Chapter 11 #2
“Right at this instant, a friend fighting with a friend about ancient history. Generally, it’s a friend looking after a friend.
But if you’re specifically asking about what tonight was supposed to be, what should be happening is that friend coming over and bringing dinner so we can get our historical shit in order and be actual friends. ”
“Bullshit.”
“Say again?”
“I’ve had visitors, babe, but none as dedicated as you.”
“Well, I know what your dick tastes like, so maybe I’m a little closer to it than Harlow and Javi might be,” I shot back.
“Precisely.”
“Make sense, Knox,” I snapped.
“Tell me if you know what Brady’s dick tastes like, Luna.”
I shook my head and took a step back. “No. No. I’m not doing this. This is fucked up.”
“It’s an easy response, babe. One syllable. Yes. Or no.”
“You don’t get to be jealous, Knox. You don’t think so, but you made that decision your damned self.”
“If that’s the case, even if I disagree it is, fair play, Luna. But that also means you don’t get to be jealous and shove your shit with Brady in my face either.”
Goddamn it, he was right.
“That didn’t stop you from doing it when I was with Cheyenne, and you’re still fucking pulling that shit,” he continued.
Goddamn it, I was.
“No, I am not nor have I ever fucked or even kissed Brady,” I said very slowly.
“We’re friends. We’ve only ever been friends.
We’ll only ever be friends. And our chat at The Porch was us agreeing to stop fucking around with what was only ever our fake flirting and put out to the world what we are… only friends.”
He pulled a harsh, angry breath into his nose.
“But you and I won’t be if you don’t chill the fuck out with all this noise,” I warned.
“You don’t get to comment on my ass. You don’t get to flirt with me.
You don’t get to call me baby. We were a thing.
Then we weren’t. And you’re right, Brady and I shouldn’t have played that game.
I have no defense, but I was pissed we were over, hurt you moved on from me, and I wasn’t thinking straight.
It was stupid and it was harmful, because now you aren’t talking to Brady, and Raye and I just got into it—”
“Raye got into it with you because Cap came by and I told him you broke me. I told him how you broke me. So now Cap’s pissed at you, and he probably told Raye why, so she’s pissed at you because of that.”
Fantastic.
Cap was also pissed at me.
And brilliant.
Everyone was taking Knox’s side.
There I was, protecting him by not telling them about The Big Choice he forced on me, and he was throwing me right under the bus.
“Well, thanks for that,” I sniped.
“It was bound to happen,” he replied, his tone a lot less asshole-y.
“You are correct. Which is why I asked in the first fucking place if us taking it there was smart. You said it was. You knew I was an Angel. I was from the very first night we met. And I’ll remind you, that very first night was the first time you boys played cleanup for the Angels.
You knew who was in bed with you when you answered that question, and you knew you were full of shit with the way you answered it.
And…surprise! I’m the one who has to deal with the fallout. ”
“I thought you were solid. I had no idea, when the stakes hit the stratosphere, you wouldn’t waste even five minutes before buckling under the pressure.”
God!
He was too much!
Now it was me who wanted to shout. Though, shocker, I was way too pissed to shout.
“Interesting take, Mr. Chambers. Wanna hear mine? No.” I lifted a hand palm out his way.
“Don’t answer. I’m gonna tell you if you want to hear it or not.
Those stratospheric stakes? You were the one who shot me out of the cannon into air so deprived of oxygen, I couldn’t breathe.
You might call that buckling. But pardon the mixed metaphor, especially considering current events, but I call it dodging a fucking bullet. ”
His expression got hard again, as did his voice. “If that’s the case, you’ve demonstrated really well you know how to use it, so you can find the door.”
Dammit, my heart was going to beat right out of my chest.
He scowled at me, and I gave him time, but he didn’t take that back.
So I had no choice.
“This time, I’m warning you, Knox, don’t extend the invitation if you don’t mean it. There won’t be a time you can come to me where we figure out what we’re gonna be after we stopped being what we were. We’ll be nothing and all our posse will just have to deal.”
He held my gaze steady and said low, “No, you aren’t getting this, Luna. It’s you who’s driving this. It’s you who’s making the decisions. It’s you who’s making us whatever the fuck we are at any given moment.”
“If that’s the way you persist in seeing this, then it’s you who has to understand, if I walk out that door, that’s what we’ll be. Nothing.”
“Christ, why?”
“Because I’m not doing this shit anymore.”
“No, babe, what I mean is, if this was your endgame, why did you come back to me?”
Come back to him?
“Knox…I was just being a friend.”
His look and his tone were full of venom when he replied, “You suck at it, Luna.”
My entire torso swung back like he’d shoved me.
And I guess he did.
Right out the door.
Which, without looking back (or grabbing my Lucky Boy), I used.
I did not go back to Lucky Boy to buy another corndog and malt.
I went home.
And I did not cry on the way home.
I only did that when I had Jacques, a dark room, my bed, that secret something I kept under my pillow, and my memories—recent and not so much—and a heartache that hurt so bad, I knew never, not in my life, would I recover.
Yes, I knew this for a fact.
I’d never recover.
Not…
Ever.