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“That’s shitty,” she says. “Why are guys such butt faces?”
I laugh, despite my emotional state. “Did you just call thembutt faces? Really?”
“Yeah?” she says, shrugging her shoulders.
“You know what, you’re right,” I say. “They are butt faces.” I raise my glass of pop to clink it against hers. “Except…Derek has a really nice face. And butt.”
“Ew.” Drew laughs. “I don’t want to think about Derek’s butt.”
“It looks like it was chiseled out of marble,” I say, teasing.
Drew feigns a gag and I laugh again. I get it. I think I would do the same if she were to start talking about Hawk’s ass.
“Okay, enough talk about butts,” she says. “What are you going to do?”
I shrug, sighing louder this time. “I don’t know. I don’t think there’s anything I can do. I think he’s gotta decide what to do.”
She sighs. “I don’t like this.”
“Same,” I say. Despite everything, a comforting silence fills the table and she reaches for my hand, squeezing it.
We’ve just given our orders to the waitress and handed over our menus, when Drew’s phone buzzes.
“Oh, it’s Hawk,” she says. “He said he’s stopping to see Derek for lunch. Maybe he will get some answers.”
“Oh god, I hope not,” I say. The idea of the two brothers chatting about me fills me with absolute dread. Not the existential kind. Just the good old fashionedholy fucking shit, please nokind.
“What do you mean?” Drew says.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t want Hawk to be upset with me that I never told him how I feel about Derek.”
“I don’t think he is,” she says. “He loves you like a sister.”
“Exactly,” I say. “And I never told him.”
“It’s going to be okay,” she says. “Let’s just see what happens.”
Our food arrives and with each passing bite, I wait for Drew’s phone to buzz again. Part of me hopes it doesn’t, and the other part of me is upset when it doesn’t. It was bad enough being upset about one thing, but being upset about both is downright annoying. I want to shake myself and yell at myself and ask what the hell is wrong with me.
The short answer is everything. I see a pint of ice cream in my future. And wine. Maybe I’ll put the wine into the ice cream and create a new dessert. Wine floats.Is that a thing?I bet it is.
Just as we get our checks, Drew’s phone finally buzzes against the hardwood table, making a very loud noise.
My heart pounds in my chest. This is so dumb.
THE CLINCHER
DEREK
I’m a goddamn coward. That’s really all there is to it. I couldn’t face Willette last night. I couldn’t even handle the thought of possibly seeing her this morning. So, what did I do? I fucking snuck out of the apartment two hours before I was due at the hospital to ensure she wouldn’t be awake. I didn’t even put my shoes on until I was outside the apartment door so as not to inadvertently make noise against the wood floors.
Pathetic.That’s the word you’re thinking of. My mind has been an absolute shit storm since I’ve been here. I’ve spent most of the time in the office, attempting to avoid any hard stuff.God, I’m such a dick.
I’ll be honest. Willette didn’t deserve that. She didn’t deserve any of it. She was just a girl, who fell for a guy. And now I feel like I’m punishing her for it.
I wonder if she knows that I don’t think I’ve ever been in love. I wonder if she knows the notion of love has always terrified me. That I’ve avoided it my whole life because I’ve seen the damage it can cause. That I’ve dodged it so as not to lose myself so deeply in someone else that I can’t come back.
I’ve seen it and it doesn’t look fun or worth it. At least not for me personally. Am I happy for others who find it? Yeah, sure, of course. But I don’t know if it’s for me.
