“I did?”
He nodded slowly, his eyes searching my face.
“Sorry about that.” I cringed.
He pulled his brows together and frowned at me. “Sorry? Why would you apologize?”
“I was drunk, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Do you love me?”
Oh God, oh God. I wanted to puke and it didn’t have anything to do with my hangover. My head hurt, and now my heart hurt. Looking at Brody’s soulful eyes, knowing he was waiting for an answer I couldn’t give him was hard. Too hard.
I did love him. I loved him so much I sometimes couldn’t breathe around him, but I couldn’t tell him that. I would never let those words leave my mouth; that would make all of this too real. It would give him all the power.
I wanted to get up and leave the room, but Alexa’s voice nagging me to ‘stop running’ kept ringing through my head. Her voice wasn’t the only one in my head. Blaire’s was there too, cackling and warning me that I was nothing but a summer fling. If he was just going to throw me away, there was no way I was going to tell him the truth.
“Kacie.” Brody’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts.
My eyes traveled around his face … the face of the man I loved, the face I had to lie to in order to protect myself.
I took a deep breath.
“No.”
“You have ten new voice messages. To play these-” I shut off my phone and tossed it, not giving a shit when it tumbled off the bed and hit the floor with a cracking sound. None of those messages were from Kacie and that pissed me off.
Lauren and Tommy’s wedding was two weeks ago, and Kacie and I hadn’t talked since the morning after when she told me she didn’t love me. Hell, I’d barely left my condo in that time. Gym and back. That’s about it. I talked to my mom every few days so that she didn’t call in a missing person’s report, but I still hadn’t told her about Kacie. I didn’t want to say it out loud; it just made me angry.
After she said ‘No,’ we sat at that kitchen table for a long time, not saying a word. She didn’t know what else to say and I only wanted to call her a liar. I’m one of those people who believe when we’re drunk, we say what we really mean. I think that liquid courage helps you get out what you really do want to say, when we don’t know how to just say it. There’s nothing I could do though, whether she loves me or she doesn’t, I had to take her for her word.
That left me here, wallowing in self-pity, dirty bed sheets and the Classic College Football Network for two weeks, not giving a shit about the world outside of my house. I reached over and opened the canister on my nightstand, pulled out another Slim Jim and shoved it in my mouth before throwing the wrapper on the floor.
Fuck it.
Just then I heard my condo door open. For a fleeting second, my head went somewhere it shouldn’t have gone, but reality set in when Andy called my name.
“In here,” I yelled back.
He appeared in my bedroom doorway with a disgusted look on his face. “Dude, what the fuck?”
“What?” I glared at him defensively.
“I’ve been calling you for a week and haven’t heard back. What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing, I’m just chillin’.”
“Chillin’?”
“What do you want, Andy? I have things to do.”
“Oh, what—like call a heart surgeon and schedule your bypass appointment now because of all these?” He walked over and picked up my Slim Jim canister. “I talked to Viper, he told me what happened.”
“It’s not a big deal, whatever.” I waved him off.
“If it’s not a big deal, why are you drowning your sorrows in sodium and reality television?”
“Don’t forget beer,” I joked.
“Listen, why don’t you come over this weekend?” he asked.
“Fuck. That.”
“Let me finish, ass wipe. Blaire and all her obnoxious friends are headed to a weekend getaway in Napa Valley. It’s just me and the kids. I’ll invite Viper and a few of the guys over. We’ll smoke expensive Cuban cigars and drink too much, so plan on crashing at my place.”
“No.”
“Come on, if worst comes to worst, you can go up and play with Logan and Becca.”
“If I say yes, will you leave?”
“Absolutely,” he said.
“Fine.” I sighed as I rolled over. “Now get out. And leave the Slim Jims!”
Andy laughed as he walked toward my bedroom door. “I’m holding them for ransom.”
I pulled up to Andy’s house and sat in my truck, contemplating turning around and going home. I just wasn’t feeling this. As I had just about talked myself into driving home, Logan appeared on Andy’s porch, waving at me to come in.