Silence.
“You gonna answer me?”
Again. Silence. And then, “Who told you that?”
“Doesn’t matter where I heard it. Only matters if it’s the truth. Is it the fucking, truth?”
“Yes, but—”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. What kind of person does that? What kind of groundwork is being laid in the mind of a sixteen-year-old who would do that? You do know my mom never recovered from that, don’t you? She loved Axel. She still fucking loves Axel, and you destroyed that because I broke up with you? Is that why?”
“I was hurt, Boyd. And—”
“You were hurt?” Unbelievable. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
The silence in my ear was loud, and when she finally spoke, I barely heard her. “Everything is wrong with me.” She hung up, and that was that.
I turned into my driveway and cut the engine. I was breathing hard, like I’d just run a marathon. This was what anger looked like. I hopped out of the truck and resisted the urge to plant my fist into the steel door.
“What’s going on? You look like you want to hit something.” Bodhi had been at the barns. He’d always had a soft spot for animals, and when he was here, most of the time that was where he was. With the horses and goats and pigs.
“Nothing,” I said harshly. “Help me grab my gear.”
He reached into the truck and grabbed two guitar cases, while I got the other one along with the small practice amp I’d taken. I walked into the house, which was basically a cabin on steroids, and set them down before heading to the fridge and grabbing a beer. I damn near drained the bottle in one gulp and decided it wasn’t going to do the trick, so I trucked on over to the bar and grabbed a fresh bottle of whiskey. It burned like fire going down and was exactly what I wanted. I wanted to drink until I was numb. Bodhi grabbed the bottle from my hands and took a swig.
“Want to tell me what we’re drinking for?” he asked, watching me closely.
I swiped my hand across my mouth and scowled. “Nope.”
He took another chug and handed me back the bottle. “I’m guessing Echo has something to do with it.”
I took another hit from the bottle and let the fire settle once more. I decided there and then that I was going to get rip-roaring drunk and maybe think about things in the morning.
“What’d she do this time?” Bodhi walked back to the kitchen and grabbed himself a longneck. He twisted off the cap and settled his blue eyes on me. They were the color of the Caribbean. So blue they pierced. And sometimes he freaked me the hell out because it felt like he could see right inside me. I studied him for a few seconds and then thought, what the fuck? Maybe he could shed some light. Give a different perspective.
“Do you know why Mom and Axel split?”
“Um.” He scratched his head and shrugged. “She cheated on him? Isn’t that the story?”
“Apparently, she didn’t.”
His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Seems like Echo made it up. Along with the cocaine in her purse.”
“Who told you that?” He didn’t seem surprised, and that pissed me off. Was I the only one blind to Echo’s faults? To the fact that she was a vindictive animal with a mean streak bigger than anyone I knew?
“Georgia.”
“Ah, Georgia. That figures.”
I was confused. “Why aren’t you as pissed off as I am?”
“Probably because I didn’t spend the weekend in bed with Echo Mansfield.”
I growled like an animal and took a step forward. But I had nothing to say to that because it was the truth.
Bodhi nailed me with one of those looks, the kind that pierces skin and gets to the bones of the thing. “Look. That summer, a lot of shit went down. Shit you don’t know about because you were too busy screwing Echo.” He shrugged. “Mom was struggling. She always liked the snow, and she tried to quit for Axel, but man, I gotta tell you, she was using.”