Pushing His Luck - Rhyannon Byrd Page 0,8
know that you fucking gutted her.”
“Christ, we’ve never even been on a date!” he snarled, his frustration with the entire goddamn nightmare getting the better of him.
“And you never will be now,” Sean muttered with a low, humorless laugh. “Not after that shit.”
He bit out a choked curse, unable to hide how badly that prediction cut, even over the phone. And his brother was too sharp to miss it.
With a rough sigh, Sean said, “Look, I know you. There’s not a chance in hell you would have finally made a move on Karin unless you were serious about wanting to get to know her better. Unless you were interested, period, in taking things to another level. You don’t mess around with women like her, and I know you wouldn’t have been thinking about her as nothing more than a fun hook-up to blow off some steam with. So you asked her out, and then turned into a massive dick. Now it’s time to stop hiding behind your booze and bad attitude and finally tell me why.”
Shit, the guy was right. About all of it. But no way in hell was he talking any of this crap out with him. Instead, he muttered, “I’m toxic, man. She doesn’t need that shit.”
Silence, while Sean worked his words through his head. And then a gruff, “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Look, it’s no great mystery, so you don’t have to waste time worrying when you could be enjoying life with your woman. But that’s not the life I want. All I really give a shit about is my job. I’m too much of a selfish prick to ever do a relationship.”
More heavy silence, and then Sean quietly said, “Why do I get the feeling you’re just repeating things that have been said to you?”
He exhaled a rough breath, mentally shutting a heavy metal door on the shitty wave of guilt that tried to slam into him. One that had nothing to do with Karin, but everything to do with his recent spiral into the festering mental pile of shit he was currently living in. “What difference does it make?”
Sean snorted like a know-it-all. “A big one, you idiot.”
Bitterness sharpened his words. “I don’t want to hurt her, okay? Leave it at that.”
“Yeah, well, you should have thought about that before you brought that girl to the bonfire.”
“Fuck,” he cursed, scrubbing his free hand down his face again. Just fuck tequila and the bastard pony it rode in on. Though he knew it was his own damn fault for drinking to the point that he allowed his inner asshole to start making significant decisions about his behavior. That shithead had never had a good idea in his entire life.
“But,” Sean went on, sounding more concerned than angry, “if you mean you don’t want to get close to her and then break her heart, my vote’s with that crap not happening.”
Christ, now Sean was trying to be his armchair therapist. Why couldn’t his friends and family just accept that he was a dick and move on?
“I’m not relationship material and you know it,” he muttered, sounding resigned. And bone-deep tired. “My job comes first and it’s always going to. That’s not going to change for any woman, bro, no matter how gorgeous she is.”
“If it’s the right woman, you’ll find the balance you need to make things work. For fuck’s sake, Paul, just open your eyes. You deserve something good in life, man. You’ve been an asshole lately, but you’re still a goddamn hero.”
This time, he was the one snorting. “Hardly.”
“So you’re going to let some other guy move in on your girl?”
He sucked in a sharp breath. “What?”
“Hah!” He could practically hear Sean smirking over the connection. “That got your attention.”
“Eat a dick,” he forced through his clenched teeth.
Sean snickered like a jackass. “If I swung that way, it sure as hell wouldn’t be with a surly bastard like you, even if we weren’t related. I’d go for a redhead, like my Nat.”
Shaking his head with frustration, even though his brother couldn’t see him, he asked, “Is Karin dating anyone or not, you prick?”
“I don’t fucking know. But if she isn’t, she sure as hell should be. After the shit her ex put her through, she deserves—”
“What shit?” he cut in, getting a sick feeling in his gut. He knew their marriage must have had its issues, seeing as how they were no longer together. But he’d never heard her complain about