I don’t mind hitting clubs. The dance tunes can be fun, the flirty crowd energetic, but the last thing I feel like doing tonight—or have felt like doing any night the past six weeks—is socializing. Unfortunately, Sawyer’s bachelor party isn’t something I can miss.
We’re in an area at the side, lounging on a group of couches. Everything in this place is white. White walls and furniture, white floor, waitstaff all dressed in white. The second I walked in, I imagined Raven in here, her black ink and clothes and hair shocking against the neutral backdrop. I blinked the image away and ordered a beer.
Some of Sawyer’s employees are here, a handful of friends, all of them several drinks in. Laughs and taunts are tossed as Sawyer soaks up the attention. All I can manage is to hang on the periphery and try to look happy.
I should be happy.
My family has never been so solid. Josh has a job, earning money to help pay for school. He should hear any day about his application, but I have no doubt he’ll get in. Nikki is sleeping better, Colin even smiling when I walk in the door. Mom buzzes around the place, doting on everyone. I’m the only downer of the group. They shoot me sidelong glances, never prying. Except Josh. The one time he asked about Raven, I snapped so fast, he held up his hands saying, “Sorry, man. I’m here when you’re ready to talk.”
I’m nothing but a moody troll.
“If you nurse that beer any longer, I’ll attach a nipple to the top.” Sawyer grins down at me, Kolton behind him. They kick a guy off the couch kitty-corner to mine and take a seat.
Here it comes.
Kolton swirls his bourbon. “We’ve let you wallow long enough. It’s time you tell us what happened.”
“And if I don’t want to talk about it?”
Sawyer shrugs. “We call Alessi and stick you in an interview room and force you to watch thirty-six hours of Dora the Explorer.”
I rub my eyes. “You spend too much time with your nieces.” But I once threatened Sawyer with something similar. When he screwed things up with Lily, he dropped down a rabbit hole and pushed us away. It took a night out at a club like this to set him straight, along with a threat to book him at the station. The difference between us is he had to find a way to apologize and make up for the shitty things he’d done. Raven’s apologized plenty, but I haven’t been able to get my head straight.
The boys sip their drinks. They wait me out. The bass pounds in my chest, chasing my angst. Tired of pretending I’m okay, I finish the last of my beer and set it on the white coffee table. “Aside from the fact that I’d warned Raven about her sister, she invited Nikki over to her place. An apartment with drugs and a drug dealer. And when Raven’s sister got arrested, Raven planned to be her false alibi and asked me to go along with it.”
Kolton raises his voice over the music. “Sorry, man. That’s heavy.”
I barely glance at him. “So maybe you guys can lay the fuck off.”
He raises a hand in surrender. “Mind my hair when you go for the jugular.”
Neck tense, I sigh at my tone. Hostility seems to be all I can manage these days. I count to five before I go on. “Whatever I thought we had went out the window that day. I can’t plan a future with someone who thinks that little of me. Who would put my family at risk.”
Sawyer leans his elbows on his knees. “Did she know her sister was dealing?”
“No.”
“Did she apologize?”
“Yes.”
“Then how can you blame her for looking out for her family? I bet you would’ve offered Josh an alibi if things had been that simple.”
A fresh wave of anger has me seeing red. “You want to finish your drink before or after I break your face?”
“Dude…I’m getting married in two weeks. Don’t even joke about the face.” He runs a hand through his hair, all smiles, but I hiss out a breath, unsure why I’m shaking.
I’ve burned over my argument with Raven a thousand times. Tried to figure out why my rage has felt so wild. Uncontained. I’m furious her bad judgment had Nikki somewhere she could buy drugs. Pissed Raven thought I’d support her lie. I keep spinning back to her record as a teen, wondering if she’ll always choose to shirk the law. But this, right now, is something different. This fury is aimed at my own scowling face. Because Sawyer is right: I would have crossed that line for Josh. If it had been a simpler lie, I would have done it. Knew it that night with Raven. Hated myself for it. Didn’t want to admit it.
Could my inability to contact her the past month be that base? That childish?
I replay the argument in my mind, the moment she told me if the situation was reversed she would have supported me. That’s when I felt sick. Outrage at myself had flared. Embarrassment rose. I realized I would have broken the law for my brother and she was there, an easy target. I unleashed my guilt on her. What kind of man does that make me?
Kolton leans back and crunches on an ice cube. “I hate to say this, but I agree with Captain Immature. I know what toeing the line means to you, how hard you’ve worked at the rec center and your job and with your family. It doesn’t mean you’re infallible. And you certainly won’t meet a woman who is. When the dust settled, you should’ve talked it out with her. Tried to understand what drove her actions.”
