Page 46 of Liquids

“I heard you lost that fight! I’ve been so worried about you. You should have come to see me, honey.” Her gaze flickers toward me for a second. “I’m a nurse! I could have looked after you. I could have …”

And now I can place her. I remember seeing her around the hospital, years ago. She looks very different out of her nurse’s uniform.

But Rig cuts across her. “The doc patched me up, babe, and I’m a bit busy at the moment. Maybe we can talk later.”

The use of the babe moniker makes me wince.

“Busy? With her?” Her eyes swing to me with a barely restrained sneer as she flicks her long glossy hair over her shoulder. “When are you coming to see me?”

He squints at her. “Babe.”

“What?” she says.

He tilts his head. Oh God, he’s going to say it.

“You know I don’t do that,” he rumbles.

“You were with Sadie for years,” she hisses. And it’s so like what I was thinking about him that I want to groan out loud. She narrows her eyes at him and then swings her head to narrow them on me.

“Don’t think you’re special. He’ll make you think he cares about you, get all up in your stuff and help you out, but he won’t ever stick around.” Her eyes swing back to him. “Asshole,” she adds as she flounces off.

He sits down again and sips his beer with a heavy sigh. Apparently, Rig’s history with women is complicated. I’m regretting trusting him with my innermost secrets. I really shouldn’t have told him about Charlie.

“How long were you with this one for?” I say.

His mouth tightens as his eyes roam over my face. “One night.”

“What?”

“She picked me up here,” and I almost wince at how like the first time I met him this is. “She decided after one night that it gave her the right to ask me to help her out with loads of shit: house repairs, a cheating ex-husband, problems with her parents. You name it. Shouldn’t have helped her out.”

Well, I don’t have an ex-husband or family, but fixing the house is sounding rather familiar. Although I doubt I’ll be turning up and launching myself at him in Callahan’s.

He jerks his chin at me. “You were telling me Sadie stopped by, what did she say?”

“She was looking for you.”

“I get that. Didn’t think she was paying you a social call.” He studies me for a long time, examining my hair and my lips. “Did she leave some papers for me?”

“Papers?”

He blows out a breath. “I helped her get an apartment in Carbondale. My name’s on the lease. It’s a place for couples only. I did stay there a lot because the trailer’s shit, but I don’t want to be liable for the money if she bails or does something stupid, and, babe, you met her, she is always doing something stupid. She kept messaging and calling me, so I told her to get the lawyer to send me the paperwork to take me off the lease. She didn’t do that. Shouldn’t have helped her. Should have known she wouldn’t do that.”

The lease? What lease? And Rig not living in the trailer and shacking up with different women is becoming a bit of a recurring theme. Well, at least it explains why he was talking to her. Do I ask him more about Sadie? Do I want to know? Marni’ll kill me if I don’t find out.

“She said something about repairs.”

“Yeah, the management is doing some work on the building.”

Oh. “You didn’t buy the apartment together?”

A sharp frown crosses his face. “Rented, babe. That’s what having a lease is.”

Hot anger bubbles up at his patronizing tone. Can I be bothered to keep track of all his goings on with different women? I am one in a long line. He said he didn’t do long term, but I call bullshit. It sounds like the sort of thing you say when you’ve got your hand up, holding someone at bay. Like he just did with Amanda. And she’s right about one thing: He did permanent with Sadie. He was engaged to her, for fuck’s sake. And then he bailed.

He’s studying me intently. “She say anything more to you?”

Getting into all this with him will make me look like a jealous girlfriend when I’ve only spent a handful of nights with him. I’m no different from the hair-swinging Amanda.