Sighing, he lowered the bottle and shook his head. As he stared at the floor with unfocused eyes, he said, “She’s still convinced she can win me back.” He took another swig. “She’ll probably try the same shit with you, too. Keep working at both of us until one of us gives in, then discard the other like last week’s trash.”
I coughed a laugh. “She can try.” Gesturing with my phone, I added, “I forgot to block her second Instagram account, but it’s blocked now.”
“Good idea. Just don’t be surprised if she keeps trying from different accounts or whatever.”
I groaned. “Great.”
“Right?” He huffed another dry laugh as he brought up his beer for another sip. “Fucking Christ.”
He gazed out at the scenery with unfocused eyes, and I surreptitiously watched him. I was still jittery after that confrontation—some leftover adrenaline, I guess?—but I was coming back down to earth. Though Eric seemed steady, I wouldn’t have said he was in a good place.
As he drank in silence and stared out at the lake, he was someplace else. There was something in his body language that I couldn’t put my finger on. Something… defeated? Resigned? Ashamed? It was hard to say. He barely looked at me. The counter he was leaning on seemed to be all that was holding him upright. His shoulders slumped and his features were almost shell-shocked in their blankness.
What did she say to you?I wanted to ask, because she had to have said something that got under his skin. Something that drove him into a bottle at 9:00 am and sent him that far up into his own head.
He rolled a sip of beer around in his mouth for a moment. After he’d swallowed it, he spoke, and he sounded absolutely exhausted. “Would you be offended if I said I don’t feel like going out and doing anything today?”
Man, I’d be surprised if you had the energy to get up the stairs.
But I just shook my head. “No. I don’t think I do either. I’m fine with just hanging out here today.”
The relief came off him in waves, as if he’d truly expected me to demand he play happy tourist-slash-tour guide today. “Okay. I think… I don’t know. I’m probably just going to finish this beer and then spend the rest of the day with Mary Jane.”
I laughed softly. “That sounds like a pretty good idea, honestly. Even if we hadn’t been visited by the Adultery Fairy.”
Eric snorted, and I was glad to see some genuine amusement crack through. “That’s a fitting name.” When he met my gaze, his eyes were tired and sad, but with a spark of playful mischief. “How do we keep her from coming back? Smudge the place? Leave some Peanut M&Ms scattered on the Welcome mat?”
I chuckled. “I thought she hated Skittles.”
“She hates those too. Maybe we could mix them together?”
“Works for me.”
We held each other’s gazes and both laughed with a little bit of actual feeling. Encountering Selena sucked, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t the only one who felt shitty about it, but at least she was gone now, and Eric and I were still good.
He put his beer aside. “I’m going to go grab a shower. Then… I don’t know. Probably just smoke on the dock for a while.”
I almost asked if I could join him—on the dock, not in the shower—but held back. He probably needed some time to think and maybe decompress or something. I probably did, too.
I cleared my throat. “Yeah, I’ll grab one after you. Do you want breakfast?”
He quirked his lips. “Maybe? I don’t know. I’ll see how I feel after my shower.”
I just nodded, and he trudged up the stairs. As I watched him go, my chest hurt. I had no idea what they’d said to each other after I’d gone inside, but it obviously hadn’t gone well. That was the thing with Selena—she could be the sweetest and most incredible woman I’d ever met, but if she was pissed off, she could turn around and cut to the bone. The few fights I’d had with her had lifted the veil on that side, and she’d literally driven all the way to Maine just to try to smear our names. When she and Eric had been one-on-one, I could imagine that meanstreak had shown itself. Whatever she’d said had thrown him off-balance, and now he was way up in his own head.
Butyoucheated onhim. How can you be so damn cruel?
We spent the day doing our own things. I got some work done on my laptop while Eric was outside smoking. After lunch, he watched a movie while I took myself out for a run. The run felt good; getting out and moving always seemed to help when I fell into a funk.
When I came back, he was still watching the movie, so I went out to the dock with a beer. There was a faint lingering smell of weed, probably from the remains of the joint in the ashtray, but I didn’t feel like indulging. That was a one-way ticket to overthinking things I didn’t want to dwell on.
So, I chilled on a chair, cracked open my beer, and FaceTimed my sister.
“How are my boys?” I asked when she appeared onscreen.
“Being feral gremlins.”
I laughed. “So, normal.”
