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Chapter Sixteen
There’s a first time for everything.
Simple? Huh. It was anything but simple.
As much as I hated to say it, Rio might have been right. If I’d had her number, that would have made this whole thing easier. I could have texted her an apology. She could tell me it wasn’t allowed, and we’d move on.Thatwould have been simple. Instead, she avoided me all fucking weekend.
I was too chicken shit to just knock on the door and ask her parents if I could speak to her. And I dealt with the self-loathing one of the only ways I knew how.
“Well, if it isn’t Lombardi,” Jimbo chuckled when I walked into his place on Saturday night. “Thought you’d died. Or maybe Daddy hadn’t been there to bail you out.”
“Laugh it up, fucker,” I snarled.
He held up his hands. “My bad, man. Beers are cold. Vodka’s on ice. You know where everything is.”
I nodded at him and went to find the strongest bottle with the most in it and didn’t put it down until it was empty. It wasn’t that my tolerance had lowered since my last binge, but I’d never quite downed a bottle that quickly in…ever.
“You and your woman have a falling out, Lombardi?” Rio asked.
I sighed as I leant my head back on the seat behind me. “Fuck off, Salazar.”
“No,” he said, and I felt myself smile.
“You fucking nancy wanker.”
“When it’s called for, yeah.”
“Well, it’s not called for. But no thanks for the thought.”
“Talk to her.”
“She won’t talk to me.”
“And you’re going to let a little thing like that stop you?”
“Yeah, it’s call boundaries, you arse.”
“There’s boundaries and then there’s using boundaries as an excuse to be a cowardly fuck. Now, did you text her? Call her–?”
“I still don’t have her number,” I grumbled.
“Did you do anything other than make your way through four packs of smokes, and ignore every single chick who’s looked at you tonight?”
I shifted in my seat. “It was three packs. And I haven’t ignored shit.”
Rio barked a rough laugh. “You’ve turned three girls down, and those were only the ones who actually came over here. The only thing you’ve come close to tonguing is that bottle.”
“What’s your fucking point?” I snapped. “What do you want me to do?”
“Do whatever the fuck you want,” he said. “You always do. But maybe your usual shit isn’t cutting it.”
“Fuck off.”
“You fuck off.”
I sighed and put my bottle down. “Who the hell’s going to get me home?”
Rio chuckled. “Not me. I’m fucking parro.”
