Loch (The Powers That Be Book 3)(33)

And my heart flew to my throat. I closed my eyes wondering if I was psychic and my dream had just been a foretelling of what was really happening.

Damn it.

Damn it!

“Who’s there?” I asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

“Should b’you…”

“Loch, hang up,” I heard a woman grouchily demand.

God!

“Should b’you, Suh-leste… or S’mone… whatever the fuck your name is.” He was getting mad now but so was I.

“Yeah, get off the phone, Loch,” I snapped and hung up.

Well, that was that.

I tossed my phone back on the nightstand and lay back down feeling even worse than I had after the nightmare. I knew guys this age. Knew how they operated. I’d seen it time and again with the ones I or my friends had dated. You got in a fight. They left mad. They got drunk. They slept with someone else. Then they wanted to make amends with you.

It was one big vicious circle of immature retaliation, and I never understood why they’d think a girl would come back to them after they did that.

So again, that was that.

But I’d thought Loch was different but why should he be? He was a guy of that age. It only made sense. So even though I’d thought I’d been done with him when I returned to Seattle but I was done-r than done now.

And to prove it, I locked my heart up tight… then cried myself to sleep.

~*~*~*~

“We need to talk,” I informed Marcy the next morning.

It was after ten when I walked into the kitchen to find her toasting waffles. At my saying this and at her seeing my face, I watched as her usually sleepy, grumpy self woke up quickly.

“About?” she asked, eyebrows up.

“I’m a bad person.”

She chuckled then quickly pulled the waffles out of the toaster when it popped up and tossed them on a plate.

“Why’s that?” she inquired as she walked to the table. She then sat down, picked up the bottle of syrup and proceeded to pour almost half of it onto her plate.

I got a glass out and poured some orange juice in it, turning to look at her. “I kinda blamed you for everything with Loch.”

Her eyebrows went up again but it didn’t keep her from shoving a forkful into her mouth. I went to the table and sat then told her all that’d happened the night before including the dream.

“That’s a lot happening in one night,” she said.

I nodded because she was not wrong.

“I’m sorry, Sim. You should blame me. I guess I kinda used you, didn’t I? To get back at Loch. I never should’ve suggested you do that.” My eyebrows went up now. “Okay, talked you into doing it. That was shitty advice and I’m to blame for the mess you’re in.”

I frowned. “Wasn’t like I didn’t agree to do it. It’s not all your fault, Marce.”

“Yeah, but I put it in your head. Sorry. You forgive me?”

I gave her a small smile, nodded then took a drink.

“You know I wanna tell you what the dream meant,” she prompted.

I snorted because I knew she was itching to tell me. “Yep. But maybe as punishment, I won’t let you.”

“That’s just fucked up.”

I laughed. “Maybe. But you are getting off scot free here.”

“Never. Your pain is my pain, babe.”

And that’s why I loved her and forgave her so willingly. I gave her smile and returned, “Back at you.”

“So as for the dream…” she started and I chuckled knowing she couldn’t let it lie. “Well, I’m sure you’ve figured it out. Your insecurities mixed with your anger at me brought it on.”

I nodded.

“So what’re you gonna do about things with him?”

“Really isn’t much to do.” I shrugged.

“You could talk to him.”

“No. I don’t think that’s necessary. Here’s the deal. If he’d just been some guy I met and we’d had an argument then he called me drunk and I knew he had a girl over, I’d be over it.” I shrugged. “I knew I was more invested with Loch because of our past but why can’t I be over it now too? Yeah, it hurt me. Yeah, I screwed up. But why do I have to brood over it? I liked him. I made out with him a couple times. But I’ve only just now known him for what, five days? I’ll get over it.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. And all I just said is true. I don’t know why I let everything from the past seem so devastating to me up until now. I guess because I was an insecure little girl. But now that I followed your ‘shitty’ advice,” I grinned at her as she gave me a funny face, “I tried doing something mean to him as payback, which made me come off as a bitch, and I got burned. Game over.”