Feral cats only bit and clawed because they were scared.
But that didn’t make it sting any less.
“There’s another bottle after this one,” Tyler said, tipping the last of the Marsala into our mugs.
“I’m already too fucked up to drive,” I said.
“Then we might as well open the next bottle,” he pointed out with impeccable logic.
I was gonna have to call Mom to come and get me.
But fuck it. It wasn’t like that was the worst thing to happen today, was it? Just like my inevitable hangover wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen tomorrow either.
“Fuck it,” I said. “Let’s open the next one.”
CHAPTER 15
CHASE
Work was shit on Tuesday. I thought about calling in sick, but fuck that. I wasn’t a coward, and I needed the money. So I went like I did every day, and tied my stupid apron on over my stupid shirt and khakis, and made Lee and Tyler their coffees like nothing had changed at all. Because it hadn’t, or at least it wouldn’t have if Lee hadn’t gotten all tied up in knots about nothing. We could have been fucking in the walk-in on the regular if he hadn’t been such an asshole about the whole stupid boyfriend thing. And now neither of us was getting laid, and how dumb was that? I hoped he had a dry spell that lasted as long as the Pleistocene Epoch.
Cash had been listening to an audiobook about the Ice Age last night, by the way.
Lee must have told Tyler what happened because he was weird with me too, which was bullshit.
“Hey, man,” he said when I took them their coffees. “How’s it going?”
But he didn’t say it in his usual way. He said it like he knew something was up and I needed to be fucking coddled or some shit, like Gracie when she fell down and skinned her knees.
“Good,” I said. “I want my break at ten.”
Tyler exchanged a look with Lee before he answered. “Sure. No problem.”
Assholes.
I went back out front and got ready for opening. Lee came out with a tray of cupcakes and I shoved them into the cabinet. I made a mess of it, and I waited for him to say something so I had an excuse to argue with him, but he just looked, shrugged, and walked away. He had dark rings under his eyes like he maybe hadn’t slept, and I felt bad for a hot second before I remembered that he was the one who’d turnedmedown, so he deserved to feel like shit.
Trouble was, I felt like shit too.
I’d come close to having something like a relationship, even if it had been only for a few days, and I missed it already. But it had only taken that long to figure out that I couldn’t be there for both Cash and for Lee, and it wasn’t even a choice. It was Cash, every time, and in a heartbeat. No fucking question.
I just wished it could be different. If I’d done a better job of protecting Cash when we were kids, he wouldn’t be so messed up now. Maybe I wouldn’t be either. So I wished it could be different, but it wasn’t, so there was no fucking point getting all butthurt over it.
Except I still felt like shit, and the first customers of the day didn’t exactly lift my spirits. They allwantedstuff, except they didn’t know exactly what they wanted and somehow thought like I should know. Apparently, “just fucking pick something” wasn’t the answer they were expecting when they asked what I recommended.
The tip jar wasn’t going to get much fuller today, I guessed.
Bobby didn’t improve my shitty mood by coming by midmorning with my repaired bike. Like, it was good that he’d fixed it, but I’d kind of wanted to see if Lee would offer me a lift home this afternoon. If he didn’t, I could get a rush of hot,righteous anger because he was being an asshole again. And if he did, I’d get a rush of hot, righteous pride because I’d get to tell him I didn’t need his fucking charity. So it was like a win/win whatever happened, except Bobby came and rained on my parade.
Still, he’d done a great job on the bike. You could hardly tell he’d run over it. It might have actually been an entirely different bike.
“Thanks, Bobby,” I said when he took me outside to show me. “It looks really good.”
“Goes like a dream,” he said proudly, his hands on his hips. I wished he was standing in a different way since his hand placement was inadvertently pulling up his already short denim shorts and making them even shorter.
“Did you paint it too?” I asked, looking at the frame of the bike so I didn’t accidentally get an eyeful of his balls if they were gonna make a sudden appearance.
“Yup,” he said. “I’ve got a buddy over in Whittles Mill with a spray gun, so I borrowed that. Sure beats using the old rattle can!”
