“See, ‘cause, when you were with Brad…” she hesitated then shook her head, “I don’t know. You were never yourself. You weren’t our Laurie. Not when he was around. When you were alone, you were great, you were you. When he was around, there was something off. Like you were on eggshells, like you had to be perfect and spent all your time in an effort to be that way.”
I stared at her, both surprised at this and not surprised because her saying those words made me realize I did try to be perfect for Brad because I thought he was perfect and to keep him I had to match that.
Boy was I wrong about that.
Then I asked, “Really?”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “Mom and I talked about it…” she paused, “a lot.”
I was already surprised at what she said but this surprised me even more.
“You talked about it?”
She turned to me. “He wasn’t all that and I’m glad you know that now. I’m sorry you went through what you did to find out, that totally sucks and I wish you hadn’t had to go through that, but still, I’m glad you know. He was just a guy and not a very nice one. Brad’s cute and all but he knows it. But you, it was like you didn’t know how pretty you were. It was like you thought you were luckier to be with him than he was to be with you when that was the wrong way around. With Tate…” she trailed off and her eyes slid away.
“With Tate what?” I prompted.
Her eyes slid back. “You just seem… I don’t know… you. Like you can be Laurie, you can be yourself and it’s so cool that he’s into that, into you just as you are because, well, he is all that.”
I looked back at Tate. She was right; he was pretty much all that.
He was also other things.
“I have another man back at Carnal,” I blurted and heard my sister gasp.
Then she asked on a whisper, “What?”
I shook my head and turned toward her. “Carrie, it’s all messed up.”
“What’s messed up?”
I kept shaking my head while talking. “I don’t know, Tate and me, we met and we did not get along. Well, mostly, I didn’t get along with him. He said some things about me and I overheard him and they hurt and, even though he apologized, I didn’t accept and we bickered all the time and then, suddenly, poof.” I threw out my hand with the tumbler and grape Kool-Aid almost sloshed on my jeans shorts. “Tonia gets raped and murdered and we find out about it together and we aren’t bickering anymore, we’re like, so far away from bickering it isn’t funny. We’re something else completely.”
“Tonia gets raped and murdered?” she repeated, her eyes huge.
“Tonia,” I told her, nodding. “She worked for Tate and he fired her the night she got raped. And he wasn’t nice about it. He gets pissed and watch out. Stuff comes out of his mouth, that’s why he said I was fat and sorry-ass, because he was pissed.”
Her head jerked back and her eyes narrowed. “He said you were fat and sorry-ass?”
I nodded again. “He didn’t mean it. He has a bad temper. He says a lot of things he doesn’t mean when he’s pissed. I’ve seen it happen three times and he’s regretted it three times. He said those things to Tonia, right in front of everyone and she left the bar and that’s the last anyone saw of her conscious. Then she was dead. Tate was a mess… I mean, in a badass, biker, bounty hunter kind of way. He freaked out and took off after her murderer and he was gone for a month. That’s when Wood told me Tate was fucking his sister.”
“Tate is fucking Wood’s sister?” Caroline asked and I nodded.
“That’s what Wood said.”
“Wood?”
“The other guy I’m sleeping with,” I informed her and her eyebrows shot up.
“You’re sleeping with him?” she whispered, getting closer so, when she did, I got closer too.
“Not sleeping sleeping just, you know, sleeping and maybe fooling around a bit. He gets up early and I get home late –”
“Laurie!” she hissed. “How could you –?”
“I don’t know!” I hissed back. “Tate went out of town and he took me for a ride on his bike and he kissed me before he left. But he didn’t tell me he was going. He just said he wanted me on the back of his bike when he got back. But then he was gone. For a month. He didn’t call. Nothing. He just vanished. Then I got my car from Wood and he said he’d seen me on Tate’s bike and he didn’t want to tell me what he had to tell me because he wanted me to be on the back of his bike but then he told me Tate was with Neeta, Wood’s sister, and she’s married.”
“The back of his bike?” she asked, looking confused.
I shook my head. “I don’t know, I don’t get it. I think it’s biker slang for they want a date or something.”
“What did Tate say about what Wood said?”
This was the tricky part therefore I mumbled, “Um…”
“What?” she asked.
“I didn’t ask him,” I admitted. “When he got back…” I moved even closer, “Carrie, when he got back I think he came straight to me, straight to the bar, he grabbed my hand and pulled me into the hall and kissed me and told me he didn’t find Tonia’s killer but it was good to be home then I threw the whole Neeta thing in his face, he got pissed, said some nasty stuff and stormed off.”
“You threw the whole Neeta thing in his face, a big, badass man with a bad temper?”