“Just stop,” he continues, more quietly, but his words are just as harsh. “I don’t want to hear it, okay? I don’t want your excuses. Not tonight.Especiallynot fucking tonight.”
I’m sure he’s thinking of the last time we were together on New Year’s Eve. I’m sure it’s a night both of us wish we could forget for good.
“Callum, I?—”
He shakes his head and shoves his hands into his pockets, putting distance between us that I want to close so damn desperately, but I don’t know how. “I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t, okay? Go back inside, Chloe, and leave me alone.”
Then he turns, doing the same thing I did to him three years ago tonight.
He walks away.
CHAPTER 3
KELLER
An unrelenting pounding wakes me up, and it’s Percy screaming at the top of his lungs that tells me it’s not all in my head. It’s at my door.
With a groan, I toss my sheet off my body and set my feet on the floor. About a hundred elephants dance around my skull, or at least that’s what it feels like as I scrub a hand over my face. Another round of knocking reverberates through my apartment, but I don’t move yet. I’m afraid if I do, I might puke. It has nothing to do with drinking either. I came home and crawled right into this bed to rot. I didn’t touch another drop of booze, even though I really wanted to.
No, it’s just that reality is that tough of a pill to swallow, and the reality is my wife is here in Seattle, and I had no fucking idea she was even stateside. How the hell did Chloe end up in Seattle? Why is she here? And, probably most importantly, who the fuck was that asshole she was with?
I grind my molars as images of his hand wrapped around her waist flit through my mind. I remember that waist. I got a taste of it again last night when she fell against me. She was soft, and my palm fit around her perfectly. My fingers curled into herplush curves as they’ve done so many times before. It felt like coming home after a long road trip. Better even.
It was the first time in years I’d touched my wife, and it wasn’t nearly enough.
“Who the fuck do you think you are, buddy?”
That prick’s words echo through my mind again, and I get angry all over again. Why was he holding her? Why was she laughing at whatever the douche nozzle was saying? And why didn’t she tell me she was here? Things between us are strained to say the least, but not giving me so much as a phone call? Is that where we’re at in our marriage?
Yes.
I hate how much that word rings true in my mind.
Another attempt to get me to open the door draws my attention, and I’m so eager to get away from the thoughts tumbling around my mind that I push to my feet. I tug on a pair of joggers, the same ones I stripped out of yesterday before heading to Top Shelf, and whatever shirt I find lying on the pile of laundry I still need to fold. Then I shuffle out of my bedroom into the living room.
“Keller?” The knock is even louder than before. “It’s Locke. You in there, man?”
I want to ignore him, or better yet, tell him to fuck off and go away, but given what occurred last night, I doubt he will.
“Come on,” he says. “I can hear you moving around in there.”
With a sigh, I wrench open the door and find that the fucker lied. It’s not just Locke. It’s all ofthem.
“Serpents Singles to the rescue!” Lawson announces, pushing his way through the other guys and holding a to-go cup my way. “We brought coffee. It’s black just like your soul, but only because we didn’t know how you take it.”
“And donuts, too,” Hayes chimes in, holding up a box from B’s Bakes, his girlfriend’s mother’s bakery.
Hutch looks between the two, then smacks them both on the back of the head. “Dumbasses.”
“Hey!” Lawson protests, but Hayes accepts his punishment.
Though I’m annoyed by each of them, I send my glare Locke’s way. He should have known better. He’s only been in my apartment once before, when I had a delayed flight after visiting my family in Toronto and needed someone to check on Percy. “What are you doing here?Allof you?”
“Uh, we’re getting answers. You dropped a bomb on us last night, then bolted. You didn’t even stay for your midnight kiss. I’ll give it to you later.” Lawson presses his finger to the tip of my nose, and I blame my lack of sleep for not moving in time. “Boop.”
He grins, and if he weren’t holding caffeine, which I’m in desperate need of, I’d sock him right in the gut. Instead, I take the drink, then slam the door closed.
Or at least that’s the plan, but a giant foot stops that from happening.
