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Alright, so the problem was, I was regretting the way I ended things with Amelia. True, it did have its own kind of poetic justice. But it was a dick move on my part. Amelia seemed like the kind of woman who would toss and turn and freak herself out about who the man I claimed an acquaintance with was. Especially since he seemed to have some kind of thing going on with her. I should have at least told her to keep a wide berth around him. He wasn't anywhere near the worst guy I knew. Hell, he probably didn't even make the top fifty. But he wasn't good news either. If I hadn't been choking on my own fuckin' pride and self-righteousness, I would have warned her.
I'd never been one in the past, and I wasn't liking the feeling of being a dick.
She didn't deserve that. It wasn't a huge leap for her to think I was fucking Alex. She was pretty; she was at the apartment I was staying at; I was a known whore. On top of that, she wasn't thinking clearly. She was grieving for a man she lost and dealing with the knowledge that that man had a not so pretty past that she had no idea about. She was completely and utterly alone in that town and she had turned to me for comfort. It wasn't like her to open herself up and let someone in. So when she did that with me, albeit briefly, it meant something to her. Seeing Alex and thinking that she was just some backup pussy, just another in a long line of women, utterly replaceable... yeah I got why that burned. And instead of applying some cool water, I scrubbed at the sore spots by leaving in such a dismissive way.
I wasn't that guy. Sure, I went through a lot of women. But there was no lying or coercion, no promises of things I didn't plan to follow through on, and there sure as fuck was never any hard feelings afterward. I met women, we had our good times once, twice, five times, whatever it took for us both to get our fill, then we both moved on, neither with any wounds to lick.
"Think I owe her some flowers," I told Millie who was perched on my chest, purring in a non-stop rhythm that settled through my insides, bringing with it calm. "What flowers say 'She was my best friend's woman who was making sure I was okay with my dad's death and also... I didn't mean to be a dick when I left and stay away from that Luis guy'?" Millie made some kind of meow/ yawn hybrid. "I don't know if chrysanthemums are in season, Mills..." I trailed off, laying my head on the back of the couch and laughing at the ceiling. Jesus Christ. I was talking to a fucking cat. "Just need to pick up knitting and a serious interest in The Weather Channel and I'd be an old fucking lady."
It was at that point that I realized I was still talking to the cat, moved her off my chest, and put her onto the couch, interpreting the look she was giving me as indignation. "She's getting roses," I told her. "If I can find a florist who will leave them with the thorns on."
With that, I went in search of my laptop and a florist somewhere near my bumfuck hometown who would deliver.
Never been much of a flower-sender, but if there ever was a situation where I felt shitty enough to become one, this was it.There was a ring at my intercom a few hours later, someone down on the street. I didn't live in an apartment building. I had an apartment over an abandoned store where I stored my workout shit. Whole thing cost a mint and cost even more to fix up how I liked it, but it offered me the opportunity to be in the center of town without being on top of neighbors. "Yeah?" I asked, pushing the button.
"Paine. Buzz me up," his voice called, an odd lightness in it that I didn't trust. Christ, knowing him, he was showing up with a bunch of strippers and booze to try to cheer me up. I thought about putting a shirt on, looking down at my basketball shorts slung low on my hips, but fuck it, if it was strippers, they wouldn't mind.
I hit the button and waited, leaning against the kitchen counter, knowing he would let himself in.
The door opened and he didn't just let himself in.
He also didn't have strippers with him.
No, instead, he had fucking Amelia with him.
And she looked scared out of her ever-loving mind.
What the hell was going on?
"Look what showed up on my doorstep," Paine said, smiling at me from behind Amelia's shoulder.ElevenAmeliaIt was somewhere around Virginia when my common sense started trickling back in and I pulled off at a family-friendly looking rest stop and pulled out my phone. I had just left. I hadn't told anyone I was going. Granted, my office work would be fine left unattended for a while, but someone needed to take over at the meetings. Sometimes when I was sick, Father Sanders would step in or Dr. Mary, a retired psychologist, would cover for me in a pinch. I made a quick call to both of them, leaving a message saying I had to leave town suddenly for a family emergency and asking if they could work out the meetings schedule between them until I got back.
Then, eyes blurry from the road and several nights of little to no sleep, I climbed into the backseat, double checked to make sure the doors were locked, and passed out for a few hours.
Sleep did nothing to settle my nerves. If anything, I felt more and more on edge as I drove. Part of it was the half a million dollars of illegal drugs in my wall and the worry about the man who put them there. The other part was, well, the whole... going to see Johnnie thing. Because that was just completely insane, right? Who in their right mind went to see a criminal about another criminal? Was there like some bad-guy code that I would be breaking? Even as I thought that, though, I was filled with a kind of weighted certainty that I had nothing to fear from Johnnie. Maybe he was a criminal, a killer, and I had seen how fast and steady he was with a gun, but I just sort of picked up on a vibe that he would never hurt me. So there was that. But still, it was probably super weird to go to him with my problem.
