feel bad. I just wanted to get this over with. To be done.
The hand he had on the counter inched closer to where mine was, and I wasn’t sure whether to look at it or at him as he said, in a voice too soft, “Look, I… I miss you, Len.”
I faced him again, expecting some level of tenderness to flood me, but getting nothing.
“I miss talking to you about shit.”
A hundred different examples of proof of how that couldn’t exactly be true and hadn’t been in a decade went right through my head, but I was proud of myself for keeping my mouth shut.
“I know that I’ve fucked up a lot. I know that I’ve said a lot of stuff to hurt you, but I love you.” His fingertips grazed mine, and I had to make sure not to look in the direction of Inspector Gadget or Pink Panther again as much as I wanted to.
“We’ve been through everything together,” he kept right on going, and I knew I was going to have to stop him because this little declaration was pointless. “No one knows me better than you, or ever will. I’m sorry, Lenny. For everything. I just… I don’t know. I got so mad at you for getting fucking pregnant. It felt like you cheated on me.”
Cheated on him? Okay.
My eyes strayed toward the table beyond, where I could see Grandpa Gus’s lips moving, probably talking shit—all right, not probably, for sure talking shit, this was Grandpa Gus after all—and Jonah nodding in response.
I had wanted these two to bond, and what the hell did they have to bond over?
Hating Noah.
I swear I didn’t understand my life sometimes.
“Lenny?”
He’d caught me. I glanced back at him and raised my eyebrows. “Yeah?”
“Are you listening?”
“Yeah. Mostly,” I told him the truth because, well… it was the truth. And if he looked butthurt about it, I didn’t know what to say.
He did look butthurt on second glance. His forehead was wrinkling, and he was frowning, insulted. “You don’t give a fuck about what I’m telling you?”
I couldn’t help but give him a long look as I thought about the two goobers sitting together. “It isn’t that I don’t care, Noah. I do. I care about you. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. But you telling me that you love me and that you’re sorry for the things that you’ve said….” I drew my hands up at my sides as I shrugged at him. “I will always love and care about you, frankly, and maybe I missed something, but we haven’t been in each other’s lives in forever.”
The fingertips on mine jerked away, and I couldn’t say I wasn’t glad.
“Noah, come on. You were here a year ago, but the only time you ever talked to me was when you wanted me to help you train.”
He opened his mouth like he was going to argue but shut it right back.
“But you don’t love me.”
“Yeah, I do,” he insisted, leaning forward, expression intense. “I always have.”
It was way too hard to keep a straight face. “No, you haven’t. Maybe you’ve convinced yourself that you do, but it isn’t real. If you’re going to feel that way about someone, it should be honest. It shouldn’t be because my daughter’s dad is here and you decided to get all possessive for no reason. You care about me, in your own way, but you don’t love me, Noah.”
My words weren’t sinking in. I could tell. “I’ve loved you my whole fucking life, Len!” he claimed, eyes moving around to see if anyone had heard him. I didn’t give a fuck if someone did, so I didn’t bother caring. “Always. There’s never been a fucking day when I didn’t.”
“You should’ve thought about that at some point before I was pregnant, and I wanted my friend around. When I needed some support and you made it out to seem like I was walking around with radiation poisoning. You called me a slut.” I gave him a smile that wasn’t a happy one by any means. “I needed you, and you left me. Not just now but years ago. I used to fucking take you to the hospital, Noah. I stayed with you the whole time, and that was when you needed stitches.”
He tipped his head back. “You’re going to bring that shit up? I was eighteen. I wanted to go away to school, and you’re still pissed off about that? I didn’t give you shit for