25. Blake
25
BLAKE
S he’s done with me.
Last night, after what I can only describe as stony silence from across the table during the dinner, Kat went to our room early, before any of the dancing, and I went with her.
Only to be treated to more silence while she went through her skin- and hair-care routines, then slipped under the covers in shorts and a T-shirt and rolled onto her side facing away from me.
Of all the possible punishments, the silent treatment is the worst. It brings up memories of my mom, the way she was after Dad died, and those wounds run deep.
What’s even worse is that Kat’s quick dismissal is just proving what I already knew—relationships never end well. Even those that are “till death do us part” end eventually, with death parting the couple and the survivors left to shoulder the aftermath.
Maybe there’s hope for some. My friends seem happy with their women. But I’ve known for a long time that it’s not in the cards for me.
“So what exactly happened?” Lawton asks, sipping his umbrella drink.
When I booked the plane tickets, I pictured spending the weekend relaxing by the pool or on the beach, sipping cocktails with Kat. It’s a perfect setting, with temperatures in the low eighties, a light breeze off the ocean to combat the humidity, the smell of salt in the air along with the hints of floral scents from the flowers across the island. We’re sitting on lounge chairs by the pool. The chairs are arranged in pairs of two, scattered across the pool deck, with some daybeds on one side. It’s the kind of place you relax with a wife or a girlfriend.
Not with my asshole brother.
Okay, he’s not an asshole, but I’m in a foul mood, if you can’t tell. Everyone is pissing me off.
I just grunt in response to his question. “Don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay.” He sips again and leans his head back on the lounger .
“Fine. She’s got issues with gambling. Her dad was a gambling addict and got in too deep. She said she didn’t like talking about it. So I fucking didn’t talk about it. I told the guys not to, either. Remember?”
“Yeah. I listened.” His brow furrows. “Who the fuck told her?”
“Fuck if I know. She was talking with Holly at the reception, so my money’s on her.”
“But Holly wouldn’t say something if she knew it was an issue. Did she know?”
I drag a hand down my face. “I thought everyone knew. Figured Maddox would have told her.”
Lawton looks doubtful. “I’m guessing either he didn’t, or she forgot. Pretty sure neither of them is sleeping that well with that kid of theirs.”
I grunt. “Kids are evil.”
“Right there with you, man.” Lawton reaches over, tapping his plastic cup against mine. “So what are you going to do?”
What am I going to do? This is the question that kept me up all night. Kat’s the one who wanted this to be more, but it felt so right. It was different than any other woman I’d been with, and even being with her the other night was different than the first night we were together. There was more of a connection, maybe. More trust.
I guess that’s what I get for thinking I could have a real relationship.
I just shrug, keeping my gaze on the blue of the pool in front of us.
Lawton lets out a heavy sigh. “I’d normally say fight for her, love is worth it, and all that shit, but I just got dumped over a text. So I’m not in the best state, either.”
I grab the opportunity to talk about something other than my own shitty life. “Was it out of the blue? Or was this something that was coming for a while?”
He shakes his head. “It seemed out of the blue for me. Who the fuck knows, though. Maybe looking back, there were signs, but God knows I didn’t pick up on them. Maybe the new town, new house, new job all at once were keeping me so busy that I didn’t have a chance to realize that she wasn’t happy.”
I can see that. They’d been together for a while, but completely changing everything about your life can upend a relationship pretty quickly.
“You think you’re going to stay up there?” I ask, swirling my drink.
The frozen strawberry daiquiri is melting and turning into an overly sweet cup of juice. I take another sip, trying to enjoy what’s left of it.
Lawton stares off into the distance. “Maybe. I love it up there. The guys on the force are like my family now, and I’ve got the house. It’s just…” He takes a breath and then blows it out. “I thought I was there, you know? The house, the girl. Next comes family. And now I’m just starting over.”
“Thought you didn’t want kids.”
Lawton has always flip-flopped on this one. He’ll see a kid and think it would be fun to be a dad, then see the reality, like with Maddox and Holly’s son, and swear off procreating. I think deep down he does want the whole family, kids, white picket fence thing. He’s a romantic little shit, even with everything that happened to us as kids.
