And I don’t know how to fix?—
There’s a knock on my window and I jerk, looking up to see Joey standing there. She’s beautiful, even with her swollen and red eyes.
Crying. Because of me.
Christ, how can I be this much of a fuck-up?
“Open the door, Damon,” she calls.
I realize my engine’s still running. I shove the gearshift into park, hit the button to turn off the ignition.
As soon as the locks disengage, she’s pulling the door open and a moment after that, another woman I love is tugging me out of my seat.
“Are you okay?” she whispers. “You’ve been sitting here for ten minutes.”
“You’ve been crying,” I whisper back.
Her fingers tighten around my arm, and then she nods. “Yeah.”
More pain. More shame.
“That asshole kid is Hiller’s son. I-I didn’t know. I didn’t check?—”
She presses her fingers to my lips, then drops her hand to her side, wraps it around mine and draws me toward the house. The front door is open, and she closes it before I can. The lockclicksas she engages it, and then she turns away, starts for the kitchen.
I follow her on wooden legs.
She pulls out a stool, orders, “Sit.”
Then goes to the fridge and pulls out two bottles of beer.
“I’m supposed to be the one who fixes things,” I say…because I don’t have anything else.
Her movements don’t falter—she uses a bottle opener to pop off the caps, sets a beer in front of me, then sits on the stool next to mine, and announces, “That doesn’t work for me.”
I jerk so hard I nearly topple off my seat. “You love me.”
Her head swivels, eyes coming to mine, brows lifting in question.
“I saw the video.”
“Then you know that’s true,” she says and the barest hint of humor crawls into those gorgeous green eyes. “I should probably be reeling, unraveling, panicking that however many people saw that shit…but, truth is, I finally feel like I can breathe again.”
“That’s good, baby,” I murmur. “And I need you to know I love you too.”
She’s quiet for a blip. “I know,” she eventually says. “I realized that about ten minutes into my crying jag, when my knee was yelling at me for doing it on the kitchen floor. But…” Sad green eyes. “This isn’t working for me.”
Goddamn that hurts.
“It’s not because I don’t love you,” she says, the words coming fast and furious. “It’s not because being in a relationshipwith you is bad. It’s the opposite. The last couple of months have been…perfect.” Her mouth kicks up on one side. “But this was bound to happen at some point, we both know it.”
“I’ll go through the anger management program again,” I say in a rush, skipping acceptance and going right to panic and bargaining. “I’ll get it under control, I promise. I know I can’t take back the words I said, but I won’t?—”
“Damon—”
“I won’t ever go there again. I swear, baby. I?—”
“Sweetheart.”
