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“Relationship,” he repeated with a smirk. “Look at you with the personal growth. I’ve never heard you give this shit show any kind of label.”
“Utah.”
He smiled and reached out to squeeze my thigh. “I think you can decide to give the relationship priority over the baggage.”
“What if he can’t do that?”
“Can you love him through it anyway?”
I choked on the liquor again while he said those words, but it really didn’t have much to do with the whiskey that time.
“Sorry,” he said and laughed. “Can you pine after him from afar and keep your emotions buried as deep as humanly possible through it anyway? That better?”
“You’re mean.”
“I’ve just never understood the logic behind being afraid of the way that you feel,” he laughed again. “The emotions are yours. That’s not something to fear.”
“Everything about that is actually terrifying. Do I really strike you as someone who was made for love?” I asked.
“Everyone was made for love.”
“Okay,” I laughed. “Chill with that, Shakespeare.”
Why couldn’t I just thank him like a normal person for saying exactly what I needed to hear?
I was a little worried that he could hear my thoughts when he chuckled again.
“Devastated people need other broken people to have a place where they don’t feel so alone in their pain,” he said.
“Misery loves company, or some shit?”
“Broken hearts need someone with duct tape.”
“That might be the most Utah thing to have ever been Utah’d in the history of Utahs.”
* * *
I was sufficiently intoxicated by the time I heard Jersey’s car pulling back into the driveway. I’d very much spent the entire day drinking. It was dark by then, but when he didn’t come into the room, or even back into the house, I went out searching for him.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
jersey
The glow from Kyle’s fire drew me from the garage straight to the backyard. I pulled my own chair out there and planted myself next to him like it was something we’d been doing in perfectly comfortable silence for years. Dandy moved to sit directly on my feet as soon as my ass hit the chair.
“You should get one,” Kyle said and nodded toward the dog. “They help more than I ever would’ve believed if I didn’t experience it firsthand.”
“No need,” I said and laid my hand on the dog’s head. “This one’s already here.”
“Can’t go in your own house with all those kids in there?”
“Can’t go in my own house with Trista in there.”
“Really? She seemed awfully into you for you to have to hide from her.”
“I’m not in control right now. I don’t want to hurt her.”
“You drinking again?”
