“Your silence is an indication that you didn’t exactly tell her at the best time, and judging by the pissy mood she was in when she came home, I’m thinking that I’m right. How do you get yourself into these situations?”
“Who knows? My brain tends to turn off when it comes to Della.”
“Well, stop thinking with your dick and maybe things would actually work out for you sometimes.”
“Gee, thanks for the advice. I’ll talk to you later, Mia.”
“Bye, lover boy,” she sang out, just as I hit the end button, and then tossed my phone on the nightstand.
Mia was somewhat right. When I saw Della today, all I wanted was to have her sprawled out beneath me, moaning out my name. And that’s exactly what I had gotten. I would’ve much rather been buried deep inside of her, but I knew that was way too fast at this point. Really, what we did was way too fast. I didn’t want Della to think that the only reason I wanted her was for sex. Our relationship had been about so much more than that, and if we were going to start fresh, I needed to figure out a way to take things slow with her. As slow as possible, I guessed.
I drifted off with thoughts of Della running through my head, like usual. Sleeping would be so much better if she was just in my bed with me, instead of being so damn stubborn about everything. I must have fallen into a deep sleep, because the next thing I heard was the annoying alarm sound coming out of my phone.
IT WAS WORK time all too soon.
I got dressed for the day, and headed in. Our shift started out pretty smoothly, and I hoped that it stayed that way. I was still stuck on Della, trying to figure out exactly what I should do. I needed to make it up to her somehow. But she would more than likely tell me to fuck off again, knowing her.
“What’s got you thinking so hard today?” Ty asked, breaking me from my Della fog. I really needed to stop doing that shit. Being distracted on the job wasn’t exactly the best idea for my line of work.
“Nothing much, just got some shit going on.”
“Really?” He grinned, turning sideways to look at me. “Got anything to do with my girl Blaire? She’s been talking non-stop to Emily about you. I’ve been hearing all of the juicy gossip.” He rolled his eyes before taking a sip of coffee.
“Yeah, Blaire’s a great girl,” I responded vaguely as we pulled back into the station. Blaire really was. She was smart and beautiful, and I could have an actual conversation with her. All of the other girls that I went out with in an attempt to forget about Della were faceless. I didn’t get to know them because, really, I didn’t care. There was never more than one date, nothing happened physically with any of them.
I only messed up once after Della broke things off. No, I didn’t run off and fuck a bunch of girls because I was brokenhearted. It had been months after, but before I saw her again at Shorty’s. I’d like to say I was shitfaced, and that was my excuse, but I wasn’t. I picked up some random girl at a club I had gone to with Nate, and we went back to her place. I thought maybe it would help me forget about Della, but all it really did was make me feel even guiltier. There was no getting Della out of my head, or my heart.
She was irreplaceable.
“Well, I heard that you’re going out again,” Ty said from behind me as I started changing out of my uniform in the locker room.
“Yup.” I answered simply, even though this date would be the last. I wasn’t going to string Blaire along, when the only girl on my mind was Della. It’s not like we considered ourselves an item or anything, but I needed to let Blaire know that we wouldn’t be seeing each other again. Hopefully she took it well.
“And then we’re all going out this weekend.”
“What?” I finished pulling my t-shirt back on, and looked over at Ty who was smiling widely, already fully dressed.
“Yeah. Didn’t Blaire mention anything to you?” His eyebrows twisted in confusion as I shook my head. He shrugged one shoulder. “Oh, well, I guess I’ll tell you then. The four of us are gonna go out this Saturday, maybe go to dinner and then hit up a couple of bars. Sound good?”
“Listen, Ty, I didn’t really think I should say anything to you first, because I figured you would go blab to your wife, but….” I paused, shifting uncomfortably in place as his eyes continued to narrow. Ty could be one scary guy when he wanted to be, one of the reasons he was so good at his job. “Things aren’t working out with Blaire. I was going to tell her when we go out for dinner.”
The next thing I knew, my back was slammed against the metal locker, the rattle echoing in the mostly empty locker room, and Ty’s hand was around my throat.
“That. Is. Not. Happening!” he bit out. My eyes began to bulge, and I considered all of the different ways to get out of his hold without actually hurting him. His fingers loosened, and he shook his hand as he released. “Sorry, man, didn’t mean to get so worked up.”