“Well, in my humble opinion, I say don’t,” he says.
The finality in his tone irks me. “What do you mean?”
“Look, I know you liked her—hell, we all did. She was a cool girl and you spent your entire adolescence glued to her hip. Trust me,” he says, staring off into space, “I get that. You have history with her like you never will with anyone else.”
“It’s not that…”
“It is.” He turns his attention back to me. “But don’t do that. She left you once. I know that makes me an asshole to say it bluntly like that, but she did it, not me. You tossed that line out there tonight and she didn’t take it. That’s enough for me right there. Fuck her,” he says, bringing the bottle back to his lips.
My jaw sets, the pulsing almost cracking my back teeth. “Easy there.”
Peck leans on the countertop and looks at Walker and then at me. “Don’t listen to him unless it has an engine and weighs at least a ton.”
“Just offering my opinion,” Walker says, getting up. He takes his drinks and meanders toward the back of the bar.
“Listen,” Peck says, looking at me with his brows tugged together, “he’s wrong.”
“How the hell do you know?”
“Because my balls aren’t the ones that ache so bad I can’t see straight.” He grins.
“If I were giving myself advice, I’d say to forget it too,” I admit. “I see Walker’s point. She left when it got hard. She fought with me back then every fucking day over nothing. I couldn’t do anything right. But then I think about how many nights I go to bed wondering where she is and how often I miss her. Then it seems stupid to pretend I don’t at least want to get to know her again.”
“You’ve answered your own problem.”
“How do you figure?”
Peck shakes his head, downing half his bottle. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he sighs. “You said you could pretend, which means…”
“Yeah…”
“You have two options here,” he declares. “You can either let this thing go or you can see what you can make out of it. If you pick option one, get over it. You’ll have to, but because I know your ass and know you won’t just get over it because you haven’t since that fight outside of Crave years ago, option two should come with a lot of consideration. You feel me?”
“I feel you.”
“Good. Now that’s done, I’m going to see what kind of trouble I can get into tonight.” He winks before disappearing into the growing crowd of bodies behind me.
I sit for a long while, returning hellos and chiming in to basic chitchat when required. All the while, my mind is replaying the interactions with Kallie from today. With every second that goes by, I feel a burn in my gut grow hotter.
Leaning forward, I grab my wallet out of my pocket and find a twenty. I put it on the counter and set my beer on top of it. “Hey, Mach! I’m out of here,” I say, nodding to the money.
“Tell her I said hi.” He grins.
“Fuck off. I’m not going to see her.” I look down at the money and then back up at him again. “Maybe tomorrow after work.”
Machlan laughs. “Make some time in that busy schedule of yours for me. I want to talk business.”
“Will do. Later.”
“Later.”
Six
Kallie
“You shouldn’t be doing this, Kallie.” Rolling my eyes as I head across the parking lot, I set my sights on the building nestled between the laundromat and a secondhand store. “Now I’m talking to myself—totally losing it.”
My feet stop and I stand on the edge of the curb, peering into the windows of the gym. The early morning sunlight shines through the glass. Cross is standing in the middle of a stretch of blue mats in a sleeveless shirt and a pair of basketball shorts. A short, caramel-haired woman in all spandex stands in front of him. She’s facing me, her hands running through the air as she tells Cross a story. He’s watching her, his arms folded in front of him, one eyebrow cocked in the air.
My skin suddenly feels too tight, too unforgiving as I try to draw air into my lungs. When her hand rests on the curve of his bicep, I squeeze my car keys so hard that the alarm goes off behind me.
“Shit!” I mumble, twisting around and shoving the keyring toward the parking lot. “Stop it. Stop it!” Pressing the button repeatedly, the frantic beeping finally stops. “Sorry,” I call out to a woman and her child as they climb into the car next to mine. She gives me a look like I’m crazy before speeding off.
I take a deep breath as I feel a gaze on my back. Turning around, I see Cross and the woman in the gym are watching me. I contemplate saving some face and fleeing, but Cross is stalking toward me before I can make a break for it.