“Really? You packed to go out? How worried are you about your mom?” I chuff, adjusting the temperature of the fire.
She marches up to me and points a finger at me as she stares down at where I am crouching. “You don’t get to judge me. You don’t get to talk about my mother. Your days of insulting me or caring, or whatever the fuck you do, are over. Stay away from me. And keep my mother’s name out of your mouth. You’ll just soil it with all the hate in your heart.” Everly turns on her heel, grabs her purse off the tan loveseat, and slams the door, leaving me in the vibrations of the aftermath.
I rub my hands together and put them near the fire to try and get warm. Her words run over and over again in my head. She is right. I hold a lot of hate and resentment in my heart toward her, but I don’t hate her. I hate what she did to me, to us, to the rare friendship we had. This has to stop. I can’t take it anymore. It’s time to let her go and put the past behind me because the pain controls every decision I make.
We are different people now. Making it work would be like trying to get oil and vinegar to mix. Impossible.
I sigh when I stand, knees already cracking at the ripe old age of twenty-five and take my phone out of my vest to dial Gray and give him an update. While the phone rings, I walk over to the bar and pour myself a scotch.
“Hey, bro-cha-cho,” he greets, bringing a smile to my face.
Sighing, I bring the scotch to my lips. “Hey, man.”
He whistles low, “I know that tone. That bad?”
I let a moment of silence take a beat and sip my drink again. I have no idea what to say. I called him for a reason.
“No luck finding your dad or Barbara?” he asks.
“No. Nothing. We just got back from the search. It’s fucking cold, Gray. The snow is deep and just getting worse. There is no way they are alive. It’s impossible.”
“Hey, humans used to live in fucking caves and shit and made fire with rocks and twigs. Give them more credit. You’d be surprised what people can do when they need to survive.”
“I hope you’re right,” I plop down on the couch and watch the flames lick the logs.
Gray must have leaned back in his chair because the familiar squeak of that damn thing is in the background. “How are things with Everly?”
Just the sound of her name has me rubbing my temples from the onset headache she causes. “Just fucking peachy. On top of everything else.”
“You guys haven’t talked yet?”
“We did a little,” I say, murmuring around the rim of my glass.
“You had sex with her,” he says with awe, but not shock. “I’m not surprised. The sexual tension between the two of you is sizzling. What’s the problem? Was it bad?”
I snort into my drink, and it spews out of the glass, burning my nostrils and my throat. “No. It never is or was. I said something I shouldn’t have, and now we are on the outs, for good now. It’s what is best; I haven’t forgiven her for what she did.”
“Because you haven’t asked her why she did it.”
“I have too, Gray. She hasn’t told me.” I chug the rest of my drink and pour myself another glass.
“Hmm, well, where is she now?”
I clutch my glass too hard, and it shatters right in my palm. Scotch and sharp shards of glass hit the floor, but not before soaking my hand and leaving cuts all over my skin.
“Fuck.” I shake my hand to get the scotch off because that shit burns, but that is a bad idea because it also flings blood everywhere. Great.
“So, she is somewhere you don’t want her to be? Got it,” he continues.
I run to the bathroom, phone to my shoulder so I can use my uninjured hand to hold my other wrist to try and keep my palm up. I don’t want to spill any more blood. I turn on the silver faucet with my elbow and shove my hand under the running water and hiss from the pain.
“I don’t care where she is, what she does, or who she does.” That is a damn lie. If she is with someone else, and they make her feel how I make her feel, moaning, coming, screaming, I will lose my fucking mind.
It isn’t my business. It really isn’t, but at the same time, the hell it isn’t!
“You’ve always been a really bad liar.”
“Gray, I’m not in the mood to talk about it.” I’m really not. I’m plucking pieces of glass out of my palm, and I reek of scotch now. I didn’t even get to enjoy the expensive liquor...
“You never are. Well, just to let you know, while you’re up there, sipping your emotions away, she is chatting it up with some guy. Because she is. Everly is gorgeous. You can’t really think she is down there nursing a beer without attention.”
I squeeze my fists again and hiss, forgetting I currently have glass in one. “I’m going to get off here. I need to go to bed early. The snowstorm comes soon, and if we don’t find my dad or Barbara before it hits…”
“Then you aren’t going to,” he sighs. “Man, I’m so sorry. I hope you find them. Keep me updated, okay?”
“Yeah, will do.” I bring my head off my shoulder and catch my phone before it falls to the ground
