6. Stop Blaming Yourself
6
STOP BLAMING YOURSELF
H e was a glutton for punishment.
There was no other explanation for the fact that the following week he was walking to Raina’s office and knocking on her door at lunch knowing that Tori was in there.
“Hi, Hyde,” Raina said, looking up.
Tori just glanced his way, her expression not changing in the least.
“Hi,” he said. “I was wondering if I could talk to Tori before she leaves for her office.”
Raina smirked at him. “She’s sitting right here. You can ask her that herself.”
He was such an idiot.
“Yeah, sorry.” He looked at Tori. “Could we talk before you leave? I’d like to apologize.”
“You just did,” Tori said.
Guess that was all he was getting. “I did,” he said. “But I’d like to explain more if you’ll hear me out. I owe you more than one but understand if you’d rather not bother. Raina knows where my office is.”
He turned and left.
Probably rude again, but he wouldn’t stand there and stink the place up with all the shit dumped on him lately.
He went back to his office to get some work done and eat at his desk.
Ryder popped his head in. “Did you talk to Tori? I just saw her in Raina’s office.”
He motioned Ryder to come in so he could talk quieter. “I went down to see if she could talk before she left. I started with saying I wanted to apologize and would like to explain. She said I just apologized there and I took that as it was good enough.”
Ryder snorted. “So you said nothing else?”
“I’m not sure what you want me to do. I said if she wanted to talk more Raina knew where my office was. I’m not begging anyone for anything. My back and ass are kind of sore as it is from the lashes and boots I’ve been getting the past year of my life. Completely my fault and I’ll own it.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Ryder said. “Some was your fault, sure, others not. You need to stop blaming yourself for what happened to Shana.”
He looked up at his best friend. “I can’t. She blamed me and that caused the events to spiral that night.”
“No one could have known what was going to happen and you did nothing wrong. She thought something that wasn’t true.”
“I know,” he said. “I’ll never be able to move on from my past.”
“I did,” Ryder said. “You can too. If you want to. The right person will be out there and will understand that and give you a chance. And if they don’t, then they can go suck balls. Someone else’s balls.”
He smirked when Ryder said that. Something they’d said when they were out carousing women and getting shot down when they were in college. Not that either of them was shot down much back then.
Would Ryder’s wife kick his ass for saying that? Most likely.
But Hyde would never rat his buddy out.
“You make a good point,” he said.
Ryder turned to leave and he heard him say, “He’s in his office.”
He kept staring at the door and saw Tori standing there.
She didn’t say much and he had a moment to just look at her.
Her light brown hair was past her shoulders and straight, tucked behind her ears. Her eyes were brown, but light in color giving him the time he needed to look her over.
The yellow silky shirt with a thick white band around the waist was resting on her hips. Her pants were navy and her shoes the same color. A cute pair of flats.
He’d peg her about around five foot five. A good eight inches shorter than him.
“Did you want to talk to me or just stare?”
He felt his face light up like a flare after a car wreck.
That was what all his interactions with her were. One crash after another.
“Sorry,” he said. “Please come in.”
Tori moved in a few steps, assessing him with curiosity more than anything else. At least it wasn’t annoyance even with the question about staring at her.
That was better than nothing.
“May I?” she asked of the seat in front of his desk.
There went his manners again. “Yes. Sorry. My mother raised me better. She has already kicked my ass verbally for my interactions with you.”
Tori lifted an eyebrow. “You told your mother?”
If his face could show any more embarrassment, he didn’t know. “Yes,” he said. “I felt bad. She called at the right time when I was feeling some shame and I confessed my sins. She knows her son’s shortcomings. Having my phone in my face all the time is one of them. So I apologize for being rude there.”
“Apology accepted,” she said. “You’re not the only one that does that. When I’m meeting with students and filling in for my staff, I try to squeeze some etiquette in there. I feel it's a major shortcoming in society now.”
“It is,” he said. “I stopped you the other day to apologize for my behavior in the bar weeks ago.”
“Over a month at this point,” she said.
“Boy, time flies when you’re feeling like shit,” he said.
She smiled and her eyes softened some.
Maybe his heart was racing and he couldn’t understand the reason for it.
Back to a glutton.
“I might agree with that a time or two.”
“I have no excuse for my behavior the night in the bar other than I had too much to drink. I wasn’t drunk enough that I don’t remember what I did, but enough for me to not think over my words clearly. I might have had a problem with that in the past, but there were extenuating circumstances.”
“And alcohol only loosens the tongue more,” she said. “I know. I educate students on that too.”
He laughed. She was being a better sport about this than he thought.
“I don’t have a drinking problem and have no excuses either. I was having a bad day and stopped for a drink. I should know better than to drown my sorrows, but knowing and doing are two different things.”
“They are,” she said. “I noticed you seemed a bit off. I might have wanted to ask if you were okay, but then you snorted at me when I ordered my drink.”
“Sex on the beach,” he said. “See. I remember. I thought you and the bartender were flirting with each other.”
She laughed. “We were in our way. I go in there often. During the workweek for a drink and an appetizer as my dinner. We know each other well. And when you made that comment about the guy who moved next to me who could have dropped something in my drink, I looked at Bryon right away. He’s on top of everything in the bar.”
