“Or, maybe…” Rooster raised an eyebrow. “Go with me here… you give him a break because when I left, he lost his friend, too, so I don’t just have shit to make up to you, I also have to make it up to Flea.”
“So what made him so special that you kept in touch with him, but ghosted me?”
“Because I’m a dumb fuck idiot.”
“Well, that’s the truth.”
“Let’s eat before everything gets cold. I hope you like the wine I brought. Grace said it was your favorite.”
“You’re friendly with my sister-in-law now?” I squeaked. “Enough to ask her what my favorite wine is?”
“Settle.” He grinned, wrapping his arm around my waist. “Your brother gave me the message. I’ve only met Grace once. The night I came back.”
I leaned against him for a second before remembering I wasnotready to give in that easily and wriggled out of his hold. “I’ll grab plates.”
“You good with me putting the beer in your fridge?”
“Oh, yeah, go for it.”
I dished up our dinner and set everything on my little dinette table as Rooster poured me a glass of wine and opened himself a bottle of beer. The whole ‘scene’ was so very fucking easy and domestic.
Everything had always been easy with us and maybe that was part of the problem. We’d never been tested. At least, not before he went away. Not really.
As he set his beer on the table, he waited for me to sit down (as he always did), and I glanced up at him… then I suddenly couldn’t breathe.
“Katie?”
I shook my head, one hand to my stomach, the other gripping the back of a chair.
“Baby?”
I backed up against the wall, sliding down it and drawing my knees up to my chest as Rooster hunkered down beside me.
“Sweetheart, talk to me,” he ordered.
I couldn’t. Literally. Wracking sobs had overtaken my ability to do anything, but cry.
“Okay,” he said, taking my hands and lifting me off the ground before carrying me into myliving room. He sat on my recliner, settling me onto his lap and holding me close. “Just get it out, honey.”
“You left me.”
“I did. I can’t apologize enou—”
“No, wait,” I sobbed out. “Let me get this out.”
He gave me a squeeze, but didn’t say another word.
I took a few deep breaths to pull myself together. “When you left, I was sure it would be temporary. A few weeks, months… maybe a year. I mean, yes, you’d dumped me, but I thought for sure you’d figure out you were wrong and come back. After that year mark, when you didn’t come back, and especially after I hadn’t heard from you—at all—I got mad, and then I just let hate fill that space in my heart that had once been so filled with love, I didn’t see what was right in front of me.”
“What was right in front of you, baby?”
“I didn’t fight for us. I just let you go.”
“This isn’t on you, Kate.”
“But itis!” I cried. “At least, partially. You’re right about some of it. If I hadn’t been so mad at you, I probably wouldn’t have had the fight in me to do everything I’ve done.”
“That’s not really what I meant.”
