she is there. Two of her. I blink until the two visions join into one. Penny. Beautiful Penny, wearing a little white coat with a furry hood. She looks like an angel.
For a moment I think she may have come for me, to tell me she made a mistake. I take a few steps down. But then I see the case in her hand. She sets it on the bar and says, “I came to give this back to you.”
I look at it without interest and turn around to go back up the stairs.
“Luke.” Her voice is louder now.
I turn around. “What?”
She lowers the hood and bites on her lip. “Well. Um. I’m going to Massachusetts in January. I got a job up there. I just wanted to tell you that, well . . . I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” I repeat the words, because they sound so fucking wrong. Again and again. She’s sorry. How?
I push forward and stalk over to her, slamming the tequila bottle down on the bar so hard that she flinches.
I get up close to her and wipe my mouth with my hand. “I’m sorry for a lot of things in my life, but I’ll never be sorry for one minute I spent with you. Not one minute of it. Because that was the only fucking time in my life I was actually doing something right. When I was falling in love with and loving you.”
She stares at me, her face pale.
“Regardless of what those clips show, I didn’t fuck Charity. I didn’t even touch her. I swear I didn’t look at another woman. Because I was so into you. You were in my veins from the minute I saw you in line at the audition, reading that big textbook. You have to be out of your mind to think that any woman on that stage could even hold a candle to you. It’s been you from the minute I laid eyes on you.”
“But . . . ,” she whispers, her brow wrinkling. “I know I was wrong. I know you can’t forgive me.”
I try to shake my head, but even that small movement makes me dizzy. I still myself against the end of the bar and try to focus on her so I don’t end up falling over. “What’d I tell you? You’re never wrong with me. Never. There’s nothing to forgive.”
She just stands there, like she can’t decide whether to stay or go.
I pick up the case, grab her hand, and shove it into her palm, closing her fingers around it. “And I don’t want this. I don’t want the ring unless I have you. You, wearing it. That’s the only thing that makes sense. Goddamn it.” I wipe at my face because now my vision’s bending and I’m fucking drunk off my ass, blubbering to her. “But that can’t happen, so just get the fuck out.”
“But . . . the money? You’re not angry about me because of the money?”
I scrub my hands over my face. “I couldn’t give two shits about the money. I’m gonna lose all my winnings. I wasn’t supposed to disclose what fucking assholes they were and all the inner workings of the process, so now I’m in violation of the contract, and there’s some lawsuit coming up and I got to get a lawyer. My bar’s in foreclosure, and everything is shit. So really, you made a damn smart decision running away from me.”
“Oh. I’m sorry,” she says again, in that sweet little voice that tears me apart. There’s pity in her eyes, and I don’t fucking want it.
“Like I said. I’m not. I’m only sorry we couldn’t last like I wanted. Have fun in Massachusetts.”
I go back to the staircase, and she calls, even more panicked than before, “Luke! Please . . .”
I hang my head and brace my hands against the wall to stop the room from spinning. “Please what? What the fuck do you want me to do?”
I don’t know how long it takes her to bridge the distance, but suddenly she’s beside me, pulling me into her arms, and I’m powerless to resist. She takes my face in her hands, and then she’s kissing my face, my cheeks, my forehead, gently. She’s kissing me like I’m this sad little child and she wants to take care of me.
“Don’t do this to me,” I beg her, dragging in her scent, again and again. She smells like baby powder and toothpaste and that shampoo, and her lips