35. Chapter 35
Chapter thirty-five
T hat was the worst birthday ever.
My twenty-third year is off to a shit start.
My head is pounding so hard, the force alone will encourage me to puke out whatever is festering in my stomach.
I don’t remember anything after sitting down at Murphy’s and ordering a beer. Which terrifies me, because Gigi had plans for us yesterday.
And I don’t remember a minute of it because I was too busy drinking away my self-imposed sorrows. Fuck.
I sit up—or, at least, try to—until the aches and pains coursing through my system force me to stay put. Not to mention the way the room spins.
“EJ!” I call. “EJ! You here?”
My door flies open. It’s Rory in my doorway, looking less than pleased.
“I should have let you choke on your own vomit,” she says.
I squint, trying to make out her figure. “Where’s EJ?”
“He went to pick up your mom and Eddy from the airport. Asked me to stay here in case you came back from the dead. And look at you.”
I groan. “I forgot about that visit, goddamnit. I feel like shit.”
“You should,” she says.
“I need to apologize to Gigi,” I moan into my pillow. “But I don’t even know what for.”
“Well, for starters, she planned a birthday picnic for you guys in the same spot your fling started. Real sentimental. And then—”
My stomach bottoms out. “Oh, god. What did I do? What did I say?”
Rory purses her lips, thinking. She crosses the room, sitting on the end of the bed. “You got really mad about the picnic,” she murmurs. “That’s what EJ said. He said you told Gigi she doesn’t… You told Gigi she doesn’t matter to you. She’s gone now, though. She left this morning.”
I blink. “What do you mean, left? Where is she?” My heart sinks to my toes, blood turning icy. “Where’d she go?” I take an unsteady breath, chest rattling. My head is spinning.
“She went back to Connecticut. I took her to the airport this morning.”
Then I lose the contents of my stomach onto my bedroom floor. When I think I’m done heaving, I sit up, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
“You’re a disaster,” Rory tells me. Her face pinches. “And you are cleaning that up.”
“Don’t I fucking know it.”
As much as I don’t want to, I force myself to shower. The water pounding against my skin makes my body ache, and the pounding in my head has evolved to a constant, incessant force against the back of my eyes.
I pull on jeans and a T-shirt, and then hear Eddy’s voice, gravelly, through the walls.
“My boy!” he says, meeting me halfway as I walk into the living room.
“Hi, old man,” I say through as much of a grin as I can muster. “How you doin’?”
“Never better,” he tells me. “Cancer isn’t all bad. Worst part is the dying.”
I cough back a laugh. “Jesus, Ed.”
“It is what it is, kid. Gotta embrace it.”
“He’s coping much better than me,” my mom says from behind him. She’s so petite—about half the size of me and two times as small as EJ. Her facial features are just as mousey as the rest of her, so we clearly didn’t get most of our genetic traits from Mom. But the eyes, both of us definitely did.
Hers sparkle with joy. “Caderade,” she sighs into me as we hug. “Baby. How are you?”
“Hanging in,” I say. “You?”
“Thankful for a break.” She takes a breath, peering at Eddy. “It’s been a whirlwind this summer.”
“The only one who thinks this mess is a whirlwind is you,” Eddy tells Mom. “I’m fine. I’m ready to be put in the ground, you know?”
“Edward,” my mother sighs. “My god. You aren’t even terminal. Stop acting like you’re going to drop dead.”
“I think you need to stop acting like I’m gonna drop dead,” Eddy sneers. “You countin’ down or somethin’? You know my fortune’s all tied up.”
“Because I’m the one interested in your tattoo empire,” Mom tells Eddy with a roll of her eyes. “Sure.”
The eye roll gets me, and my mind goes to Gigi right away. As if she knows, Mom says, “Where’s that girl you’ve been telling me about?”
My jaw pulses. “Things didn’t work out,” I mutter.
Mom frowns. “Too bad. I would have loved to finally meet the girl that’s taken over my son’s heart.”
“Yeah, I would have liked that, too.”
“When were you going to tell me you’ve been telling Mom about Gigi all summer?” EJ asks as we walk home from the seafood restaurant Mom insisted on.
I look back, seeing Eddy and Mom a ways away, caught in conversation themselves. “It wasn’t pertinent info to you,” I tell him.
“And it is for Mom?”
I shrug. “I thought she’d like to know.”
“I would have liked to know the truth, too, if we’re talking about being honest.”
I guffaw. “What would that have done? Nothing. Look, Gigi’s gone. I screwed everything up just like I knew I would. That’s the end of it. Time to move on to the next thing.”
“The next girl, you mean.”
I shoot EJ a look. “I move on quickly. Sue me.”
“I wouldn’t call whatever you’re doing today moving on.”
“I’ll prove it to you. I made an appointment to get some ink to drown my sorrows. Nothing a tattoo can’t fix.”
EJ sighs. “I’m just pointing out the extremely obvious here, buddy: if you didn’t care about Gigi, if she was just another girl, you wouldn’t have told Mom about her. You ever tell Mom about any other girl you’ve screwed?”
I sigh. “No.”
“All I’m saying,” EJ tells me, “is that your problem seems clear to everyone but you, and has a rather easy fix.”
“I can’t fix anything,” I say. “She’s gone.”
“So, what’s your plan? Do tell.”
“Get a new tattoo and get a new girl,” I say, “just like I always do.”
I get a heart permanently etched onto my body to remind myself that I might still have one beating in my chest, despite feeling otherwise. Then I ask the girl from Murphy’s to meet me back there for a nightcap.
“I’d like to really get to know each other over dinner,” she murmurs, running well-manicured fingers up my leg after a few drinks. “If you’re offering.”
I completely destroy our potential hookup, and now she wants dinner? That’s different. Then again, I called her here, so who’s the real fuck up?
“It would be the gentlemanly thing to do,” I reply. “To take you to dinner.”
“Are you a gentleman, Cade?” Ava croons.
I have a choice to make. “Depends on who wants to know.”
“What if I don’t want a gentleman?”
“Then maybe,” I trail my gaze down her body, “I am the guy for you, after all.”
I picture Gigi rolling her eyes at me. The thought makes any arousal I had toward Ava vanish. Just like that. My heart squeezes.
“I had a friend,” I say before I realize words are actually coming from my mouth and not confined to my head, “who wanted to teach me how to date, be a gentleman. She—they’re convinced I’m too far gone.”
“Dinner, then?” Ava challenges with a raise of her eyebrow. “To prove your friends wrong?”
“Dinner,” I agree, putting my beer to my lips. “Sure.”