“I hadn’t realized that.”
“You were too busy giving me crap and judging me,” she said. “But I’m very aware of that happening in life and maybe I made a mistake turning my back, but again, didn’t worry so much because of where I was.”
“Raina told me about what happened to her in college and you finding her.”
“Oh,” she said. “She hadn’t told me that.”
He could tell her reaction was genuine. “She also told me she wasn’t getting in the middle and I didn’t want her to, so I’m not surprised she didn’t relay that.”
The truth was, he was surprised but wouldn’t say that either.
“She wants to be supportive but stay out of drama too. I understand that. I told her I’d handle it.”
“Which we are right now,” he said. “So there you go. I owe you two apologies and hope you accept them.”
“I do,” she said. “If you hadn’t bitten my head off when trying to warn me, I’m positive we would have talked more. I’m a very open person and have no problem striking up conversations with people.”
Raina had said the same thing. “We can’t go back in time. Believe me, I wish we could. If there was a way, I’d be dropping all sorts of money on it for the first one to be in line to correct things in our past.”
She frowned when he said it. Almost concerned. “I might agree with you at times.”
He nodded. “I’d like to make it up to you. We can just say we cleared the air and go about our lives. I’ll see you coming and going here, I’m sure. Or we can go out for a drink and dinner and see if we can not bite each other’s head off for an hour or so.”
She laughed. “I’m not sure about that.”
Guess he wasn’t getting much more than his apology accepted and that was fine too. It was better than where he was standing a few hours ago.
“If you change your mind, you know where I am.”
“I didn’t say no,” she said. “Just that I’m not sure we can go an hour without biting the other’s head off. Which I find ironic because I don’t do that with anyone and Raina said she was stunned by your behavior with me too.”
He smiled. “What is that old saying? Something about a fine line between love and hate.”
“I’m not sure I’d use either of those words with us,” she said.
“I’m pretty sure you were thinking the hate one prior,” he said, laughing.
“Maybe a little,” she said but held her arms out wide.
His smile didn’t leave his face and he wondered when the last time was he had this much fun for a brief conversation with a woman.
“So is that a yes or a no to dinner and a drink?”
“Like a date?” she asked. “Or part of the apology?”
“Why don’t we put it somewhere in the middle,” he said.
“I can do that,” she said. She looked at her watch. “I’m sorry, I need to get back to work. I’ve got a meeting in twenty minutes.”
“No problem,” he said when she stood up. “Can I get your number so we can set this up?”
“Sure,” she said. He pulled his phone out and she read off her number to him.
“I’ll be in touch later today. Maybe we can try for this weekend if you’re available.”
“I’ll have to check my calendar for my availability,” she said. “I might be washing my hair and doing laundry.”
He laughed when she walked out the door and wondered how the hell he was able to turn that around.
“How did it go?” Ryder asked him ten minutes later.
He was on the fence with how much he wanted to share, but he knew Ryder would always have his back.
“Better than I thought. We are going out for a drink and dinner this weekend.”
“Seriously?” Ryder asked. “Talk about smooth. Even I’m not sure I could have pulled that off.”
“Pulled what off?” Jade Fierce-James asked, moving into his office.
Jade was an engineer on the mechanical side of the business. Hyde was a civil engineer.
“Nothing,” Ryder said. “Don’t be nosy.”
“I’m always nosy. Just like I know Hyde put his foot in his mouth with Tori.”
His jaw dropped. “How do you know that?”
“I’ve got ears everywhere,” Jade said. “Don’t you forget that. And I saw Tori walking out the door smiling just now. So did you talk to her?”
“I’m not telling you,” Hyde said, smirking. “Go bug someone else.”
“Yeah,” Ryder said. “Isn’t there anyone else you can pick on?”
“There is,” Jade said. “But I thought I’d come give you a heads up. Not if you’re going to be a jerk about it though.”
Even though Jade was smiling, he didn’t like the fact she’d thrown out him being a jerk.
He’d been rightly called that too much in his life.
“Sorry,” he said. Something he was saying a lot of too. “What did you want to warn me about?”
“That some older gentlemen with the last name of Fierce are putting their heads together on things. They are circling the building and trying to figure out where they are stopping next.”
“I already told Dad to not even consider it,” Ryder said to Jade and then turned to Hyde. “I have warned them off.”
He snorted. “As if your father is going to listen to you.”
“Neither of our fathers or mothers listens to us,” Jade said. “Which is why I just said I’m warning you. What you do with a warning is up to you. If you’ve got a date with someone planned, you might want to let some older men know so they back off.”
Jade left his office after that, leaving him and Ryder together. “Is she right?”
“About them targeting you?” Ryder asked. “Yes. I just told you. But I said for them to leave you alone.”
“No,” he said. “That if I let them know I’m going on a date with Tori they will leave me alone?”
Ryder laughed. “Dude, do you have a death wish? No, don’t tell my father or my uncle or anyone else other than me and Raina right now. Otherwise, you’re setting yourself up for some serious meddling.”
“As if that hasn’t been happening in the past year of my life,” he said, frowning.
“Trust me. If you listen to Jade, you haven’t seen anything yet.”