CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I met him offsite, at a restaurant near Tropicana and Pecos, right next to a huge gun store with the biggest shooting range in town.
It was a great little Italian joint that I’d have bet money was run by the mob.
The place was open twenty-four seven, and it was always completely dead except for a few overweight Italian guys that chatted quietly in the corner. One of them, the owner, would almost always stop by our table to make sure that we’d enjoyed our meal, giving a long speech about taking care of his customers.
Super mob vibe. And come on, this was Vegas.
The food was so good that I kept coming back, regardless. Bev and I had a bi-weekly lunch date there, rain or shine.
Usually, Andrew and I met up at one of the restaurants inside the casino, but I didn’t think that was a good idea at the moment, for obvious reasons.
Not because I was hiding it, but more because I didn’t want to deal with any potential drama because of it.
Okay, maybe I was hiding it a little.
Though I wasn’t doing anything wrong.
I
told
myself
that
firmly
and
repeatedly. Somehow, it didn’t help.
We met for lunch a few times a month, even post breakup. That’s just how we were. I thought we’d always be good friends. Andrew was just that type of guy. Even if he’d rather not have been broken up, he respected my decision.
He never resorted to dirty tricks or Troublesome smiles to get what he wanted from me.
Of course, he didn’t have those in his arsenal.
In fact, Andrew didn’t have an arsenal.
That had always been my favorite thing about him. Too bad it hadn’t been enough.
It was hard to sit across a small table from him and not make comparisons to a certain tattooed bad boy. Impossible, actually.
And it was hard not to feel guilty at just how unflattering those comparisons were for poor Andrew.
I ordered a salad, Andrew ordered lasagna, and we picked at our food while we waded through some stilted conversation. It wasn’t usually like this.
I felt like shit for even being there. I should have canceled, but I’d been too stubborn to admit to myself that my life couldn’t just keep going on as usual.
“So are you seeing anyone special?” I asked, feeling way too hopeful about it.
The day he moved on would be a big weight off my conscience. I knew I’d broken his heart, and though it’d been several months since all of that had gone down, I still felt bad about it.
He winced slightly. “I’m still carrying a bit of a torch for you, if you hadn’t noticed.” There was no censure in his tone, just honesty.
That was so much harder to face. I looked down at my plate.
I thought I’d been clear for a while now, but apparently not.
Had I
inadvertently been stringing him along?
It had never occurred to me before, but, of course, I hadn’t been sleeping with someone else before.
That thought threw me, the part about someone else.
Tristan being the someone else was just off. It felt wrong to even think it.
I knew why, too.
He was the someone, so he could never be the else.
This was the else, my morbid mind told me.
The last six years have been the else, and poor Andrew was just another casualty in the Great War of T&D.
Dear Andrew had been on a no percent survival suicide mission, and he hadn’t had a clue.
“I wish you wouldn’t,” I told him as gently as I could. “Carry a torch for me, I mean. You’re a great guy.”
“Uh oh,” he said with a sad smile.
“That sounds ominous.”
“You are. You’ve been wonderful to me, patient and kind, but I was broken long before I met you, and I’m afraid that neither you nor I ever did have the tools to fix me. I’m just beginning to see that.
I’m sorry I wasted your time; sorry I hurt you. Truly I am. We are good as friends though. I’ll always have the utmost respect and fondness for you.”
He looked much more broken up by my words than I was ready to deal with. “It wasn’t a waste of my time. Falling in love never is.” He covered his face with his hands. “I didn’t know you felt this way. I thought you just needed more time. More space. Is this coming up for a particular reason?”
His hands
dropped, and his solemn eyes met mine.
“If I may be blunt, is there someone else?”
Still there was no censure in his tone, only a gently wounded concern.
I flushed, feeling ashamed at my insensitivity. I should have told him sooner. “I have been seeing someone. I can’t say if it’s serious, or even has the potential to be. It’s a very complicated situation. But—“
“It’s Tristan Vega, isn’t it?”
That took the steam right out of me.
“How did you know?”
“It was always him, wasn’t it? I knew,” he said emotionally. “I knew there was someone that had your heart, something that always made you hold back from me. I should have realized we were doomed, after that first time, when you locked yourself in the bathroom and wouldn’t stop crying.
Obviously I knew there was something wrong, but I didn’t know it was hopeless.”
He paused for a long moment, regaining
his
composure.
