AllFreeNovel
Share Us
every day. I had told my sister all about the weekend, down to every last cringe-y detail, including me punching Tyler Dermody out. “Whoa,” she’d said. “Your weekend sounds almost as bad as Dave’s.”
“Nah. He dodged a bullet.” I wanted to call my old friend to offer my condolences, but I was worried what he thought my role was in all this.
I tried not to think about Maddy as I drove home from work, but the thoughts kept creeping in. I’d been obsessing about her since we’d gotten back—silly things, like the smell of her shampoo and how my heart had literally lurched the first time she really smiled at me. She was the nicest girl I’d met in over a year.
How had Roberto Palmieri so royally fucked things up?
I should call her. I wanted to call her.
But then I remembered the look on her face when she saw me on the phone with Katie. I thought of how wide her eyes had gotten when I trounced her father at tennis on his home court and then celebrated by punching Tyler Dermody in the face. I was lucky her family wasn’t prosecuting me for assault and battery, let alone bad manners.
I could feel my phone in my pocket, but I didn’t take it out. Maddy was probably better off without me. Maybe she would meet someone from her own world, with a tennis court all his own and a desk job. Someone who sucked less at golf. Someone her mother didn’t want to sleep with. Or at least someone her mother didn’t think was a gold digger.
So although I felt my phone in my pocket and an ache in my heart, I didn’t do a thing. I just kept driving.
“I told you to just have fun,” Ryan warned as he sank another shot into the corner pocket of the pool table. “You’re a magnet for drama, I swear.”
“Have you talked to Dave?” I asked.
He blew out a deep breath. “He’s in bad shape. His mother answered his phone and said he was ‘resting.’”
I shook my head. “It’s for the best. I’m telling you, she’s a man-eater.”
“Have you talked to her again?”
“Nah. I refuse to answer my phone ever again. She’s made her own bed—it’s got nothing to do with me.” I took another sip of my beer.
Ryan peered at me over his glasses. “So why aren’t you with the new girl?”
“The new girl doesn’t want to talk to me.” I shrugged. “Not only did she overhear me on the phone with Katie—”
“You weren’t doing anything wrong, though. I know you.”
“Right, but she doesn’t. I’d be suspicious too if the dude I’d just started seeing was on the phone at three a.m. with his ex. I get it.”
Ryan continued to beat me at pool. “Why don’t you just talk to her about it?”
“Because I pretty much burned that bridge.” I’d explained about punching Tyler and yelling at Mrs. Delaney. “And really, we don’t have anything in common. I left my high-powered job because it was sucking the life out of me. Maddy’s career is the thing that energizes her.”
“So?” Ryan asked. “Who says you have to be exactly alike to be happy? Sounds boring to me.”
“No offense, but why am I taking relationship advice from you again?”
“Because I’m your friend. And a real friend will tell you the truth, so hear it is: you are screwing up. You’re letting what Katie did mess with your head still. You can’t let her win, bro. Like you said, she’s a man-eater. She belongs at the zoo; you belong with the new girl.”
I opened my mouth then closed it. Because really, what could I say to that?
Later, when I was back home, I gave up on trying to sleep. I put my phone on my nightstand and just stared at it.
What if I call her? What’s the worst thing that could happen?
The phone beeped, making me jump, and a text from Katie lit up the screen.
Katie: Still waiting to hear from you. This is not cool.
I grabbed the phone and texted back:
That’s because I have nothing to say. STOP TEXTING ME.
