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His voice is filled with emotion I don’t even understand, and not even hearing him call me baby can take away the tightness in my chest when ferry workers start unhooking the ropes from the dock.
“It’s fine.” I nod, refusing to cry. “I get it. You can’t stay. I know you have to work, and it was silly of me to ask.”
“Dammit, Birdie, don’t do that. Don’t shut down and act like it wasn’t a big fucking deal that you asked me to stay. I know it was, and I wish to God I had time to explain everything to you, but I have to make that flight. We’ll talk as soon as I land, okay?”
The ferry lets off its final warning blast of sound, and Palmer lets out a whole string of curses before quickly leaning in and pressing his lips against my cheek, right by my ear.
“I love you so goddamn much. I have to play this one. Just this one, I promise, and then I’ll be back,” he whispers, breaking my heart right in two when he kisses my cheek, and then he’s racing away from me again down the dock.
Sure… just this one. Until the next one. And the next one, and the next one, and until nine months go by before I see you again.
Because I just asked you to stay, and even though you told me you loved me, you’re still not fucking asking me to go.“Good Lord, woman, you look like asshole. Why are you even here? I thought you called off for the next few days?”
Lifting my head from Greg’s desk, where I’d been “resting” it for the last… I don’t even know how long, I pull a sticky note off my cheek that got stuck there and smack it down on top of a pile of resumes he asked me to look over for the person who’s going to replace me as clubhouse manager. I could have looked them over in my own office, but I’m never going into my office or using my desk again, so Greg’s much larger and much nicer office right off the bar and closer to Tess is where I will work forever. Or until Greg comes back to work and I make a new office somewhere else, like the parking lot.
Looking down at myself and realizing I’m still wearing the same ratty jean shorts and Summersweet Middle School Baseball T-shirt with my nephew’s name on the back that I had on last night at Sip and Bitch with the girls, I bring the front of the shirt up to my nose and take a whiff.
I look like shit, but at least I don’t smell like it. I smell a little bit like the vomit that dribbled down my chin after doing more sipping than bitching last night. Wonderful.
“My house smells like his cologne, and he left a pair of his clothes on my bathroom floor,” I tell her, my messy bun flopping down onto my forehead, and I don’t even bother moving it out of the way. “I’d much rather be sad and miserable here at SIG ten feet away from you, where I can’t smell him.”
It took me exactly five minutes after the ferry pulled away from the dock for me to realize that I was an idiot and I never should have let Palmer walk away like that. It’s killing me that I’m not there with him, and I shouldn’t have been such a big baby, and I should have just asked him if I could go with him.
“Gee, thanks. I’m honored,” Tess deadpans, moving into Greg’s office to come around the desk and hop up on top of it while I rock back-and-forth in my computer chair. “How long have you been here?”
I glance at the clock on Greg’s computer, shocked that it’s a little after five and I’ve been sitting here all day doing absolutely nothing but feeling like crap. I knew Tess was working the evening shift, and her appearance here should have told me what time it was and how long I’d been here, but my brain can no longer hold simple information. It’s filled with nothing but Palmer and what he’s doing, and how he’s doing, and what he wanted to talk to me about last night that I never got to hear, because we kept missing each other’s calls all night long. And now today, I know he’s too busy, and I’m not going to bother him. But I did text Bodhi to see about warm-ups, and Bodhi told me he was doing great and he was looking really good. Which meant I could stop feeling bad that my immature behavior on that dock didn’t mess with his head.
“Does it really matter, Tess? Does anything really matter?”
“Stop being so dramatic.” She laughs. “He told you he loves you.”
