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Don’t let it hit you on the way out.
“I’m staying.” He follows us with an annoying smile. “I already had to smell the food, sit in on a date with your ex-girlfriend—”
“Wait.” Nicole’s head wrenches around. “Ex-girlfriend?”
“Hannah somebody,” he oh-so-helpfully adds. “And this pizza smells good, so I’m staying for dinner—and maybe the rest of the gossip on the littleAxel-Hannah-CrossFit dudethreesome.”
June’s sweet little eyes widen with surprise.
“Watch your mouth.” I sit June on the island counter in the middle of the kitchen, release Nic, and head to the cupboard to take down a handful of plates. “Stop talking about Hannah like you think you know what’s up.” Then I turn to my sister and point straight between her eyes. “Don’t even ask.”
“You and Hannah?!” She yanks out a stool and plops down so fast, Preston’s lips curl into a grin. “How serious was theyou and Hannahsituation?”
“We were frien—”
“Serious enough to call her a bad name,” Ruiz inserts, “break her heart, fall in love.”
“Dude!”
“Axel Feeney!” Nicole snaps. She sets her elbows on the counter, her face in her hands, and whimpers.
Whatever Hannah and I had, it was discreet. Always discreet. And here this asshole goes, spouting off at the mouth, blowing shit wide open, and hurting people.
“Love?” my sister chokes out.
“Nic—”
“Enough love to run away for half a year and cry about the girl he left back home,” Ruiz taunts.
“Swear to god.” I slam the pile of plates to the counter and meet his glare. “If you don’t shut the hell up, I’m gonna rearrange your gray matter.”
He considers for a moment, then turns to Nicole and grins. “He broke up with her the day I buried Ains. Like he can somehow claim my tragedy and take it for his own.” He glances my way and sneers. “Freeloading asshole. Get your own heartbreak, and stop piggybacking on someone else’s to justify being stupid.”
“You left us so we wouldn’t be sad when you inevitably die on the job?” Preston, somehow the calmer of our group, distributes plates and shakes his head. “That makes about as much sense as buying pizza and flushing it down the toilet, since it’s going that way anyway.”
My eyes narrow, not because he’s wrong, but because he makes me feel like an idiot with the plainness in which he states my stupidity.
“We still eat the pizza, dickhead,” he chastises. “It sustains us. It makes us happy. It keeps us strong.”
“Pres—”
“Then tomorrow, we drop a log and get rid of the excess. Taking a shit is inevitable,” he pushes. “Wehaveto do it. But dying on the job…” he shakes his head, and spares a gentle glance for Ruiz. “That’s not guaranteed. That’s just bad luck that sometimes latches onto good people.”
“You need to apologize to Hannah.” Nicole takes her plate and accepts a slice of tomorrow’s-shit with a grateful firming of her lips. “Whatever your relationship was or wasn’t with her, whatever was in the past, you need to apologize.”
“Nic, it’s not—”
“You did the wrong thing,” she declares. “You hurt people who never deserved it. And now she’s best friends with Raul.”
While Preston chuckles, Nicole’s lips wrinkle in distaste. “He’s nice and all that, but jesus, Axe. Life was more fun whenyouwere her friend.”
“If you’re lucky,” Ruiz accepts his slice and slaps my back that way he does; to outsiders, it might look like a friendly touch, but to the guy being hit, there’s nothing friendly about it. “She might dump that idiot she was eating with tonight, and eventually,someday, stop lighting you on fire with her anger.”
He takes a bite of his slice and smirks, but I see the pain in his eyes. The heartache.
“Get your five minutes with her, kid,” he advises around his mouthful. “She’s still alive. Still able. Some of us wish we could be so lucky.”
Hannah
