Chapter 19 Not Again #2
“What’s wrong?” I ask, skipping the pleasantries.
“I need to get out of here. My mom called. She fell and needs someone to come help.”
“Shit, man. Get out of here.”
“Can you keep an eye on Jo? She’s been doing shots of Fireball, and I don’t want anything to happen to her.”
Fuck.
“Yeah, no problem,” I say, but in reality, it is a very big problem.
He rushes out, and I reluctantly make my way to where I left Jo. This time, instead of playing pool, she’s dancing on one of the tables.
Oh, good lord.
Holding a bottle of beer in her hand, she sways to the slow song playing over the speakers.
“Jo, what are you doing?”
“What does it look like, Stephenson? I’m dancing.”
“Why are you doing it on top of a pool table?” I question.
“Why not?”
“Number one, you’re probably going to hurt yourself. Number two, everyone’s staring. And number three—“
“Hey, Beau, why don’t you get the stick out of your ass and join me?”
“I’m good,” I reply, not the least bit amused.
A faster song starts playing, prompting her to start doing a way sexier dance. All of the men around us start cheering.
The cheering gets even louder when she grabs the hem of her shirt and starts to pull it over her head.
She doesn’t get very far, though. Her foot slips on one of the balls, and she falls backwards.
As quickly as I can, I reach up and grab her hand to pull her towards me as she falls so that I can catch her.
She throws her head back and laughs, not even realizing the owner of the bar comes over to us.
“Get her out of here, Beau,” he prompts.
With her still in my arms, I start to walk toward the door. I’m scared to put her down because I know I’d probably have a fight on my hands.
“Where are we going?” She asks.
“You’ve been asked to leave.”
“Why?” She squeals.
“Because you were dancing on the pool table and almost broke your neck.”
She lets out an obnoxiously loud sigh. “Man, you guys are no fun. You should see if he wants to measure the sticks up your asses—you know, you can see which one is bigger.”
“I’ll get right on that,” I mutter.
When we are outside in the cool night air, she says, “You can put me down, you know.”
“I don’t trust you to not run back in to that bar. Plus, I want to make sure you get back to Dylan’s without killing yourself.”
“Well, aren’t you Mr. Chivalrous?”
“No. I just know your brother would kill me if I let anything happen to you.”
“Pssh. I’m way scarier than Dylan.”
As we walk through the streets of Lilly Leaf Falls, she makes up a song about the stick I have up my ass. I try to tune her out, but damn it, she’s so annoying.
Finally, I say, “If I put you down, do you promise to walk with me back to Dylan’s?”
“Maybe.”
“Jo,” I warn. “I’m really not in the mood for mind games.”
“Okay, okay. Put me down. I promise to behave.”
When I don’t immediately do it, she adds, “With all this jostling around, I’m likely to throw up pretty soon.”
That’s all I need to hear for me to set her back down on her feet. It takes her a second to steady herself, but soon enough, she’s walking next to me toward Dylan’s.
I pray that we can continue this journey in silence, but I ought to know better with Jo.
Soon enough, she says, “Beau, do you think you’re always going to hate me?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “Probably.”
I look at her, and for once, I see something written all over Jo’s face.
Something I have rarely seen before when it comes to her.
Regret.
I know I’m being a dick to her. I get it. But if I’m not, I know I’ll fall right back into her trap. I don’t know if I have the energy to go through that again.
She stays silent for a couple of minutes and has replaced talking with biting her nails. She’s always been a nail biter, but right now, she almost looks like she’s prying her entire nail off.
“What the hell are you doing?” I ask, grabbing her hand to look at it.
“Ronnie insisted we go get manicures, and the crazy bitch doing mine put these damn fakes nails on me.”
“To be fair, I think that’s their job. Did you tell them you wanted fake nails.”
She sighs. “I’m sure Ronnie did.”
“Why didn’t you tell the lady to stop when you saw she was putting fake nails on you?”
Looking down at her mangled nails, she replies, “I wasn’t paying attention when she was doing it.”
You’d think that statement would surprise me, but with Jo? Nope. Not even a little bit.
She pulls her cigarettes from her pocket and takes one out to light it. I think about scolding her for smoking, but what the fuck do I care? She’s grown. She can do whatever she wants.
It’s not like she’d listen to me anyway. I’d tell her she should stop, and she’d probably smoke the whole damn pack just to spite me.
When we get to Dylan’s, I walk her up to the porch—just to make sure she’s actually going to go inside and go to sleep.
“You good?” I ask her.
She nods, and I turn to walk away.
“Beau?”
So close.
I turn back around. “Yes, Jo?”
“I know what you said—about hating me forever. But I really hope that’s not true.”
“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?” I ask, unable to overlook my curiosity.
“Because I really fucking miss you. But if I have to deal with you hating me, I’ll do it. I know I deserve it.”
I have no idea how to respond to that. Her words are probably just fueled by alcohol, but the way she looks at me with those beautiful eyes makes me want to forget about all the bad between us.
I want to go back to how it was when we were younger.
I want to hug her and stay up all night catching up on the past ten years.
I also feel the overwhelming urge to grab her, push her up against the wall, and kiss her until she forgets her own name.
That’s just not going to work for me.
Jo Lawson is not going to fuck with my head.
Not again.
I do my best to concentrate on how she hurt me and how she can’t just have a free pass for that.
Keeping that mindset, I say, “I think you’re going to have to deal with me hating you. I just don’t see that changing.”
With an unmistakable sadness in her eyes, she says, “Alright. I’ll take what I can get.”
Just as my facade is showing small signs of cracking, she leans in…and hurls all over my shoes.
That brings back all of my anger ten-fold, and I walk away pissed as ever.