Rough Edge (Tannen Boys 2)

Before I can answer, Erica catches up to me.

“You don’t understand. This is enough. It has to be.” The doubt in her heart paints her cheeks pink, her eyes gold.

Gobsmacked, I look around the garage. “Understand this? Understand why the shop is so important to you?” I laugh, incredulous. “Fuck, I’m probably the only person who does, Erica.”

She scoffs, her eyes rolling as she waves her grease-covered hand. Guess she didn’t wash up for lunch as well as she thought, and something about that is adorable, which only makes me madder. The mannerism is dismissive, almost that of a bratty spoiled princess, something she’s damn well not. She’s also not correct in the least.

“Go ahead. Play the martyr no one is asking you to be. You gave up on me for Emily. You’ll give up on . . .” I have the foresight to stop myself before I say racing, though it pisses me off that even as she’s killing me, I’m still protecting her. “Give up on everything else even when it’s all you want. Wanna know where that gets you?”

I hold my hands out wide, letting her look her fill at me. Broken, angry, distrustful, with nothing but should-have-beens to my name.

Fire flashes in her eyes as they narrow down to slits. “What am I looking at? A grown man with nothing to show for it? You don’t know what it means to give everything to your family’s legacy. You work someone else’s land, no skin in the game, with pie-in-the-sky dreams of something bigger one day. Tell me, what’re you doing to make that happen? Because I am making shit happen.” She points at herself, her fingertip denting the delicate skin of her chest, which is rising and falling rapidly with anger as she fights dirtier than she realizes.

Sonofabitch, that hurts.

Mostly, because she’s right. I talk about owning my farm again, dream of the land being Tannens’ again, but I haven’t done a damn thing toward making that happen other than wish for it and want it. It’s been a relief to be free of that responsibility, but it’s like a vacation, nice while you’re gone, but you know you’ll have to get back to work eventually. I’ve been putting that part off, though, pretending that it’ll happen on its own somehow. It won’t.

Erica senses that she gained a foothold, digging deeper into that wound that I thought had scarred over. Her barbs are sharp as nails, though, freshly opening up my battered heart.

“My family depends on this garage, on me, to survive. I need to make sure that’s my focus.”

I think she’s telling me to leave the racing stuff alone, though I’m still not sure how this fight even really started. But now that we’re in it, I can feel the accelerant catching fire at every corner.

And that’s when I realize, she’s not telling me it’s the garage over racing. She’s saying it’s the garage over me. She told me she didn’t have time for anything serious, and I guess she’s making good on that right now.

All the fight goes out of my blood as it runs cold. I’m losing something I didn’t even realize I had. It snuck up on me, drip by drip like honey, and filled that gaping void in my center with warmth. But the warmth dissipates too fast, unexpectedly leveling me. I curl my hat in my hands and shove it back on my head.

I sigh, blinking hard as I try to focus. Feet wide, hands on my hips, and voice steady, I tell her the truth she hasn’t quite caught up to yet. I learned the hard way, and she will too, but there’s nothing to be done for it now. “One day, when you’re all alone and wishing for someone to take care of you the way you take care of everyone else, I want you to remember this second. The moment you shit on the one person who truly sees all of you and wants you for you, Erica Cole. No restrictions, no expectations, no cages. You are amazing, brilliant, beautiful . . . but none of that matters if you stay in other peoples’ bubbles. The worst part is that you . . . you let them keep you there. And that is a damn tragedy. Goodbye, Erica.”

I turn on my heel, eating the ground between her and my truck with fast strides. I slam the door shut with finality and pull out of the parking lot. I tell myself not to look back, but I do.

Erica is standing in the shop, right where I left her, arms crossed over her chest and jaw dropped in shock.

I feel the same way, Lil Bit.

I don’t know how we went from having lunch to a devastating blow-up fight, but some things are inevitable. I’ve always known that.