Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77106 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77106 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“Coast, my man,” Eddie greeted me, standing there in his apron that had little handprints from all of the club kids all over it—an uncle’s day present from the club wives—as he chopped some green onions. “Hungry?”
Not at all.
“Starving,” I said, grabbing a plate and piling on.
Hell, maybe if I shoved enough food in, it might fill that hole I felt like was growing right below my ribcage.
“How was lil’ mama?” he asked, adding the onions to the sheet pan of salmon and veggies. “Yeah, it wasn’t some big secret that’s where you went,” he said when I looked at him. “Still sorry I couldn’t make her soup. That was a killer flu.”
“She wouldn’t have been in any shape to enjoy it anyway.”
“Why you back so soon?” Eddie asked, lowering the tray into the oven.
“Just am.”
“You know, man, there’s mysterious and then there’s emotionally redacted. Guess which one you are.”
“The mystery is part of the charm,” I said, but my words were flatter than usual.
“The mystery was all anyone knew, so they had to be charmed by it. Now, you seem to have layers, man. Can’t blame people for wanting to peel.”
“Nope. No layers here. Pure surface-level personality.”
“I might have believed that a few weeks back,” Eddie said. “But when’s the last time you joined in at a party? And I don’t mean planting your ass on a chaise and pretending to be participating? When’s the last time you had a woman in your room?”
“To be fair, I have been known to hook up in places other than my room.”
“Don’t remind me,” Eddie said, shaking his head. “My girl Rosalie is still scarred.”
“Weird you named your car, man.”
“Weirder that you banged a woman on the hood.”
“Hey, Huck made me wash it. And detail it for good measure.”
“Know what I think?”
“Pretty sure you’re gonna tell me whether I wanna hear it or not.”
“I think the partying, the drinking, the girls, it’s all to keep you distracted. So you don’t have to work through whatever shit is in your past. And I think lil’ mama is making it harder for you not to confront all that shit.”
“I’m out of Zoe’s life now,” I told him. “So, it’s back to partying and pussy.”
Except it wasn’t.
And we both knew it.
Eddie was right; something had fundamentally changed.
It had been a slow deconstruction that started when I walked out of that exam room to see her in the waiting room. Every wall I’d put up had been knocked down harder with each moment with the two of them in their room.
Shit I hadn’t let myself think about in a decade came to the forefront of my mind. Only now, I was seeing it through an older, wiser, less bitter lens.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, some of that shit was fucked. Most of that shit was fucked. But a lot of the anger I’d been carrying around surrounding it was suddenly gone.
And because of the dissolution of that, it seemed like some things I’d accepted about myself and my life and my future had changed as well.
I guess you could make an argument for panic being partially to blame for me walking out of that room and leaving Zoe behind. Some part of me didn’t want to accept something different, wanted to crawl back to my old ways.
But I mostly stood by what I said to her when I left.
She deserved better.
They deserved safe and stable.
Those were not words most people would use to describe me. And I couldn’t let my selfish desire to be there allow to Zoe make the dumbest mistake of her life by attaching herself to a guy like me.
Hell, I didn’t even know if I could do a relationship if I wanted to. I never have before. The idea never even occurred to me.
I was pretty sure anyone who’d ever met me would unanimously agree that I was not husband material. I wasn’t even ‘can you help me move’ material. I’d never been anything close to dependable. Not in my adult life, anyway. That was how I’d planned it, how I wanted it.
Or it had been.
“Christ,” I sighed, reaching to pull the nicotine patch off my arm.
I hadn’t wanted to be itching to smoke or smelling like it when helping Zoe and Lil’ Bit out.
But now that that was over, I needed a fucking smoke.
“Coast,” Velle called as I was digging around, trying to find a pack I swear I had stashed in the pantry.
“What?”
“Progress is progress, regardless of the cause,” he said, grabbing my wrist. “Don’t be stupid.”
When his hand moved away, I realized he’d slapped a new fucking patch on me.
I slammed my forehead into the doorjamb.
“Fuck,” I growled, moving out and slamming the door. “I’m going for a ride,” I said, storming out the back door and making my way to my bike.