I knew walking away from her would be hard. Keeping her away is proving more challenging than I planned. I know what the asshole is capable of and she deserves so much more than that. I swallow down more alcohol and savor the burn as it eases down my throat.I don’t deserve her either.Maybe I can deserve her. I can clean up my act and turn this shit train around. For her, maybe I can.
I amble down my long driveway to my automatic gate and punch in the code to open it, and walk out into the main road. The security lights flick on and my yard shines like it’s fucking day light. It’s a façade—the perfect house and cars, and then me with my almighty career. None of it means anything. I’m a fucking puppet controlled by addiction and guilt. The road tonight is deserted, not a car in sight. Taking another huge sip from the bottle, I sit down in the middle of the fucking road.
“What the fuck now?” I scream to the damn stars. The whiskey warms my stomach and the familiar drunk sensations start coursing through my numbing body. It’s the feeling I’m after. It erases. “What the hell do I do now, Stone?” I whisper. I speak to everything and nothing at the same time.
Leaning back, I let gravity pull me down until I’m lying, shirtless, on the cold rough pavement. One hand on the bottle, I shut my eyes praying for a huge, heavy truck to come barreling down the road. I’m so sick of the pain. I’m sick of forgetting he’s gone. I’m sick of reliving his death over and over like fuckingGroundhog Day.Tonight I add I’m sick of seeing Windsor from afar, but mostly I’m sick of everyone saying how lucky I am.
I tip the bottle to my lips without spilling a drop. “When does my fucking luck get to run out?” I shut my eyes when a pair of headlights register and tighten my hold on the bottle. It’ll break it any second…the whiskey bottle…and me.
A car door slams. Someone approaches. “Get out of the freaking street right now!” Windsor yells. I’ve never heard her so angry, lethal. I open my eyes. She’s standing over me, eyes wide like some sort of rabid angel.
With the headlights beaming I can’t see the blue of her eyes and I wish I could. It’s the only thing that chases away the bad. She came after me. Windsor is here. I’m not looking at her from afar, or spying on her when she has no fucking clue I’m around. She’s here.
“I said get out of the fucking street, Maverick!” She’s also furious.
With great fucking effort I sit up. The alcohol owns the gravity. It wants me down. Windsor reaches down and helps me to stand and hobble over to her car, and then into the passenger seat. I lean against the leather seat and close my eyes.
“How is it possible you got that drunk since you left my condo? What the fuck is wrong with you? I came straight here. Did you drink a few bottles on your jog home? Jesus, Maverick. Seriously, what’s wrong with you?” I hear her tears coming. I’m scaring her.
I let my head roll to face her and open my eyes. “You,” I say.
She slams the brake pedal and I jerk forward, slamming my face on her dash. Bitch move. “Bullshit,” she whispers, a smile gently playing on her lips. “You do this to yourself. I’m sick of you blaming everyone else for it.” She pulls into my driveway and stops in the parking spot she always used to park in. I don’t even try to get out. She opens my door a few seconds later. “Your face is bleeding. Fabulous.”
I ignore the blood—I can’t feel it. “I can’t believe you’re with him,” I say, because it’s the only lucid thought I have. Thankfully I can see her blue eyes now. A little of the pain in my chest diminishes.She’s not yours.I take a deep breath to calm my nerves and my stomach.
“I’m not with him,” she replies, pulling me out of her car and helping me into the house. Her hands are all over me so I take my time, relishing in being this close to her. It surely won’t last long. “I told you I forgave him and I’m merely giving him a second chance for a friendship…or possibly more, depending,” Windsor stutters, pushing me down into a leather chair.
I catch onto her hesitance immediately. Even drunk Maverick wants her confessions. It’s uncanny how quickly I can sober up enough to hear what she has to say. I can’t believe this is how it’s going down. I finally get her back in my fucking house and it’s nothing I considerideal. I never pictured this scenario. Her coming to me. I wrote it off because I thought she wrote me off. I should have known better. She’s too good.
“Depending on what?” I slur.
Her gaze slides all over my body. Her pupils dilate as she forces her lips into a firm line. I throw my arms out to the side, propping them on the arms of chair. May as well give her the view she wants. I smile the big fucking smile.
She pulls off my sweaty running shoes and tosses them across the room. She says, “I’m offering you friendship—if you want it.”
“Depending on what?” I ask again. She rolls her eyes. It’s infuriating because I see how much she’s hiding even in my piss drunk state. “This again? I thought you got over this. If you want it, say you want it. You know what? Just fucking take it, Windsor. Take it. Take it all,” I hiss. Windsor shakes her head, still not speaking. “You want my body? My mouth? Just fucking take them, will you? You already have the one thing that I give a shit about.” I thump my fist on my chest, right on my tattoo. “But you’re too damn naïve to see that. Aren’t you? God forbid you see anything other than what you want to see.”
She looks unaffected by my words. I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad. She leaves for the kitchen and comes back holding a glass of water and a damp cloth.
She presses the cloth against my bleeding forehead. “Actually I see perfectly clear. Any ounce of naïveté I had fled the second you left me. It’s friendship or nothing. It doesn’t matter what I want or what you’re trying to offer. That’s it,” she exclaims. “Take it or leave it?” She shoves the glass into my hand. I drain it quickly.
Why did I drink? Why can’t I be completely sober right now?I’m a fuck-up. I swallow down the bitterness and narrow my eyes at her.
“I can’t be your friend, Windsor. I’m supposed to watch you date…fall in love? Then what? Get married? I can be your best man? It’s not in my nature to stand by and watch other people take what’s mine. I look at you and I want you. I wake up and I want you. I breathe and I want you. How do you suppose I go about being friends with the only person I’ve ever wanted?”
Windsor’s eyes widen and her pink bottom lip drops down. “You said you…were done. That you didn’t feel that way about me anymore.”
I shake my head. “No I said blow me. You never asked if I still loved you. I never stopped. You’re giving him another chance. Give me one, too.”
She springs at me, finger pressed into my chest, face so close to mine I can smell her hair. “No. You don’t get to say stuff like that anymore. I know you’ve been through hell, but you get to make the decisions in your life. You’re making bad ones.” Windsor breaks her gaze and looks to the glass spread on the floor from my earlier outburst. Shaking her head, she whispers, “I can’t watch you destroy yourself. It’s not fair to ask me to,” she says, voice breaking the second her anger dissipates.
She’s breaking down. Her mother. She watches her mother do this same thing to herself, and I’m the asshole serving her second helpings. I stand up, pulling every ounce of sober Maverick from his hiding place. Her breathing speeds up.
“Do you still love me?” I’ll change. I’ll pull it together if she picks me. If she says yes, I’ll do anything.
“If I say yes, will you let me go?”
Anything except that. Her eyes are sad. I cup her face in my hand. It’s so soft compared to the hardness in her eyes. She’s asking me to let her go. Like I haven’t been trying for four entire months.
