tell me the neckline plunged so low. I don’t know how I’d have survived sitting next to her all night without wanting to get my mouth on her bare skin.
She’d worn her hair down, too, in soft golden waves that looked like silk. When I took her in my arms, I’d breathed in the scent of it and wanted to stop time.
I was so fucking angry at myself for hurting her. Had I made things worse by showing up here tonight? I’d only wanted to tell her I was sorry, make sure she knew how I felt. I didn’t want her going back to DC thinking I was a callous asshole that didn’t care. I’d thought that by telling her I loved her, somehow it would absolve me.
But it hadn’t. If anything, I’d only made it harder to let her go.
Fury and self-loathing surged through me. “Fuck this,” I said, storming out of the room. Spying a back exit, I headed for it, glad I wouldn’t have to run into anyone on my way out. Because fuck everyone. Fuck this week, the mistakes I’d made, the friendship I’d ruined, the heart I’d shattered.
Fuck my own heart too.
And fuck love.
Despite the fact that I had to get up for work in about six hours, I drove straight to a dive bar on the outskirts of town, parked myself on a stool, and proceeded to get stinking drunk. I talked to no one, and no one dared talk to me. If I sensed anyone even looking in my direction, I gave them a piss off stare. I wanted to be alone with my misery. I wanted to numb this pain and punish myself for what I’d done.
By last call, I was good and fucked up, slurring my words as I ordered one last whiskey.
“Okay. And then I’m gonna call you a cab, deputy.” The bartender gave me a no-bullshit look. “No driving for you.”
“I can call my own cab,” I scoffed, irritated I’d been recognized. Couldn’t I even go out and get shitfaced like a regular guy? “I don’t fucking need anyone to do anything for me.”
The guy poured my whiskey and set it in front of me. “Suit yourself.”
I yanked my phone from my pocket and was just about to get myself a ride home when I noticed that fucking bastard I’d interviewed at the hospital standing near the door, drinking a beer and laughing.
Something took over me, and I couldn’t stop myself. Fueled by righteous anger and a fuck ton of whiskey, I crossed the floor in three long, angry strides and spun him around by the shoulder.
“This is for your daughter, asshole,” I snarled before throwing my fist at his face. A sickening crack told me I’d likely broken his nose, but that didn’t stop me from moving in again and delivering a violent jab to his solar plexus, which sent him over backward, gasping for air. I stood over him threateningly. “And that was for me.”
Someone grabbed me before I could do any more damage, and I was tossed into a back office and told to sit down and stay quiet.
I threw myself into a chair and flopped forward over the desk, wondering if I’d wrecked my friendship with Meg and my career in one day.
Then I passed the fuck out.
A couple hours later, I was handed a cardboard cup of coffee, driven home by another deputy in the sheriff’s department, and told to take tomorrow off. Lucky for me, this would all be swept under the rug. The responding officers, friends and co-workers of mine, had told the jerk-off I’d hit to go home and shut up, and assured me the agency would pretend the whole thing had never happened.
But I knew I’d fucked up. And I felt like shit—not for punching the guy, because he’d deserved it, but for losing control.
This was why you couldn’t let emotions drive you. They were dangerous. They made you weak.
Exhausted and miserable, I trudged up the stairs and fell into bed, my heart and my head and my hand aching.
Tomorrow was going to suck.
But at least she’d be gone, and I could go back to being who I was before.
No matter how much it hurt.
Twenty-Eight
Meg
April drove me to the airport after the wedding brunch, which I barely touched.
“Did you sleep at all?” she asked, her voice full of sympathy.
I shook my head and took a sip from a travel mug full of hot black coffee, which Sylvia had thrust into