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“It breaks your heart to lose a Cassidy brother.”
I looked at Paisley as she spoke, her gaze distant. I didn’t know what she was seeing, but it wasn’t me.
“They are wonderful men. Greer is an amazing woman. They fight so hard for each other, but they forget to fight for themselves. Because as soon as their parents find a way to needle back into their lives, it’s like a switch hits. And they can’t get through it. It doesn’t matter what logic says. It doesn’t matter if they think they’re above it. All they see is who they were and what they could be. Not what they are. And there’s no changing that.”
“So, just like that, he gives up. He doesn’t fight.”
“He’s too busy fighting himself.”
I shook my head, disgusted. “It doesn’t make any sense. Why would he do that?”
“Because in his mind he doesn’t have a choice. It’s stupid and I hate it, and I hate their parents for doing that to them. I don’t know exactly what went on with their parents. I know there was cheating, mental and physical abuse on both sides. There’s so much more. They never hit their kids, but they forgot to love them along the way. They’re just pawns for each other. And that broke something inside those boys. Inside Greer. She’s figuring it out because she’s finally leaning on the men she loves. But the guys? I don’t know about Luca, it’s not like August really let me get to know them when we were married.” She sounded as hollow as I felt.
