“You’ve got it worse,” I said. “At least I can go home whenever the fuck I want. You look like you’re stuck here.”
“Tara and I rode together,” she said with a sigh. “And I know she’s safe with Brock, I know he’s not going to do anything, but I don’t want to leave her here by herself. It’s not him or you, it’s…”
“The guys who are going to get so drunk they’ll piss themselves and shit their jeans?”
Elizabeth said “ew” but also laughed. I smirked.
“They won’t do anything to her,” I said. “They respect Brock too much to do anything. And besides, if they did, I’d be right behind him to fuck them up.”
I felt Elizabeth looking at me, trying to make sense of my words. I swore there wasn’t anything to them other than just helping my brother out.The “brother” who took your girl…
No, didn’t take. She was available. She went to him.
But still.
Still, nothing. You had your chance, you blew it. Move on.
But…
There’s someone right here who is making you feel wanted. You want to pass that up?
She’s a Rogers.
And?
“How do you feel about all this?” Elizabeth said.
She placed her beer on the ground and sat next to me. It was closer than I would have liked, close enough she could have leaned in to place a hand on my knee if she wanted. I had come out here for space, damnit.
“About what, Tara dating Brock?” I said, shrugging. “I was a shithead when I dated Tara. I thought I’d gotten my shit together enough in the last few months to win her back, but I guess not. Guess I’m the same old fuckup.”
“Really?” Elizabeth said. “I didn’t expect that sort of an answer. Tara said you weren’t a bad guy.”
She said that about me?
“Well, no, I wasn’t abusive or anything, but I definitely didn’t have my shit together,” I said, recalling many an argument we’d had over the two years of our relationship. “I just…I felt like when I’d gotten Tara, I’d achieved everything I needed to. I could pay my bills with my bartending job. I had her. And so from there, I could literally schedule out everything that happened. I would know when we could move in, when we’d get serious, when we’d do all these things…”
When we’d get married, when we’d have kids…
“You were that certain?” Elizabeth said.
I shrugged.
“I like to think that I’m right,” I said. “And I usually am.”
With everything except your own family. And the Rogers girls.
“Usually?”
Elizabeth hadn’t asked it to poke at me. She’d asked it to understand.Tara never asked you questions like these. How the fuck is it Elizabeth is being more caring and curious in two days of talking with you than Tara was in two years?
I sighed.
“No one’s perfect. We’re young and stupid.”
Elizabeth smiled at me and raised her hand as if to put it on me, but she seemed to think better of it.
“You know, for someone that constantly smells like oil, drinks a lot, and works as a security guard, you’re not too bad.”
