I dash inside Mickey’s, but neither she nor Harper are anywhere to be found. Mike, the irritating bastard, is back behind the bar, filling drinks and flirting with the brunette again.
“If you’re looking for your sister, she just left with her friend,” Pamela, one of the waitresses, tells me as she sets drinks down on a table.
“Thanks, Pam,” I say, spying Douglass and Harper beside a shit-brown Celica in the parking lot outside the large glass front window.
Douglass lowers into the driver’s seat, and I take off to catch her before she drives away, almost plowing into my sister on her way back inside. But I can’t let Douglass leave.
My momentum hurls me toward the car, and I slam into the side of it as she’s backing up. Desperation can make you do some stupid things. And leave bruises. I’m sure I’ll have a nice purple one on my hip where it connected with the door handle.
“Douglass, stop the fucking car! We need to talk,” I shout, pounding on her window.
She holds up her middle finger, and I jump out of the way when her foot hits the gas, pretty sure she wouldn’t feel an iota of guilt if she ran me over. Executing a drift maneuver Ryder Cutton, a famous street racer and drifter from Fallen Brook, would be proud of, she spits up gravel in her haste to get away from me. I follow the red taillights until they completely disappear, choking on the dust she leaves in her wake.
“Jordan.” Harper’s quiet voice breaks through the noise of the night and the godawful country song playing from inside Mickey’s. She places a hand on my arm.
“I really messed up,” I tell her, bending over at the waist, hands gripping my knees.
I’m not prepared for her to reply, “Yes, you did.”
Turning my head, I squint at her. “Sorry I steamrolled over you.”
She slips her arm around my waist. “No apology needed. But I do think it’s time for that talk now.”
Easing out of her hold, I take a seat on the curb of the parking lot and bury my face in my hands. Harper joins me.
“Before I say anything, I want to hear your side of the story.”
A humorless chuckle escapes. “I don’t have one.” She bumps my knee. “Seriously, Harp. There is no ‘my side of the story’ because I don’t remember it.”
She slaps at a mosquito that buzzes her face. “You’re going to need to elaborate on that. How can you not remember sleeping with someone?”
I wish that were the case. Sleeping entails a soft bed, not the inside of a dirty storage closet in the back of a bar.
“You remember how I was right after we met.”
Filled with smiles and jokes, not taking the world seriously because I was drinking my pain away and existing in a reality where alcohol made everything wonderful, even if it was all fake.
Since Harper was at CU at the time, she didn’t see the extent of how awful things got.
“I only know what you’ve told me. I wish you would have said something to me, or Fallon, or Trevor. Hell, any of us. We should have been there for you. You should have let us,” she admonishes.
I’ve often wondered if that’s why she and Bennett moved into the estate with me instead of finding their own place nearer to Houston. Her way of keeping an eye on me. It’s not like she or Bennett lack the funds to purchase or build a home of their own. All us Montgomery siblings are multi-millionaires.
“So, I’m assuming you were drunk when whatever happened with Douglass… happened.”
Thick, viscous shame oozes over me like sticky tar. “Mike filled in some vague gaps but wouldn’t tell me anything substantive. Said I had to talk to Douglass if I wanted the full story.”
Harper clicks her tongue. “That may not be such a good idea. She kind of hates your guts.”
My head lurches up in incredulity. “Kind of?”
“Okay, she seriously hates your guts. But I think there’s something else there, Jordan. I’ve only heard bits and pieces about the guy who broke her heart. A heart can’t be broken if there isn’t anything there to break.”
I’m not touching on that. If I do, I’ll have to admit that Amelia wasn’t the only one culpable in the demise of our relationship. I may not have cheated on her like she did on me, but my eyes did tend to wander in Douglass’s direction more times than I’d care to admit. There was just something about her that drew me in. Made me ask on more than one occasion, what if?
Apparently, drunk me had no problem acting on those suppressed feelings.
“I need to know what happened that night.”
