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“I’ll buy you a new one. I promise.”
“I don’t want a new one. I want this one,” she snaps.
“I’m sorry.” My bottom lip juts out. I saw Cami do it once and it automatically worked on Lana, so maybe I will get lucky too. “It was an accident.”
“Accidents happen, but getting drunk is a choice.”
“You’re right. A bad choice.”
“Yet you keep making it anyway. God, Cal. You’re thirty-three years old. Act like it.” She points at the spot I’m standing in. “Stay right there.”
She disappears around the corner before returning a minute later with a broom, a dustpan, and a trash bin. Her anger is like a fire, sucking all the oxygen out of the room as I stand there, useless and silent, while she begins sweeping the mess into a corner opposite of me.
“Who got you flowers?” I point at the mix of wildflowers strewn across the floor. “Was it a guy?”
Smooth, Cal. She will never suspect a single thing.
She shakes her head and keeps sweeping. “I’m not getting into this with you right now.”
“Why? Because it’s true?”
“Because you’re drunk and acting like a jealous idiot over someone who doesn’t even matter.”
“So what if I am jealous?”
“Why would you be?”
“Because…”
“Because what?” She shoots me a pointed look.
I bite down on my cheek to keep my last shred of dignity after throwing away most of it tonight. She gives up waiting and begins sweeping harder this time, making a few pieces of glass fly across the hardwood floor.
“Did you even bother going to rehab again?” she asks after the longest minute of silence. Her question comes off nonchalant, but there is a tightness in her shoulders as she sweeps.
I laugh. “Of course. Want to take a guess on how that turned out?” I try to bow but my coordination is severely lacking, so I nearly topple over. This time I don’t have a table to save me, so I flap my arms until I regain my balance.
Pathetic, Cal. Absolutely pathetic.
She stares at me with an expression I can’t make sense of given how much alcohol is pumping through my veins.
“I don’t want to pity you, but I do.”
“Exactly what every man wants to hear from the woman he loves.”
She blinks once. Twice.Threetimes before she strings a sentence together. “And that’s our cue to get you to bed.”
“Are you joining me?”
She grabs my arm and leads me up the stairs and toward my old room while grumbling to herself in Spanish. We walk in tandem to my bed. My center of gravity is thrown off when the tip of my sneaker catches on the floor, throwing Lana off-balance too.
“Whoops. My bad.” I laugh it off.
Her heavy sigh makes my chest hurt. She guides me toward the bed without any other incident. Once my ass safely lands on the foam mattress, she steps away, but not before I latch on to her wrist.
I tease the inside of it, earning the softest gasp. “I’m sorry.”
She tries to tug her hand free, but my grip holds. “Stop saying that.”
