“I don’t understand—”
“I think you do.” She pauses and the silence eats up the distance. “Waiting a lifetime for someone to love you back is not a happy and healthy way to live.”
“Cathy . . .”
“Yes, I know. You love her. In your own special way. But your love is looking backward to the past instead of looking forward to the future. She deserves the forward, Vince.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
You’re right.
You’re wrong.
I wish I could, but I can’t.
“You’re a good man, but at some point, you have to get off the roller coaster.” She sniffles, and I swear to God the sound hurts just as much as her words do because she’s right. All of it.
She’s fucking right.
I can’t love Bristol the way she deserves to be loved. Isn’t that why I walked away in the first place? Isn’t that why I’m not putting up a fight right now?
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I’m the one who has to help her pick up the pieces. After she sees you. After she catches you on the TV. After she hears you on the radio. After . . . after this last time.”
Can’t blame her. You blocked her fucking number. You cut her off because you couldn’t deal with wanting a woman you couldn’t have. For loving a woman who deserved more. For doing exactly what her mom is saying you’re doing.
“If you love her, the way I think you do, then you need to let her go.”
“Jennings? You’re sprung.”
“Fuck,” I groan as I sit up. My head feels like Gizmo is using it for a kickdrum. It should be a crime for them to take your sunglasses in here.
“Lucky you,” my cellmate says.
“Eat shit.”
“You first, you grumpy fuck.”
I shuffle out of the hallway, take the bag of my belongings they hold out to me, and do a double take when I walk into the waiting room and see Hawkin standing there.
What the fuck?
My expression must say as much because he says, “Were you that drunk that you don’t remember calling me to bail your sorry ass out?”
I scrunch up my nose and give a shake to my head. I did?
“I take that as a yes.” He chuckles. “Even you can’t talk your way out of those guys pressing charges.”
“I don’t remember much.”
“You did a number on them.” He points to my hands and sure enough, they’re bruised and bloody.
A chair breaking comes back to me. The crunch of my fist connecting with a nose.
“The fuckers were asking for—”
“Save it for outside. You don’t want whatever it is you’re going to say posted all over the fucking place.” He puts a hand on my back and pushes me forward. “Bail’s paid. Let’s go.”
“Wait.” I scrub a hand over my face. “There’s something I need to do first.”
“Like what? Kiss your cellmate goodbye?” he jokes.
“More like post the fucker’s bail.”
“Fine. Go ahead. I’ll wait. But just a warning. You’re going to want to put those sunglasses on and pull that hat down or be prepared to say cheese when we walk out the doors. Word’s already out.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Vince
I cross my ankles in the bed of the truck and lean against the cab at our backs. It’s that time of morning before the sun rises when the sky and the ocean are the same damn color, and you don’t know where one ends and the other begins. The seagulls’ squawking is ridiculously loud. Errant cars come in the lot every couple of minutes. They park and surfers get out, coffees in hand, wetsuits on the ready, and shoot the shit like they belong to some club I sure as fuck don’t want to be a part of.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Hawkin finally asks. He picks up the bottle cap from his beer and tosses it into the case beyond our feet.
“Nah. Not really.”
“Classic Jennings response. Good to see that hasn’t changed.”
“You’re the one who kidnapped me and is refusing to take me back to my place.”
“Kidnapped?” He shakes his head. “How about saved your ass when I shouldn’t have?”
“Semantics.”
“There are videos, Vin. From the bar. From your arrest. Leaving the station. That fancy new PR company you hired is going to need to do a lot of cleanup.”
“Or not. I’m an asshole. Isn’t that common knowledge by now?”
“I’m not taking the bait. Last time I did, I lost my best friend.” He pauses, his words hitting me as hard as that fucker did at the bar. “If you want to talk, then I’ll listen. If you want to tell me to shut the fuck up . . . then say it.”
I blow out a sigh. “I don’t know what I want anymore.”
“Fair enough.” He pops the top off a beer and hands it to me. “Hair of the dog and all that.”
After a long, hard stare, I shake my head. “Nah. I’m pretty sure I consumed my fair share last night.”
“Point taken.”
Another car pulls into the lot a few spaces down. Their music is loud and their engine sounds like shit. I watch the guy driving lean over and kiss the girl in the passenger seat.
My stomach twists.
Last night—the part of it before the bar—replays in my head. Her tears. The break in her voice. The hurt in her eyes.
You did that to her.
Forgiving myself isn’t an option.
“Talk to me about Bristol.”
I whip my head in his direction, but he just stares at the ocean beyond like this is an everyday conversation we have.
“What about her?”
“You mentioned her when you called me last night.”
“And what did I say?”
He chuckles and it feels like sandpaper in my eardrums. “You tell me.”
“Jesus, Hawke. Really?”
He turns his head and studies me. “Why are you trying so hard to fuck shit up for yourself?”
A smart-ass quip is on my tongue, but I let it die. It seems I’ve done enough damage to the people I love in my life. The problem is, I’m sitting at the bottom of a well and have no goddamn clue how to climb out of it. I don’t know how to do life solo. I don’t know how to go through life feeling so untethered. I’ve taken her with me everywhere for over a decade, but I’m not sure I can do that anymore.
And Bristol’s words keep coming back to me.
“I love you, Vince, but we can’t keep doing this. I deserve more than a piece of you every couple of years. No one’s to blame. Not you. Not me. It’s just the way we were probably meant to be. Your different is your beautiful too, Vince. It always has been. It always will be.”
And then her mom’s, which is strange considering I haven’t thought about that conversation in years.
“I’m the one who has to help her pick up the pieces. After she sees you . . . if you love her, the way I think you do, then you need to let her go.”
Why I try so hard to fuck shit up is what Hawke wants to know, though. So, I answer him with honesty.
“Seems I’m good at it.”
“Or it’s a convenient excuse. Beats having to face what you’re most scared of—people caring about you.” When I go to refute him, he just holds up his hand to stop me. “I don’t want to hear it. You pushed me away. You’ve always pushed her away. The question is why.”
“I’m dealing with a lot of shit.”
“Alone. When you don’t have to.”
I nod. My bruised hands are easier to look at than my best friend. I’m lucky I didn’t break any fucking bones. If I had, that would’ve royally screwed up my ability to play guitar for some time. “There are just some things I need to do. Need to prove to myself that I can do.”
“I can respect that. But then what, Vin? What’ll you have to come back to if you set fire and burn the world around you?”
I’m not pushing you away.
I’m protecting everyone from me.
“No response needed.” He pounds a fist on the side of the truck. “This conversation is way too touchy-feely for this goddamn early in the morning. Before I’ve had my coffee.” He points to my cell that keeps buzzing against the truck bed, text after text from McMann. “You better call that prick back or he’s going to blow a gasket.”
“Might be more entertaining to watch if he does.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO