Chapter 10
Ten
Wes
I looked down at Mira, lying spent, her bare breasts rising and falling with each breath, and my chest ached. I’d been trying my best not to pay attention to the time, but it was officially up.
“Girlie?”
“Hm?” she questioned, still out of it after another full day of scening with me.
“Baby, it’s time.”
“Already?” She sounded sleepy and I hated the idea of her leaving my bed when it would be so easy to crawl in next to her and hold her until morning. But I had promised her this would only be for twenty-four hours, and I always kept my promises.
“I’m afraid so.”
“What if I don’t want to go?” she asked and caught her lip between her teeth.
“You don’t have a choice. I promised.”
She nodded, but she looked bereft at the thought. I held out a hand and she took it.
“What time is it?” She looked around for the clock in the dark, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her hand. “I shouldn’t have slept. I wasted the last of our time.”
I chuckled. “You had to. You’ve barely slept more than a few hours.” I glanced at my watch. “It’s almost ten o’clock.”
She nodded. “Curfew’s in half an hour.”
“Right.” I scooped her panties off the floor and helped her into them. They’d been folded on the bed a few hours ago, ready for when she got out of the shower, but they never made it onto her. Instead, they’d been tossed on the floor in our desperation for each other.
I moved on to her jeans which were also on the floor, and she grabbed her shirt and bra that were hooked on the bed post, putting them on. When she was fully ready, I took her hand, and we headed to the drawer where I’d put her cell and purse away for safekeeping.
“What’s tomorrow?” I asked since the silence was deafening.
“Early service sub shift, cleaning and stocking the Dungeon, then my classes. I have five, starting with Professor Holland, and when I’ve finished classes, I’m driving back to Butte.” She gathered a breath. “Hopefully to take my mom home.”
“Good. A busy day will help with any sub drop you might have.”
She nodded, pressing her lips together at our sudden awkwardness after being so connected and vulnerable together. “You?”
“Home to Jesse and Marni tonight. See if the house is still standing. And then I’ll be at the hospital all day the next day.”
“Maybe I’ll see you?” she asked tentatively, her eyes finding mine.
I smiled. “Of course you will. We’ll have dinner in the cafeteria, where I’ll be a pain in the ass—”
“And I’ll still have one.” She gave me a half smile.
I returned her smile, but I didn’t feel it. Reaching out, I pulled her against me, swallowing the words that sat on my tongue. This doesn’t have to end.
“Maybe we could—” the phone in her hand stopped the next words from leaving her mouth. She was staring at it, and I was staring at her until her mouth turned down. “I’ll call them back when I get to my room.”
“I’ll walk you.”
“No, I don’t need you to.”
I nodded and that was it. The spell had been broken, and we were nothing more than friends—and maybe the term friend was even too familiar with the giant wedge suddenly between us.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said and turned away.
Holding my breath, knowing it wouldn’t happen, I ran my eyes up and down her form, drinking every curve in and committing it to memory. Because I knew that’s all I’d have.
And then she was gone, and I was left with nothing but an open door and a battered heart.
I should have gone home, but I wasn’t ready. Instead, I hit a bar in Butte about ten minutes from the house. I wasn’t a regular drinker and yet here I was, a lineup of empty shot glasses in front of me. After having my first drink in months with Mira the night before.
Shaking my head, I waved for another drink, even though I knew drinking wasn’t the answer. “Never in the history of the world has anything ever been solved with a drink,” I said to no one since the bar was mostly empty on a Sunday night.
“I’ve settled more than one fight with my brother-in-law over beers.”
I looked at the guy three stools down from me and lifted a fresh shot glass that had just been slid in front of me.
“Okay. Admittedly I don’t know the world’s entire history, in fact, I hated history in school. World War One could have been solved over a pint and I wouldn’t know it.”
The guy laughed. “What are you trying to solve with those shots then?”
“I’m a doctor. I believe in science, concrete facts. But there’s this girl.”
“It’s always a girl,” the guy said taking a pull of his beer.
“What I feel for Mira goes beyond chemistry. Beyond anything I’ve ever felt before.
And I know chemistry way better than history.
” I swayed a bit as I turned to my new friend.
“And even considering the dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin coursing through me, I know in my heart…” I held up a finger and tapped it to my chest. “Not the beating muscle behind my ribcage, but the heart of my soul.” I smacked my hand on the bar.
“That yes, I am in love.” I lowered my forehead onto my bent arm.
“And that scares the shit out of me,” I said although it was probably too muffled to be heard.
But I wasn’t the only one feeling shellshocked, I thought, recalling the look in Mira’s eyes when she told me she’d been in love with me. She was too.
“How do you know it’s love?”
I sat up. “My soul heart,” I repeated. “But maybe also because I’ve never been in love before her, maybe that’s how I know this is it.” I waved a hand. “Or maybe I’m just drunk.”
I rose and headed for the door.
