Chapter Thirteen
Dan
My head and face pounded like a son of a bitch, although the pain was a distraction from the heavy ache dead center of my chest. I was pretty sure the pain there had nothing to do with Jim Ed Reese tackling me.
Being knocked on my ass had hurt my pride.
The way my lungs and heart squeezed once Lila was out the door hit different.
My brain remained foggy, like shards of glass cotton candy filled it up, and thinking about what had happened in my kitchen with Lila hurt.
I shoved the eggs and cheese back in the refrigerator, popped a couple of ibuprofen with too-hot coffee, and stumbled back to bed, grateful my phone was still missing.
I could sleep and maybe things would look better when I woke up.
Probably not, but maybe.
Eyes closed, forcing my thoughts to be still – we would think about Lila and how I’d said I love you and she hadn’t said it back when I woke up – I focused my attention on my toes, then my ankles.
The right one ached a little. Rotating my foot, I folded my arms behind my head.
I moved my attention to my calves, then my knees and thighs.
My left hip hurt. Bet I’d gone down at an angle when I tripped over Williams trying to fend off Reese. The bottom of my belly felt heavy with . . . dread, maybe? And my stomach gnawed a little below where my chest still ached . . .
I jerked awake, blinking at the ceiling. The light had shifted, from early morning gold to bright winter noon. A firm knock sounded, and I squeezed my eyes shut, opened them, closed them again. My brain seemed muffled, like I was underwater.
My dry mouth tasted godawful, too.
Another knock, and I rolled to my feet, holding the wall, then my bedroom door like an old man. I rubbed a shaky hand down my brow, hit the splint, and recoiled from the pain shooting through my face. Hell, that hurt.
Shuffling to the door, I grimaced at the scorched coffee smell hanging in the air. Or maybe that was just the lingering scent of my crash and burn with my girlfriend.
I guess she was still my girlfriend.
I shoved that under a layer of glass cotton candy. I didn’t avoid stuff – all that therapy Mama had paid for while I was in college taught me it wasn’t healthy. But the shit could wait until I could hold onto a straight thought.
Scratching my chest, I threw the door open without looking. “What?”
Chuck lifted a brow, dark gaze darting over my face. “You look like what.”
My derisive snort hurt my nose, and I winced. Turning away, I shuffled to the kitchen to turn off the coffee maker. “What are you doing here?”
“Heard you got your ass handed to you.” He grinned at my glare, an expression which hurt, too, because somehow everything in my face connected to my nose. He held aloft a familiar white shopping bag from Shay’s bakery. “Deanne and Mama sent you some goodies.”
I filled a glass from the tap and gulped it down while he unpacked soup, casseroles, pimento cheese, chicken salad, and cookies. “I’m not dying.”
“You ever known my mama to do anything halfway?” He tossed a skein of crackers down by the pimento cheese. “Or my wife?”
“No.” Bet Deanne never stared at him wide-eyed and open-mouthed and stunned like a landed fish when he said I love you. My shoulders slumped.
She didn’t love me.
A hollow yawned in my chest like when my father left.
I’d invested, leaned in, tried my best, and she didn’t love me.
I didn’t know what to do with that.
“Hey.” Chuck’s low, easy voice pulled me from the edge of despondency. He stroked his bearded jaw with his thumb and index finger. “What’s wrong?”
“Told Lila I loved her.” The words clogged in my throat. Avoiding hard truths – like my father was a cheating, deadbeat narcissist – didn’t make them go away. There was power in saying them aloud instead. “She doesn’t.”
“Yet,” Chuck said quietly.
“Maybe not ever.”
“Maybe.” Chuck could speak the hard truth, too.
Like sometimes awful things happened – your brother was killed and your daddy turned to alcohol and that led to his death so your mama did the best she could in her grief but it left your whole family in a mess for years.
We’d done UGA and coping with our messed up families together.
Chuck leaned into his faith, I leaned into therapy, and we leaned into each other. “But today might just be yet.”
“Yeah.” Still, it sucked . . . and felt like never.
“Your feelings are hurt. I get that. You put yourself out there, and it didn’t go like you planned.”
I glowered. He shrugged.
“Look sometimes, two people are just at different places in the relationship.” He opened a white bakery box and pulled out a chocolate chip cookie. Flakes of sea salt glimmered on top. “Probably most times.”
“Like you know anything about this.” Deanne had been into him from the beginning.
Chuck grinned, white teeth flashing against his dark beard. “You’ve met Tick, right?”
“Yeah.” What did his brother have to do with anything?
“He’s a prime example. A little dumb when it comes to women.”
“He’s doing okay.” I’d seen him with his wife when they visited from Texas. She looked at him like he was the best thing since sliced bread. Frowning, I tried to remember how Lila looked at me. The endeavor hurt my face, and my brain refused to conjure any memories, like skimming over murky water.
“Yeah, now. You know that dumbass actually let the sentence ‘I don’t love you yet’ or words to that effect out of his mouth with her.”
“I get how she felt.”