“You never know.” He levels a look at me. “Back to you, though.”
Fuck. This isn’t what I want to talk about, and he knows it.
“There’s more to the story with Kat, isn’t there? I know why she left. But what made you want to have a relationship with her in the first place? You’ve said you don’t do girlfriends for years. Since like high school, if I remember. I thought you wanted to be a player.” He gives me a smirk.
He’s partly right. I don’t do girlfriends, but it has nothing to do with being a player.
“She was just…” How do I explain th is? “Different, I guess. There’s something about her that I couldn’t walk away from.”
As I say the words, I feel the truth of them. Kat is different. She’s smart, funny, beautiful. She can hold her own in any situation, and faced with my blunt, in-your-face attitude, she gives it right back without being intimidated like most people I know.
There are so many layers to her, and I want to get to know every one.
But I’ve lost my chance.
And I feel like a fucking idiot. I never wanted to lie to her. She said she didn’t want to talk about gambling, so I made sure she wouldn’t hear about it. It was never supposed to be about lying or keeping something from her.
“Hey!”
A too-cheerful voice behind me makes me turn my head.
I curse under my breath.
The happy couples are here, all of them looking bright and shiny and way too fucking pleased with life.
“What’s wrong with you guys?” Miller asks, taking the lounge chair next to me. “You look like your puppy just died.”
Becca smacks his arm. “Leave them alone. They can be in whatever mood they want. ”
“Fair enough.” Miller turns to Becca with a shit-eating grin on his face, and the second she slips her sandals off, he sweeps her into his arms while she shrieks.
“Miller! Put me down!” She’s in a one-piece bathing suit with her shorts still on over it. She kicks her legs wildly.
“As you wish,” he says, and dumps her in the pool before shedding his T-shirt and cannonballing into the pool.
I can’t even laugh at his antics today. I’m in that shitty of a mood.
For a while there, I actually thought that Becca and Miller were the perfect example of someone being out there for everyone. Miller’s an acquired taste, always joking around, but he’s a good guy. And somehow, Becca completes him.
Maddox pulls off his shirt and plucks Rhys from Holly’s arms. He holds the baby on his hip as he wades into the shallow water, bouncing him around while the baby babbles and laughs beneath his little sun hat. Holly watches from the edge of the pool, a serene smile on her lips.
Cam and Addie, meanwhile, have claimed a daybed and are already making out.
I exchange a glance with Lawton. I love my friends. We both do. But being surrounded by this much love is making me sick.
“Think we can ask them to go away?” Lawton mutters.
“Eh, they already think we’re grumpy assholes. It wouldn’t change their opinion of us.” I suck down the last of my daiquiri.
Lawton sits up on his lounge chair. “I’m going to go wallow in my room. Meet you at the bar later?”
I’ve never been one to wallow, but I’ve got to say, it’s underappreciated. I’ve told people to stop wallowing in their pain in the past, but never again. Because when your life is shattered into pieces like this, it feels damn good to wallow.
Or to be more accurate, it doesn’t feel good at all, and I feel so shitty that I don’t want to be happier. What’s there to be happy about?
I’ve spent the afternoon sprawled across the bed that Kat and I shared. Her scent is still on the pillow, a combination of her perfume and her lotion and the products she brushed through her hair before bed. Not that we slept much that second night.
I can’t bring myself to do anything more than clutch her pillow to me, wondering why I let myself get this far into things.
I pride myself on being in control in every area of my life. In the classroom, in the bedroom, in relationships. It’s part of the reason I’ve stayed away from getting entangled in a romantic relationship at all.
I never should have given in. I should have stuck to my guns, to do exactly what I told Kat the first time I realized the attraction was mutual.
That we couldn’t give in to it, that we needed to keep things for appearances only.
But I cracked. I let myself slip, give in to Kat’s teasing, and now look where it got me.
Absolutely fucked.
And the worst part is that not only do I have to see her when I get back to work, I still have to figure out a way to work with her to create and teach this class that the dean asked us to do.
If she’s still willing to talk to me.