And I tried. I tried so fucking hard to be the man she needed. The man she deserved. But like most things lately, the good didn’t last very long.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lila
The apartment was dark, the TV blaring as I stepped inside. I hung my jacket on the hook in the hallway and shook the rain out of my hair as I walked into the living room.
“Where have you been?” he asked without dragging his eyes away from the flat screen on the wall.
“I went to dinner with Sophie and Christy.”
“You went to dinner with your friends. And you didn’t think to consult me?”
“Consult you?” I turned on the table lamp next to the sofa. Jude flinched and held up his hand to ward off the brightness.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this was one of his bad days. I had to keep reminding myself to have patience. It would take some time to adjust and I couldn’t expect everything to be perfect. But he’d been home for nine months now and instead of getting better, everything was getting worse.
Red-rimmed eyes met mine. They were so vacant. So flat and empty.
The stubble on his jaw suggested that he hadn’t shaved in a week but the hair on his head was buzzed close to his scalp. I hated it. I longed to run my fingers through his hair but he kept shaving it.
He was wearing the same T-shirt and sweatpants he’d worn for the past three days. “Did you even leave the house today?”
He downed the rest of his beer and tossed the can on the coffee table with the other empties before cracking open another one and leaning back against the cushion, the remote in his hand. A crack of lightning lit up the dim room and thunder rumbled but it didn’t even faze me. I wasn’t scared of storms anymore. Not the ones that raged outside, anyway.
“In case you haven’t noticed, it’s a fucking swamp out there. Kind of hard to do roofing in the middle of a thunderstorm. Health and safety hazard, according to my old man.” Raucous laughter followed that statement, although I found nothing funny about it.
“Jude,” I said softly.
“Stop pretending you give a shit what the fuck I do.” He waved his hand in the air. “Just go do whatever you’re going to do. Don’t let me get in the way. Don’t worry about consulting me about a damn thing.”
I took a deep breath and prayed for patience, something I’d been having to do a lot of lately. “Last night I told you Christy and I were meeting Sophie for dinner. I invited you to join us.” I grabbed a garbage bag from the kitchen drawer and returned to the living room, tossing empty beer cans and junk food wrappers into it. “You weren’t listening. You were too busy playing video games. This afternoon, I called and texted you to let you know where I was going, but I got no answer.”
He had a weird thing about cell phones now. He hardly ever used his and probably didn’t even know where it was.
“That’s a fucking lie. You never told me. You didn’t ask if it was okay or if maybe I’d rather you spent the evening with me. Considering you’re never home. I never see you. You’re too busy making your little flower arrangements. You need to ask me before you do this shit, Lila.”
“I need to ask you for permission now? You didn’t consult me before you took off with your Marine buddies for three days and I had no idea where you were.”
“We went to a fucking funeral,” he shouted. “Not like I was off fucking strippers and snorting lines. It was a funeral, for fuck’s sake.”
“I know that, Jude. I know.” I gritted my teeth and took calming breaths so I didn’t say anything that would set him off. “It’s just... I wanted to be there for you. If you’d told me, I would have gone with you.”
“You didn’t even know him.”
“I talked to him on the phone. You told me all about him. I knew you were close. I would’ve been there for you.”
“Did you have anyone over while I was gone? Did you pick up a guy at a bar? Did you fuck him in the bed you share with me?”
My mouth gaped open. “Oh my God. I’ve never cheated on you, asshole.”
“Oh, I’m the asshole now. You’re the one who was flirting with Tyler at The Roadhouse and I’m the asshole.”
“I wasn’t flirting. We were just talking. He’s your friend.”
“About what? What were you talking about that required so much concentration?”
You. We were talking about you. And we were talking about Reese. But if I told him that, it would only upset him. “I don’t even remember. We were just talking.”
“I’m sick of this fucking bullshit.” He hurled the remote at the wall. “I’m sick of your lies.”
“And I’m sick of you flying off the handle at every little thing.”
“Every little thing, huh?”
“This isn’t what you promised me. This is not the life you promised, Jude. Where’s that dream house you were going to build, huh? We haven’t even looked at any land. We haven’t even looked at any houses to buy. We’re living in this shitty apartment and—”
“Oh, wait. Hold up. I seem to remember you once told me you’d live in a double-wide or a mud hut if it meant you could be with me. Change of heart, baby? This ain’t the paradise you bargained for?”
“If it meant I could be with you. Exactly. The Jude I fell in love with. The Jude I have loved for so long. Where is that guy? The guy who bought me chocolate and gave me his favorite hoodie. The guy who promised to put the stars back in the sky.