“She didn’t love him then, either.” Chuck waved the sympathy away. “And he was definitely the first to fall. It took her a while. Same with Grandaddy and Grandma. So it’s a thing. Sometimes you’re at different spots emotionally. Doesn’t mean you won’t meet up.”
“I’m supposed to just wait?”
“That’s your pride talking.” Chuck thumped over his heart with an easy finger. “What does this say?”
“That I’d wait for her.” My shoulders slumped again. Hell, my whole body felt heavy. “As long as it takes.”
“Same thing Grandaddy said to Grandma. Then you walk it out.” Chuck chomped off a bite of cookie. “She gets to the I love you place with you or–”
“She doesn’t.” Nausea rose in my throat and not from my concussion.
“Or she doesn’t.” Chuck propped his hips against the island and took another bite of cookie. He saluted me with his uneaten half. “But you know you gave it every possible chance. You can’t control her feelings, buddy. Just your own.”
The idea of her never loving me pressed in. Sure, people loved more than once – Chuck’s mama had a longterm boyfriend she adored – but then there were people like Vic who lost and afterward settled for hookups like Santillan.
I breathed through the panic gripping my lungs. I couldn’t make her feel anything, anymore than I could make my father do right.
Chuck was right. All I could control was my actions, reactions and choices.
I could choose the risk, like I did every day putting on my uniform and badge. Walking away from her simply guaranteed the loss.
“You’re thinking hard there.”
“Making my brain hurt.”
“You don’t have to have all the answers today.” Chuck tossed the last bite of cookie in his mouth and brushed crumbs from his beard. “It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
“You’re a walking cliche.” I glared at the crumbs on my floor.
“Cliche because it’s true.” He ambled to the pantry for the whisk broom and dustpan. He bent down to sweep. “Get some sleep. Let your head heal. She didn’t ditch you last night, so she’ll probably wait around a couple of days.”
“Thanks, man.” I shoved his shoulder as he walked to the trashcan. “Real encouraging.”
His chuckle rumbled between us, low and affectionate.
Minutes later, I walked down with him, my body protesting each stair step. Mackey had not been kidding about being sore.
A familiar SUV sat in Nicole’s drive, and Allison hurried down the side steps when she spotted me. Her blonde ponytail bounced against her black sweater. “Dan, I’m glad I caught you.”
With a slight frown, I waited. Next to me, Chuck tensed. She ignored him, like didn’t even look at him, which I guess made sense seeing as she’d dated his dumb-with-women older brother back in high school. They’d ended badly.
Like she’d slept with Tick and Chuck’s cousin and Tick caught them badly.
“I was checking on Nicole, bringing her some lunch. She’s on bedrest.” Concern pulled at her mouth, corners turning down before she smiled at me, eyes blank. “You have no idea how much I appreciate you taking care of her lately.”
I wasn’t touching that. An occasional ride, a daily perimeter check – none of that constituted taking care of her.
She faltered a moment under my silence before her smile reappeared, wider and brighter.
And fake.
“Here’s your phone.” She tugged it out of her purse. “We found it in the ER this morning.”
I took it, glanced down, and cleared the fingerprints smudged on the screen with my thumb.
“Could I ask a favor?” She fluttered her lashes, an innocent, imploring look. “Could you check in on Nicole later today? I’m worried about her.”
“Not my place.” I shook my head.
Her face shut down, ugliness flickering through her blue eyes. “You’re really a selfish asshole, aren’t you?”
I shrugged. “An asshole who understands boundaries.”
“She doesn’t know what those are.” Chuck leaned sideways to mock whisper behind his hand. He was the most forgiving guy I knew, but his face held none of that when he straightened to stare at her. “Invisible lines you don’t cross.”
She smiled. “People who never cross lines spend their whole lives never getting what they want.”
I twisted my mouth sideways, considering, then glanced at Chuck. “You have to cross any lines to get Deanne to marry you?”
“Nope.” Hands tucked in his pockets, Chuck rocked back on his heels.
With a disgusted sneer, she lifted her index finger between us. “Someone needs to take you down a peg or two.”
Spinning on one boot, she stalked to her SUV. I watched her go, a shiver of revulsion running down my spine, the skin on my thumbs prickling. “What did your brother see in her?”
“He was young, and she made the sex easy.”
“His wife’s better than that, right?”
“Absolutely. She’s a doll. Deanne loves her.”
I watched Allison snatch her seatbelt into place, then glanced down at my phone. “I don’t trust her.”
“You shouldn’t.” He gestured at the device I rotated in my hand. “Can she get in that?”
“Pfft.” I had a nosy younger sister. My shit stayed locked down. “No.”
“Good.” Chuck clapped a hand on my shoulder, and I winced. He flicked his hand between Allison backing down the drive and Nicole’s back door. “Watch out for them. The two of them can’t be a good combination. Destructive.”
“Yeah.” People who played foul usually were. Allison’s behavior was just weird. So was Nicole’s. And weird didn’t necessarily mean dangerous. Besides, Allison’s actions proved to be more self-destructive than anything.
I had bigger things to worry about than the two of them.
Like how the woman I loved might never love me back.