The cool breeze outside hit me and it made me shiver a bit like my regret. I should never have let it happen. The chemistry was off the charts between us, the sex so incredible, I’ll relive it for the rest of my life, but it wasn’t what she needed.
I mean it was, but not from me. She needed a friend.
That was my place. Having a night like that wasn’t in her best interests.
And now she wouldn’t call me if she needed someone to talk to.
Instead of giving her relief, I’ve taken something from her.
A safe place with someone who both knew her and what she was going through.
I cursed as I stared at my car. Another fuck up. I couldn’t drive. I’m inebriated.
Pulling out my phone, I dialed Jesse and cursed again.
“Hello?” It’s the groggy voice of my best friend.
“It’s me. I need a ride.”
“Who’s me?” he joked, already fully awake thanks to years of on call shifts where you’re woken to an emergency and must be ready to go within a second or two of opening your eyes.
“Just come get me, jackass.”
“I’m already on my way… er… as soon as you tell me where I’m going.”
“Chopper’s Bar. And Dude, don’t forget to leave a note for Marni in case she wakes up and gets scared when no one’s there.”
“It’ll be twenty minutes round trip.”
“And if you woke up as a thirteen-year-old girl, and found no one was there with you, after having lost your mother, would it matter if it was only twenty minutes?”
“Fuck. Right. Yeah. Gotcha.” He sighed loudly. “Will I ever get this?”
“She might be an adult by the time you do, but she’ll be an adult who knows her dad tried.”
He grunted before adding, “See you in ten minutes.”
And it was exactly that amount of time when he rolled up next to my car. “You drunk?” was the first thing he asked as I got in.
“Yep.” I answered giving the “P” a pop as I put on my seatbelt.
He accelerated out of the lot and we were silent for a minute. “So what were you doing here?”
“Had a…” I caught myself before saying the word date, because Mira didn’t date, but I also wanted to be honest suddenly. My best friend trusted me to be here for him, and it was time I trust him to be serious for once. “A not-date.”
His head snapped to the side as we turned onto the main road. “What the hell is a not-date? And have I really been out of the dating scene that long?”
“Are you considering four months ‘that long’?”
He snorted. “Yes!”
“I was out with a woman I really like who needed to blow off steam but doesn’t date.” I glanced at Jesse my brow arching as I braced myself for his teasing and vulgar questions. But they don’t come.
He glances at me as we pull up to a red light. “And you do?”
“I kinda do.”
“That’s a new one. I’ve never known you to date.”
I huffed. “Never found anyone I wanted to.”
“That sucks. What are you going to do?”
I blinked. “That’s it?”
He frowned. “What?”
“You aren’t going to rib me about this? Tell me to stop being a girl and man up? Get under someone else, Wes, it’s the only way to get over someone?”
He shook his head. “No, man, I’ve got a daughter. No one should use ‘girl’ as an insult. They’re tough.”
I blinked again. He glanced at me.
“That girl’s been through hell and she’s still a force. I’d be a flat-on-my-ass mess.”
I grinned, clapping him on the shoulder. “One hundred percent. Now you just need to make sure she knows you feel that way.” My grin fell when he swallowed hard and frowned.
“Yeah, I need to tell her shit like that. Girls need to know their dads are proud of them.”
“Everyone needs to know someone is proud of them,” I said, and for a second I saw Mira in my mind’s eye.
Maybe if her mom told her she was proud, that she knew how capable Mira was, she wouldn’t be lying in bed beating herself up right now, and I knew that’s what she was doing.
I clapped Jesse’s shoulder again. “You’re growing, figuring this out, and I’m proud of you, dude. ”
He flashed me a toothy grin. “Thanks.” Then his expression turned serious. “Couldn’t have done this without you. Still can’t, but someday I will. And when that day comes, I hope your girl has come around too and you can leave us to start a life with her.”
I shrugged. “Someday always comes sooner than you think. You’re always going to have difficult days.
Days when she’s being an impossible teen or days when she’s an adult doing things you wish she wasn’t, worrying about her, dating guys you hate or know aren’t good enough, but those days will be met with the confidence of someone who knows they belong in the role of dad, and nothing, come hell or high-water, will stop them from being that. ”
When we walked in the house, Marni was sitting at the kitchen bar holding the note.
“I woke up when I heard the door,” she said, taking a swallow of milk. “Couldn’t sleep after that.” Her eyes locked onto Jesse’s. “Thanks for the note. I probably would have freaked out if you hadn’t left it.”
He nodded but surprisingly kept his mouth shut.
There was no joke to break the seriousness of what she’d just admitted, no blundering confession that it wasn’t his idea, and no cocky “I got you, bruh” sentiment.
Nope, Jesse just walked over to his daughter, kissed her on the top of the head, and gave her shoulders a reassuring squeeze.
And then he poured himself a glass of milk and sat down next to her.
I blinked staring at their backs a moment, my eyes going blurry, which I was totally blaming on alcohol and lack of sleep.