She waited, patiently.
“I actually kind of snuck out on them without saying goodbye.”
“Oh,” she nodded, clearly having an opinion, but sensing his need to say more.
“Even though you witnessed Buck’s level of pissed, I know that’s going to be nothing compare to what I’ll face from Mason and Kyle.”
“Because you left without a word?” Tabitha questioned, leaping back aboard and tossing him his two duffels, followed by hers.
Spencer loved that Tabitha was jacked enough to handle his belongings. He had two years’ worth of shit stuffed in hisbags, and she hadn’t even grunted when picking them up and “yeeting” them over.
Bringing his thoughts back to Mace and Kyle, hehopedthey’d quickly get over being pissed, but he wouldn’t put money on it. He tried to explain.
“Yeah, that. They weren’t like my other brothers, far away or deployed where it wouldn’t make much of a difference. They will have felt it harder; like they should have been consulted on whatever plans I’d made. They were local, and I know, from what my parents said, they took my disappearance personally.” Spencer stated thoughtfully. “You have to understand, we were a big part of each other’s everyday lives. We hung out together—dinner almost every night and hitting the bar scene on weekends. Before he met up with his wife, Kyle and I actually shared an apartment.”
Tabitha nodded her head while they walked down the pier to the boat-rental office, but paused to ask a succinct question. “Did either of them feel bad when they started dating, and weren’t able to go out withyouas much anymore?” she questioned.
“Well, no,” Spencer answered, his brows drawing together. “But that’s different. They found the women they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with, so I became sort of…superfluous.”
“I’ll bet they apologized for that,” Tabitha probed adroitly.
“Uh, no?” Spencer thought hard. “But what happened with them seemed like such a natural transition, I never blamed them for leaving me behind.”
“But they did. Leave you behind, I mean. Mentally, at least. Neither of them asked you to come live with them or anything, and you stopped seeing them for dinners and meetings at your regular watering holes.”
“Yes, but…” Spencer trailed off. He’d never looked at his downward spiral into, “where the hell is my life going?” quite like that. If Mason and Kyle had continued to be his constant buddies, would he have ended up feeling so…adrift?
He sussed things out, aloud. “I guess I can see how the situation might be construed that way,” he eventually admitted as their feet stopped outside the office they’d been approaching. “Maybe subconsciously I did feel like I’d been…kicked to the curb.”
She gave him a quick, spontaneous hug. “Not any more, Spencer. You have your own, one-woman support crew now. And hold that thought. I’m going to pay, then we can go get a motel room.” She bussed a quick kiss across his lips, dropped her duffel which she’d insisted on carrying, and went inside.
Her probing reassurances, her physical actions, and the mention of motels perked Spencer up.
Sure, it was going to suck, confronting his brothers, but he’d be shacked up with Tabitha, which would go a long way toward making his situationmorethan bearable.
It took only a few minutes before Tabitha emerged, this time dangling her car keys. “I had the office hold onto these so I wouldn’t lose them in the drink,” she chuckled. “It’s a precaution I take after I had it happen once. Andonce, is one time too many. Trying to explain what happened to the car-rental place was a nightmare,” she grimaced, walking them toward a?—
Oh, hell no.That wasnotgoing to be their ride. There was no way the two of them, plus their bags, would fit into that itty-bitty shitbox.
“Why did you stop?” Tabitha asked, her feet coming to a halt as she turned around to look at him.
“We’re not getting in thatthing.” He pointed to the sub-sub-compact.
Tabitha sighed and gave a rueful chuckle. “I know. I thought the same thing when I got stuck with it. But it was all the agency had when I flew into Logan.”
“What company did you use?” he asked.
She named a prominent firm.
Good.If things hadn’t changed in two years, Spencer knew there was an office in Searsport.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” he offered.
When she didn’t give him any argument, he continued.
“We’re going to take an Uber to the rental agency, hand them the keys, and tell them where they can find their car. Then we’re going to take the same Uber to the impound lot at the police station in Bangor where I used to work, where we’ll pick up my truck. After that we’ll find a motel nearby.”
Being in Bangor would be better than staying in Searsport. Bangor was much closer to his family.
