46. Life Is A Highway #2
“Dinner reservations tonight at eight. I’ll pick you up outside.” He said it casually as he plopped into my visitor’s chair.
Without looking away from my work, I continued editing. “No.”
When he looked hurt and went through his usual tactics to get my attention, I ignored him. I’d already given him my answer. It wasn’t until he stood and spewed all the things he’d done for me that I knew I was right to end our friendship.
When he finished his summary, he put his hands on his hips and shouted. “So, why not?”
Giving him only one more minute of my time, I let my eyes lift to his pathetic face.
“A true friend wouldn’t expect anything in return for being a friend.
That list of things you just recited? That would be done by a true friend simply because he cared.
Now that I know better, and remembered how you introduced yourself to an entire town as my boyfriend when we never have and never will date, this friendship is over. Goodbye, Easton.”
As I returned my attention back to my work, I felt vindicated for about ten minutes before the implications of what he did made my stomach twist in knots. Paul thought I had been cheating on my boyfriend with him all that time when he saw Easton at the wake.
Nothing could be further from the truth, but it had to have been a sucker punch to the gut for him.
I thought about texting him, clearing up the mistake, but it didn’t change anything.
Why open that wound again? Why would he care if I had a boyfriend when he didn’t want to be with me either?
We’d had sex. Really incredible, life-affirming, never to be found again, spectacular sex, but he only wanted to be friends and nothing more.
I couldn’t do that. My heart couldn’t take being rejected every time we spoke.
So, I finished my day, and by the time I went home, Rusty eagerly awaited my arrival.
At first, he wanted food, but then he spent some time me.
While Rusty was nice company, I needed someone I could talk to out in the world where I wasn’t staring at these four walls.
I didn’t know where to go, but I knew staying home wasn’t the right option.
So, I texted Wyatt. He was at The Rooster Tavern and offered to send a car for me. I accepted.
One of Wyatt’s men brought me in a back entrance and escorted me to the bar to avoid the crowd.
Wyatt wasn’t there yet, so I took a seat at the far end.
I wanted to be around people but nowhere near people, if that made any sense.
I wasn’t in the mood to be hit on, but I didn’t want to hide away in my apartment.
“Who pissed in your cereal?” a voice drawled from behind me.
A genuine smile crossed my lips when I turned. “Wyatt, how are you?”
He took a seat on the barstool next to me. “Better than you. I know you’re grieving, but why so angry?”
“Nothing feels right anymore,” I said, averting my eyes as I fought off tears that came too easily these days.
Wyatt placed a hand on my shoulder, turning my barstool to pull me into a giant hug. “I’m so sorry, darlin’.”
Holding me that way for as long as he did was just what I needed. I clung to him, hoping he wouldn’t let go. There was something so comforting about the way his large frame enveloped me.
After he pressed a gentle kiss to my hair, he leaned back, studying me. “Seems like there’s more to the story. Maybe a broken heart, too? I can sniff it out like a bloodhound.”
There was something about being around Wyatt and his charming drawl that made me feel safe to spill everything.
He only raised an eyebrow three times. Once when I told him I lost my virginity, once when I told him that Paul didn’t want to be with me, and again when I told him about Easton showing up announcing he was my boyfriend at Mom’s funeral.
When I made it to the end of the story, Wyatt signaled for shots. “Think we’re going to need something stronger than that cocktail, don’t you?”
I nodded, wanting the numbness that shots provided. Desperately, I wanted to stop thinking, stop feeling, and just be.
“But first,” he started, “I want to know something from sober you. You’re done with this Easton dumbass, right?”
“Yep, I told him to pound sand today, in fact.”
“Not the day of the funeral?” he asked, with an expression I didn’t understand. It almost looked like pain.
I shook my head. “I was in such a fog of grief that I didn’t realize he’d told the town he was my boyfriend until later.”
Wyatt gave a little nod and pushed a shot glass my way. “And you never told Paul, the man of your dreams, how you truly felt?”
I scoffed. “He’s so not the man of my dreams.”
Wyatt lifted his eyebrow skeptically.
“Anymore. The man I want will talk to me, tell me how he feels, and know what I need without my asking,” I clarified.
“Did you ever tell Paul how you felt?” Wyatt asked again. “Did you say the ‘l’ word?”
I sighed as I wrapped my hand around the glass.
“He made it abundantly clear that he wanted to be friends and nothing more. Any time I tried to talk about what we could be, we just ended up arguing about living in different places. How it was all too impossible. Before Mom died, though, I told him one last time how much I cared about him, and you know what he said?”
“What?”
“Nothing. He said nothing,” I said, lifting the glass and drinking the shot.
Throwing down his shot, he slammed the glass to the bar top. “Misunderstandings happen sometimes. You’re sure that’s not what it was?”
He poured me another shot.
I picked up my shot glass, staring at it.
“Wouldn’t the right man come and straighten it out if there was a misunderstanding?
” Throwing down the shot, it burned all the way down until it warmed my stomach.
“And anyway, I’m done waiting around. A cat adopted me.
I’m moving on, and I’m open for business! ”
Hoots and hollers startled me. I almost forgot this wasn’t exactly a private conversation. Especially not when I stood in a sleeveless bandage dress in the middle of a bar and declared open season on myself in a place filled with men. Horny men, so it seemed.
Wyatt gave a nod to the bartender and a few more men wearing all black came and stood behind us.
After two more shots, I looked at Wyatt filled with cajones only whiskey gave me. “Who are you, anyway? You seem to have all these bodyguards, you’re so nice to me, and I don’t even know anything about you.”
With a chuckle, he gazed at me, searching my eyes. “You really don’t know, do you?”
I giggled and fell back on the barstool. “Nope.”
“Well, sugar, right now, I’m the man standing between you and them,” he said, pointing his thumb over his shoulder at a bar full of wild-eyed men.
“And between you and me, I used to sing a lot. Now, I own this bar and a few others, and I sing around the world sometimes. When I’m here, I try to give new talent a shot when I can.
But I think I’ll adopt you, too. You have a beautiful soul, Maggie Roth, and I like having you around. ”
The idea that popped in my head made me snigger. “So, basically what you’re saying is that you’re my fairy granddaddy?”
The thought made me burst out laughing.
When he didn’t laugh with me but just gave me a nod, I knew he was one in a million. A protector. Someone like I’d never had in my life who wouldn’t take advantage. Someone who cared.
And then I couldn’t have stopped the tears if I tried.
Mom was dead, Father left, Paul wasn’t who I thought he was, and I’d never felt so damn lonely in my entire life.
Other than Suzie who felt a million miles away and my aunt and uncle who felt obligated to care about me, I had no one here I called when I was having a bad day.
Not one soul cared about me except this stranger.