Grr. Why couldn’t Jack have called him? They’d be half-way down each other's throats by now.
“This is why you don’t have a girlfriend,” Drake flew to his feet and started stuffing clothes in his duffel bag.
Pax didn’t take that bait either. Drake always assumed he was a solitary kind of person, and that’s why he didn’t date. But … “Why don’t you have a girlfriend?” He managed to ask with sincerity.
Pax grunted in a non-helpful, non-informative way.
“Look, we’re the last two men standing and I’ve met someone. You should at least try.”
“You met someone?”
“Why is that what you choose to focus on instead of my advice to get out there and start dating?”
“Because it’s the part that makes the most sense.”
“It makes sense that I met someone? How? I’m the guy who says he wants to die alone.”
“Yeah, but nobody believes you.”
Drake came up short. “Why not!”
This time, Pax’s silence meant he was trying to put his thoughts into words–or come up with the most succinct answer. “Because when we were kids, you were always with someone. You didn’t have to–you could have done your own thing. I don’t think you like being alone or feeling lonely.”
“And you do?”
“I’m okay with it in a way you aren’t. I can sit with my thoughts–even if they’re uncomfortable.”
Drake stopped randomly throwing things into his bag. He hadn’t been able to lay on the bed for longer than thirty seconds with his uneasy thoughts.
“You need your other half, Drake.”
“I’m whole as I am,” he hurried to answer.
“Let me put it this way,” Pax started.
“Do you spend a lot of time pondering my single status?” Drake goaded him because he wasn't sure he wanted to hear what Pax thought. So far, he’d made sense–well except for installing a new part on the trailer to replace the one Drake fixed.
“When you’re with this woman you met–who I assume is Clove, considering the way her name is tossed around out here.”
“Yeah, it’s Clove,” he admitted.
“So when you’re with Clove, do you feel like you’re more? More entertaining? More interesting? Stronger? Bigger? Smarter?”
He thought back to their conversation by the fireplace and the way she’d looked at him, as if he had an answer for her. “Yeah,” he admitted reluctantly.
“Then you need her to become the best version of you. You need your better half. You don’t find it in a person.Theyaren’t your better half. But they help you find the better parts of yourself.”
Drake pulled the phone away from his ear and checked the name.
“You there?” Pax asked.
“Yeah. I was just checking to see if I’d switched over to Dad or something.”
Pax laughed heartily. “If only! I hope I can be half the man he is.”
Drake couldn’t help but agree with him. “Maybe you need a woman to get there. According to your logic, without whomever she is, you’re doomed to be half the man you could be.”
“You’re still picking a fight—what’s lingering?”
