“You owe me, Stevie.”
His words send a chill down my spine.
“If you’d just test-driven the BMW that day, I wouldn’t be sitting here in a fucking wheelchair.” He grips my hand. “Please, baby. Please don’t abandon me. I’ll lose the will to live without you. I don’t want to go on if you’re not in my life.”
Pain lashes me everywhere as if I’ve just been flayed alive. “Garrick, I—”
“Just don’t leave me, Stevie.” Desperation is written all over his face. “I’m begging you. I’ll take you as a friend if that’s all you can offer me. Just don’t leave. I cannot do this without you.”
ChapterSeventy-Eight
Beck
“You look like shit,” Law says when he answers his front door to me.
“Matches how I feel on the inside,” I reply, brushing past him into the hallway of the home he shares with his wife and daughter. They are away this weekend, visiting Jenny’s parents, so Law has the house to himself. I thrust a six-pack of beer at my buddy’s chest.
“No Macallan?” He arches a brow as he shoves the door closed with his bare foot.
“I’d be liable to drink the entire bottle, and my liver wouldn’t thank me.” I head toward the large family kitchen.
“I’m out on the deck,” Law says, stopping in the kitchen to deposit my beers in the fridge, while I head out through the open double doors onto their wide deck.
I flop onto a chair around their circular table, admiring the colorful flowerbeds and shrubs Stevie helped Jenny to plant. “Garden looks good, man,” I say when Law appears carrying two beers and a large bag of chips.
“The girls did an awesome job.” He hands me a cold beer.
“They did.” I swallow a healthy mouthful of beer as my buddy sits beside me.
“I’m here if you want to off-load,” he says after a few minutes of companionable silence.
“I’m losing her, Law.” Pain claws at my throat as I articulate my biggest fear.
“I thought things seemed strained between you at her birthday dinner.”
“They are. We’re having sex. Lots of it, but I think she’s using it to paper over the cracks that are appearing.”
“It’s a shit situation, Beck, and I was afraid of this.”
“We agreed to be honest with one another, and we’re both trying. She tells me everything, and I tell her how it makes me feel. But it means we are arguing all the time because I don’t agree with how she’s letting him manipulate her, and she thinks I’m being selfish and unfair. My relationship is falling apart because of him, and I hate it.”
I swig more of my beer, and it tastes extra bitter gliding down my throat. I throw my feet up on an empty chair. “For the past month, she has visited him every day because he guilts her into it. He calls and texts at inconvenient times and expects her to just drop everything for him.” I rip through the label on my bottle and grind my teeth to my molars. “He gave her an expensive locket for her birthday. Probably because he noticed she isn’t wearing the other one he bought her.” I drain the rest of my beer and barely resist the urge to fling my bottle at the wall.
I glance sideways at my buddy. “He fucking inscribed it with a romantic message, and he’s insisting she wears it every time she visits.”
“And Stevie is just going along with this?” Disbelief is transparent on Law’s face.
“She’s afraid to do anything that might set him off. Emotional turmoil and mood swings are common side effects from brain trauma, so she’s treading on eggshells. Hudson came to see me, to tell me he’s watching out for her and to explain that Garrick is not acting like himself. I appreciated the gesture, but how the fuck am I supposed to deal with this? I’m a mess. I can’t even find sanctuary in my writing. I sit at my desk and stare at a blank screen for hours on end. I don’t sleep well because I’m constantly worrying about her. I’m the one holding my girlfriend at night while she internalizes a ton of guilt and pain, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
“You have more patience than me, man.”
“My patience is threadbare at this point.” I eyeball my friend. “Do you think God will strike me down for visualizing punching a man in a wheelchair? Because I dream about knocking Garrick the fuck out at least once a day.”
“You need more beer.” Law hops up, returning with a fresh beer for me.
I immediately lift it to my lips and drink greedily.
“Maybe you should go and talk to him. Man to man.”