Except I’m an asshole with an attitude. “If I’d opened my mouth, told her how pissed I was, I would’ve said mean shit that can’t be taken back. It was better to say nothing.”
Every time I’ve thought about calling Raven, my temper has flared. Like it did the day I laced into Josh for stealing from our mother. I still haven’t forgiven myself for the nasty things I said to him, insults that sent him running to the streets. As mad as I’ve been, I’d never forgive myself if I hurt Raven that way. I still could have dealt with things better.
“The girls are at a bar across the street,” Kolton says. “Why not start over tonight?”
My eyes flit to the entrance, as though I can see Raven through the walls. She could be there, laughing and flirting with some guy. The possibility guts me. I may have been confused and angry lately, but I’ve thought about her every morning and every night and endless hours in between. I’ve read her note a thousand times, scrolled through every one of her texts. I’ve stroked myself to thoughts of her, fast and rough, and it levels me each time. I can’t get over her, but facing her, forgiving her, means forgiving myself. I’m more fucked up than Josh ever was.
Instead of answering Kolton, I offer to get the next round.
I suck back my whiskey and order another. Then another. Kolton side-eyes me but doesn’t comment. The buzz hits fast. That’s what you get when you rarely drink the hard stuff. The music and banter and people blur, my smile no longer forced. At some point, Sawyer gestures to me. “A hundred bucks says King Kong drives his first porcelain bus.”
I’m not sure who replies, but I sway on my feet, happy to feel light. My heart has been so saturated, so soaked with barbed thoughts that I’ve coasted through the days, no idea how to wring it out without getting snagged. My workouts and runs have done nothing to ease my turmoil, but maybe there’s something to this alcohol thing.
An hour later, or possibly two, we’re on the street, the cold air like a shot of adrenaline. Sawyer grabs my shoulders—to steady himself, or maybe me. He blinks, his pupils blowing wide and shrinking as he focuses. “You’re an idiot.”
I laugh. After drink two, everything he’s said has been hilarious.
“No.” He shakes his head, a few too many times to be normal. “Like a real idiot. When I hurt Lily, I did it because I didn’t know who I was. I was worried I’d turn out like my family and fuck her over, but you”—he slaps a hand on my cheek—“you’re the opposite. You know exactly who you are, but you expect too much of others. Raven loves you, bro. She’s been a mess. At least as messy as she gets. Don’t lose her because she hurt your pride or whatever. If you expect everyone to be perfect, you’ll have one hell of a lonely life.” He squishes my face and pats my cheek then stumbles past me.
My boots mold to the cement. It could be the alcohol or wishing Raven would walk out the door across the street, but Sawyer makes more sense than usual. It brings Raven’s words after Tim and the Legion rushing back. She said something like that. Scoffed at the hard line I’d taken with the kid. Told me I was setting myself up for a life of disappointment. It’s exactly what I’ve done. Not forgiving Raven her mistakes isn’t choosing right over wrong. It’s cowardice. Expecting perfection from myself has left me unable to cope with the choices I almost made to free Josh, and I didn’t even fucking make them.
I’ve set myself up for failure.
I really am an idiot. Or drunk. Or both. Trying to rationalize why I’ve acted as I have is like searching murky waters. The boys shout beside me, hollering some nonsense. I look up, and my knees nearly give out. The girls are dancing across the street, Raven in a sandwich between Lily and Shay. I haven’t seen her in six weeks, and I lilt forward, her beauty magnetic. Or the whiskey is unsteady in my veins.
She’s in a mini skirt and high boots, a short leather jacket brushing her hips. Fuck, do I want to go over there and hoist her legs around my waist and kiss a thousand apologies into her mouth, but I can’t get my feet to move or my thoughts to work or my equilibrium to balance. Something changes, and she squeezes out from her girl sandwich as she pulls her phone from her pocket. Her face falls at whatever she reads, then she looks up.
At me.
I’m sorry, I want to holler. So damn sorry and confused and mad at her and myself, wishing I’d talked this out with her instead of shutting down, like I do. Always festering. Wish I’d found a way to curb my frustration and used the right, calm words to explain how her actions messed me up. Instead I sent her to the station alone to deal with Rose. She made a statement and closed the door on her sister’s case and their relationship without me by her side. I should have been there for her. Forgiven her. But I couldn’t see past my bruised ego and stringent ways.
Such an idiot.
I hold her black gaze as long as I can, but staying on this side of the street is an exercise in determination, and I can’t face her like this, sloppy drunk and filled with shame. I drop my head and find a cab. Tomorrow, in the light of day, my mind clearer, I’ll make sense of the decisions I’ve made. I’ll pull my head out of my ass and find a way to make things right.