The Wright Mistake(24)

She opened her mouth and then closed it. Her eyes drifted back to the space we’d just occupied, as if she were contemplating how we’d gotten from point A to point B. Her eyes finally met mine, and she sighed softly.

“You push everyone in your life away. One day, you’re going to wake up and realize that you don’t have anyone left.”

Then, she disappeared back into the piano bar. It hurt worse than I liked to admit, seeing her leave…again.

That was the other thing we were good at—walking away. Because running was easier than facing the facts. Sex was easier than feeling. Arguing was easier than communicating. A lie was easier than the truth.





Ten



Julia


I stumbled back into Louie Louie’s, more pissed at myself than anything. Why the hell had I let Austin rile me up like that? One minute, we had been about to have sex in the alley, and the next, we had started screaming at each other.

Of course, I knew what the trigger had been this time.

Addiction.

Just what I needed was another addict in my life.

As if I hadn’t been around them my entire existence. I’d come to Lubbock to be free of my past. Somehow, it always seemed to catch up to me.

I’d said that I didn’t want to put his pieces back together, but the thing that pissed me off was, now that I knew the truth…I kind of did want to. I should want to run far, far away. I knew where that road would lead. I knew that the likelihood of him stopping was zilch. That him stopping because of me was actually zero. People didn’t change because of someone else. They had to do it for themselves and no one else. Otherwise, it wouldn’t stick. That was a damn fact.

Yet I still wanted to make things right. I still wanted to prove to him that it was possible. But he didn’t want to hear it.

He couldn’t even see right in front of his face. If he cleaned up his act, he would get the CFO position. Done deal.

What had to happen for him to see reality? Because, right now, he was drowning in liquor. He was sinking, not swimming. And what I’d told him was true…the more he pushed, the worse things were going to get.

I, of all people, knew that.

“There you are!” Heidi gasped when she stepped off the dance floor. “Where were you?”

“I needed to get some air,” I lied.

Emery appeared then. She frowned at me. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You have the look.”

“Really, I’m fine.”

Heidi rolled her eyes. “Um…yeah, right.”

“I’m tired. I’m going to go home, okay?”

“What? No!” Heidi cried. “Come on. Come and dance with us. It’ll be fun!”

“Did Austin do something?” Emery asked with a worried crease between her eyebrows.

“He…yeah.” I shrugged. “I don’t know. He asked me out.”

Heidi gasped. “That’s so exciting!”

“No. I told him no. Then, he told me about the CFO position, and we got into another argument.”

“You told him no?” Emery asked. She slowly blinked at me, as if she couldn’t believe what I’d said.

“Yeah. I don’t want to date him again.”

Heidi snorted. “In what universe is that statement actually true?”

“He told me he was going to find someone else to suck his dick! I think I’m justified in saying that I’m not interested.”

“He said that because you’d turned him down,” Heidi said, waving the statement away.

“Well, if he wants someone else, by all means.” I waved my hand at the door.

Emery smiled at me in that clever way she did. “Loving a Wright isn’t easy. I can’t imagine Austin is any different.”

“I do not love Austin!”

“I wasn’t…” Emery shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. Simply that, if Austin got up the nerve to ask you out after your breakup, after you slapping him in the face last fall, and after you abandoning him on top of the canyon last weekend…he must be into you. No guy puts up with that much shit and sticks around for no reason.”

“Oh, there’s a reason,” I muttered. “He wants to have sex with me.”

“No guy works that hard for pussy,” Heidi said.

“What about really good pussy?” I asked.

Emery coughed through her laugh. “Jensen and Landon both jumped through hoops. Wright men love the chase.”

“So, what? You think I should give him a chance?” I asked skeptically. “After what he put me through?”

“Well, we don’t know what actually happened,” Heidi said with raised eyebrows. She looked like she was about to bounce up and down with excitement to finally find out.