Jack swore again. “Fuck, I’m sorry. Look, we’re both tired. This is stupid. Let me get cleaned up and I’ll take you out to dinner.”
“You’re right. We are both tired.” There was a band around her chest, cutting off her air, making it hard to breathe. She inhaled carefully, painfully, holding the boiling hurt inside so it wouldn’t spill out and scald them both. “It’s been a long day. Why don’t you take me home instead?”
Seventeen
SHE’D BEEN STRAIGHTwith him, and he’d cut her off at the knees, Jack thought as he dragged his sorry ass on board theWreckthe following night.
Three six-minute sets on the heavy bag in the back room after work, fighting an invisible opponent, hadn’t knocked out the voices in his head. But maybe the exercise had exhausted him to the point where he could sleep tonight.
Alone.
Alone and fucking miserable.
His own fault.
He dropped into a deck chair and propped his feet on the rail, but for once the rocking boat, the coastal breeze, the deep, bright water, didn’t ease his piss-poor mood.
He closed his eyes. He’d pressed too hard.
Or she had, with her questions and concern. She was always nudging, pushing, prodding, trying to get inside his head, to poke around in his heart. She uncovered pieces of him he’d thought were buried, brought feelings into the light. He’d shared things with her he didn’t talk about with anybody else.
They were a match in so many ways he’d lost sight of the fact that they were fundamentally different people.
Or he hadn’t wanted to see.
Could be their differences made them work. He admired her loyalty to her family, her determination to make a difference in the world. He appreciated her quick observations, her bright, curious mind. Her willingness to see the best in others, her courage in putting everything out there.
Her heart.
I love you, she’d said.
But the words didn’t matter. Because at the end of the day, at the end of two weeks, she was gone.
He wanted her. Fine.
He could respect her, admire her, enjoy her. Butneedher? Not smart. Not when she was on her way out of town.
Better for both of them, maybe, to get used to the idea, to get a taste of what life would be like when she was gone.
Hell. It was going to be hell.
He dropped his head back against the chair, willing away the pain pounding at the base of his skull, the tiredness dogging his body, the whisper of his heart telling him he was a fool.
He’d give her one more day to cool off, he decided. Give them both a chance to step back, simmer down. Take stock.
And then...
“I hear you and Pookie had a fight,” said his ex-wife’s voice.
His eyes snapped open.
Renee was standing on the dock beside theWreck, holding a pizza box and a bottle of wine.
He lowered his feet from the ship’s rail and stood cautiously. “I thought you left. Yesterday.”
She bared her teeth in a smile. “You know me better than that. I won’t go until I’ve got what I came for.”
“Not from me.”Not ever again.
