The Hustle (Irreparable 4)

“I don’t want you to be her. I want you to be your perfect, beautiful, amazing self. I haven’t told you I love you because deep down, I know I always have. And that makes me feel like that little boy’s mother died in vain and that fucking guts me. If I just stayed with you and loved you like I wanted to, Maria would still be alive.”

Her expression doesn’t change at all. I’m not even certain she heard me until her eyebrows lift. “That’s awfully convenient isn’t it? I know you feel guilty, but don’t use him or Maria as an excuse. You made a choice and you don’t get to change it.”

She knows nothing about the choices I’ve made and what I live with every day. Her condescending tone and the way she looks at me like she’s solved some riddle brings my anger to a boil. I don’t want to be accountable. Guilt is easier, but Peyton won’t accept excuses. I don’t know why I ever thought this could work.

A woman who can read me can hurt me. Maybe I need a woman I can manipulate so I don’t have to face the demons. I’m balancing too much as it is. “No, I can’t change it. But nonetheless, I chose wrong. Just like it was wrong to ask you to stay here with me.”

“No. You know what? This time . . .” She swallows hard before lifting her hand. “I was wrong.” Before I can catch her arm, she leaps out of bed. She breathes heavy as she changes into jeans and a T-shirt.

“What are you doing?” I ask as the fear of her leaving creeps up on me.

“I actually thought you were capable of loving me. But you can’t, and it isn’t because of Maria or Javier. You can’t because you’re too preoccupied feeling sorry for yourself.”

It takes her only five minutes to erase every trace of her from the loft. Every instinct I have is telling me to go after her. But my ever-foolish pride won’t allow it. If I feel hurt now, it will only be worse if I go after Peyton and be

g her to stay with me. I’m all out of fight. Or I’m too scared to fight because every time I do someone gets hurt.

Night turned to day as I laid awake, wallowing in the anger I have no business feeling. Peyton didn’t do anything wrong. She called me out on my shit again and I didn’t like it. To save face, I reverted to the heartless dick I used to be, because that guy can compartmentalize his feelings much easier than I can. He’s better at protecting my heart. But with every tick of the clock, I realized how much I hate that guy. How he’s the reason I keep failing and if I want to succeed, I have to work harder to make him shut the fuck up.

I grab my phone off the nightstand to call Peyton and beg her to forgive me. The text on the screen from her confuses me. I didn’t hear it come in about ten minutes ago and it doesn’t make any sense.

P: rpbrtdhere helkkkk

Maybe the phone was in her pocket or something because if she meant to text me it would have been something along the lines of, You’re such an arrogant asshole. Or, Grow the fuck up.

I call her three times but each time the call goes to voicemail. She’s either asleep or ignoring me. Pounding on my door pulls me from my bed and I answer the door in a groggy fog. Tori and Drew come through the door, reminding me that I forgot she’s taking Javier and Drew to a birthday party for a classmate today.

“Where’s Javier?” she asks, looking around, expecting him to be ready as he should be at ten o’clock in the morning. “You forgot?”

“Yeah, sorry. Rough night.” I go wake Javier up and the look on his face after he stretches alarms me. Peyton clearly isn’t the only one pissed at me and I wonder how much he heard last night.

“You heard us fighting?”

His chin dips and he looks up at me. It’s the eyes that tell me he’s not an idiot and I’ve insulted his adolescent intelligence. “I heard her yelling and I heard her leave and if she’s not back when I get home, we’re fightin.’”

I laugh when he giggles. “Okay, little scrapper. No need for that. I called her three times already, but she isn’t answering.”

There’s that look again, only this time he clearly thinks I’m the idiot. “You have a car.”

“And you have a birthday party.” I laugh. “Aunt Tori’s waiting for you.”

While he gets dressed, I go back to the front room to find Tori with her hand on her hip and her lips pressed tight.

“Where’s Drew?” I ask because it’s safer than asking what’s wrong.

“I set him up in your office to color.” She taps her foot while I continue to ignore her. When it’s abundantly clear I’m not answering anything, she doesn’t speak, instead choosing to let out a noisy sigh.

When I don’t take the hint, she finally asks, “What’d you do?”

Her question isn’t exactly direct, so I’ll stick with evasive. “What makes you think I did anything?”

The same look Javier gave me moments ago appears on her face. At least now I know where he learned it.

“I went back to help you get Javier ready and I heard him.”

“What do you think I did?” I answer annoyed, hoping she’ll take a hint and drop it but she continues to look at me with expectations. I growl in frustration. “I acted like a dick and she told me to go to hell and left in the middle of the night.”

“And you can’t even blame me this time.”