“You
shouldn’t be sorry, and you shouldn’t feel as though you’ve done something wrong. I know you tried your best to love me. We just never had a shot, huh?”
I shook my head, wishing I knew better how to comfort him. I could tell he was in pain, and I hated that I was the cause of it.
“That time we saw him at the red carpet last year. Christ, I should have seen it coming then. I could tell you weren’t over each other.”
“Was I so obvious?” The thought was alarming, to say the least. At times, it’d seemed that my pride was all I’d had.
Had even that small comfort, that I’d kept my feelings hidden, been denial on my part?
“You weren’t, no. You have always been remarkably good at hiding your feelings. It was him. He wasn’t hiding a thing. He looked at you like, I don’t know, like he couldn’t even breathe at the sight of you. I could tell he’d been your lover, and I admit to being jealous, but still, I had to feel for the guy.
And the way he looked at me, well, he barely glanced at me, but when he did…
I’ve never had that much animosity aimed in my direction in my entire life. I know it sounds crazy, but I think he wanted to attack me. Like, bodily attack me.”
That didn’t sound crazy. That sounded like Tristan.
I wondered briefly if I should warn him that it was a very real possibility, if they had a run-in in the future. Tristan wasn’t half the hot head he used to be, but the way he felt about Andrew might just cancel out all of his newfound self-control.
“About that,” I began. “I’d tread carefully, if I were you and I happened to see him. He can be, well, volatile.” His eyes widened. “Is he dangerous?
Wait, are you safe with him?” I waved that off. “I’m safe with him.
He’d never hurt a woman, and he’d cut off his own arms before he’d hurt me. If there’s one thing I’m sure of about him, it is that. And no, he’s not dangerous, not ordinarily, but his animosity towards you is not ordinary for him. I’m not saying he’s going to come to your house and strangle you, I’m just saying that if you happen to see him somewhere, you should turn around and walk the other way.”
His eyes were no less wide, no less horrified. “I don’t fight. I’ve never been in a fight in my life, but you’re saying this guy could just walk up and attack me?”
I shrugged, grimacing. “I don’t think he will, but though I can’t say for sure, I’m also not positive. He can’t even say your name. If I talk about you, this little twitch starts up under his eye. It’s not good. I’m just warning you to be extra cautious, because he has been in a fight before. Many fights. It used to be almost a hobby for him. I’m not trying to scare you, I just don’t want you to get hurt. Bodily hurt, on top of everything else.”
“At least you talk about me to him.
That’s got to mean something.”
“It does. I’ll always care about you.
I’m sorry it worked out like this.”
“So you and him? You’re making it sound like a done deal.”
I shrugged helplessly. “I have no idea.
Who can say? We have a powerful history together, one that goes back years, and that ended in some of the worst tragedies of my life. Nothing is a done deal, not at all, but I’ve just begun to realize that I might have it in me to give us another shot.”
“Well, you seem different. You seem happy. That’s got to be a good sign that things are going well.”
I smiled tremulously, so happy that he seemed to be accepting it all. Hopefully this would give him a few steps in the right direction, towards moving on.
“They seem to be. I’m taking things one day at a time.”
“It does worry me that you’re talking about it more like a cancer treatment than a relationship, but then I know you well enough to appreciate your little quirks.”
I laughed. A weight had been lifted.
He was a good man, and he would not be trying to hold me back with guilt.
I finished our meal with a lighter heart, feeling that things with Andrew were settled, once and for all.
Before I started the drive back to work, I checked my phone and saw that I’d missed a few texts from Tristan.
Tristan: How’s work?
And then, not twenty minutes after.
Tristan: I’m coming to take you to lunch. I just got some good news, and we need to celebrate.
That had been about forty minutes ago.
My mouth set in a grim line, cursing silently, I texted back.
Danika: I’m on my way back to work now. Coming back from lunch.
I didn’t elaborate, but I did wonder the entire drive what was wrong with my luck. Some people could get away with all sorts of deceptions.
Not that this was a deception, I told myself. I just hadn’t bothered to tell him, because who I had a friendly lunch with was not his business.
But still, I had a long rant in my head about the fact that I did indeed have the worst luck in the world.
I also spent a good chunk of that drive wondering what I would tell Tristan if he asked who I’d gone to lunch with. I could easily say Bev, or simply say it’d been business. It was unlikely he’d catch me in either lie.
I didn’t entertain the thought for long. I wasn’t a liar, and I hadn’t done anything wrong. If he asked me, I was just going to tell him. Easy peasy.