He didn’t answer at first. His gaze flickered over me, he sniffed, and then he rolled his tongue over his front teeth.
“You don’t look like you.”
“Cocaine and vodka went out of fashion.” I fingered a fry and popped it into my mouth.
“You ain’t doing that anymore, huh?” he asked, narrowing his eyes. “On the drive over, I kept thinking, there ain’t no way that fucker is clean. But I guess I shoulda known that money can fix a lot of problems. Even one as big as you.”
His accent reminded me of home, and despite the harshness of his words, a part of me wanted to smile at the memories flooding back. Memories of better times, before I fucked it all up.
Focus, I reminded myself.Show him this matters to you.
“The money did help. But there are plenty of rich addicts, Fox. I’m not clean because I paid someone to do the work for me. I’m clean because I’m done fucking up my life.”
“Huh,” he said, putting his forearms on the table and leaning forward. “And what about the other lives you ruined? Can they be fixed by going to a fancy rehab resort and signing up for a twelve-step program?”
“No, I suppose they can’t,” I admitted after a moment. I knew where he was heading with this, and hell if I didn’t deserve it.
Fox’s mouth thinned. He shifted back in his seat. “Well, looks like you’ve stopped weaving fairytales. Iris would surely miss that about you. When she came begging me to take her back, she said, ‘With a voice like that, he can make you believe anything.’ She was right. You made her believe that a drugged-up rock star was a better man for her than her husband of five years. What a fuckin’ fairytale indeed.”
I bit on my tongue and tasted blood, but the pain only served as a reminder that what I’d inflicted on Fox was a thousand times worse. The most fucked-up thing was that I couldn’t even remember how I’d convinced Iris to leave Fox and go on tour with me.
“Fox.” I exhaled a long breath. “I don’t really know what to say. What I did was unforgivable, but I still want to apologize to you. Just thinking about it makes me nauseous. I did a lot of awful things in those years, things I wish I could forget, but taking Iris from you… I’m so goddamn sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”
He listened to me, his jaw shifting back and forth. I saw the pain clearly on his face, and it was a punch in the gut. I kind of wished he’d punch me for real.
“I’m still pretty shocked you agreed to meet me,” I added when he stayed silent. “I know how hard this must be for you.”
He scoffed. “This? This is fuckin’ nothing compared to Iris walking out on me ’cause she thought she was infatuated with you. I told her she’d last two weeks tops. Turned out it was only one. Not only did you create the mess, but I was the one who had to clean it up when she came crawling back.”
“I’m so sorry, Fox,” I said, shaking my head. Shame prickled the back of my neck. How the hell was it possible for me to fuck two people’s lives up this badly and not remember how I did it?
He sneered at me and looked to the side.
“I didn’t know what I was doing,” I said. “The state I was in—most days I couldn’t tell the difference between a street pole and a woman.”
The sneer eased off his face.
“I once woke up hugging a traffic cone I’d found on the road and dragged back to the bus,” I added.
One corner of his lips twitched up. It wasn’t much, but I’d take it.
“Look, you can tell me to shove my apology up my ass and leave now. You wouldn’t be the first one. But if you’re up to it, I’d really like to keep talking.”
Fox zeroed in on me and sighed. It was the first sound out of him that wasn’t all shards of glass. I raised my brows, waiting for his answer.
He lifted his hat—buzz cut—and ran a hand over his stubbly hair before putting the hat back down. “You were right before, Jamie. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you. But I’ve always believed it takes two to tango, and as much as Iris was spellbound by you, I’ve always known the truth. You ain’t nothing special. She just picked the wrong guy.”
“Yeah, she did.”
“And you’re saying you’re different now?”
I rubbed my arms. “Trying really hard to be.”
He scrutinized me before glancing out the window. “Well, I hope you succeed.” Then he faced me again, his expression skeptical. “A goddamn traffic cone?”
A chuckle burst out of me. “Yeah. To be fair, even that’s more action than I’ve gotten since rehab.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Fox snorted. “You become a priest? How’s that going for ya?”
