earlier. I wasn’t a fan of apologizing, but I was man enough to suck it up when I was the one who’d
done wrong. Considering what I knew about Corey as I set up, brought my image of him into focus a
bit more. I felt like an ass for making assumptions and knew I needed to do better.
Rather than sitting at the bar, I walked around, pulling out the bottle of whiskey we kept stashed
for personal use. To the best of my knowledge, Jack and I were the only ones who ever touched it.
Corey noticed me and slid a glass my direction.
“Listen. I… Well, the thing is…” I stammered. It annoyed the fuck out of me that he had the ability
to make me stumble over my words.
“If you came back to apologize, it’s unnecessary.”
“Don’t do that,” I scolded him. His brows knit together in confusion. “Do you realize how often
you let people off the hook?”
“Oh, because you know so much about me?” He turned away from me and started straightening the
already meticulous rows of glassware. His shoulders hitched up toward his ears as if he was trying to
protect himself from me. “Just because I have more important things to do than dwell on what other
people think of me, doesn’t mean I’m letting anyone off the hook. In the grand scheme, what you think
of me doesn’t matter.”
“I may not know you, but I know people in general,” I clarified. Or at least, I thought I was a
pretty good judge, but Corey had me questioning my instincts. “I’ve spent a lot of my life watching
what’s going on around me. It’s one of those habits that’s not easy to break.”
I couldn’t believe I was sitting here explaining myself to him. Not only that, but I was revealing
bits of myself I never told anyone. Those closest to me understood why I did things the way I did, and
I’d never cared enough to fill in the blanks for anyone else.
Corey kept his back to me, scrubbing the counters even though we hadn’t had a single customer
yet today. I clamped a hand on his shoulder, turning him to face me. “Would you fucking stop moving
for two damn seconds and listen to me?”
“There. Happy now?” He squared his shoulders and narrowed his eyes.
“Far from it,” I admitted. “All I’m saying is, if somebody owes you an apology, you should at
least hear them out.”
“No time for that,” he responded. “Too much shit going on to worry about presumptuous assholes.
Believe me, earlier has already been forgotten.”
