And I drive and drive, and over and over again I think: why do I do this to myself?Chapter NineSethStill Two Years and Three Months AgoWhen the door shuts behind her, it feels like the air shakes, like the whole room rattles, but it’s just me, so angry I’m practically vibrating.
She came to me. She’s the one who showed up at my event, at my brewery. She’s the one who walked over to me last night, batting her eyelashes and practically rubbing herself on me like a cat in heat. She’s the one who pulled off the road into an abandoned driveway so we could fuck in the back seat of her car.
All that and she won’t have drinks with me, as if I owed her my celibacy while she married someone else. Fuck that. Fuck her.
Most of all, fuck me for letting this happen in the first place.
I take a shower after she leaves, because despite everything I’m tempted to look out the window and see if she’s still there. I’m tempted to go after her, because I thought of ten more things to say that will hurt her and I want her to hear all of them.
It’s not until I’m out of the shower and leaving the motel room that I remember my car isn’t there. It’s still at the brewery, where my horny idiot self left it last night.
“Fuck,” I whisper to myself.
It feels good.
“FUCK!” I whisper louder.
Then I take a deep breath, suck in the fall air. It smells like rain and leaves and the hard promise of darkness and cold coming all too soon.
There are people I could call for a ride. Even though my phone’s dead, I’ve got numbers memorized and the room has a landline.
I walk back to the brewery instead. I don’t know how many miles it is, but it’s full dark by the time I get there, half moon, plenty of stars. Almost by accident I find the scorpion’s tail as I walk along the highway, peeking above the black forest.
“Fuck you,” I mutter, but my mouth is dry, my feet hurt, and I’m tired. Now, it just feels hollow.“C’mon,” I mutter, leaning forward. “Come on, just — don’t fucking —”
Red splashes across my screen and I sigh, dropping my head. This is the fifth time in a row I’ve tried this stupid mission, and I swear, it’s gonna be the death of me.
“Okay,” I say. I crack the knuckles on my left hand, switch the controller, crack the ones on my right. “Just the stairwell and you’re done.”
I blink hard, because my eyes feel like sandpaper, and then go talk to the security guard again.
Just as I’ve hit Accept Mission, there’s a knock.
At first, I think it’s in the game, because after all I’m in some mafia-controlled apartment building, but then I hit pause and hear it again.
Then I start worrying, because it’s nine-thirty at night. If it were a good knock I’d have gotten a text first, so as I shout “Coming!” and walk to my front door, I’m inventing scenarios.
My mom got into a car accident. One of my brothers got into a car accident, or something happened with Rusty, or Levi’s fallen off a cliff, or —
I glance through the peephole first.
It’s Delilah. Standing on my front steps, something in her hands, as she looks off to the side, like she’s watching something in the dark.
I almost don’t open the door. It’s been three weeks since she drove off and left me at the motel, and I don’t ever want to see her again. Even if she showed up on her knees in nothing but a sexy French Maid outfit, I wouldn’t want to see her again.
“Seth?” she calls, through the door.
Maybe with the French Maid outfit I would.
“Can we talk?” she asks.
I take a deep breath and open the door.
It’s a fruit basket. The thing she’s holding is a fruit basket with a pineapple on one side, a bunch of bananas on the other, and some exotic-looking stuff in the middle.
“Hi,” she says.
“What the fuck is that?”
“It’s a fruit basket.”
I don’t say anything, just watch her until she speaks again.
“Is now a good time?”
I fold my arms over my chest.
“Are you asking if I’m alone?”
“No, I’m asking if it’s a good time.”
In that moment, I wish I weren’t alone. I wish I’d found some random hookup and brought her home just so I could see Delilah’s face when she walked out. I wish I’d brought home two.
“It’s fine,” I tell her.
She looks down at the basket, then up at me.
“Can I…” she gestures at the door.
I lean against the frame. No, she can’t come in. She can stand there.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“I came to offer terms,” she says, her voice soft, perfectly steady. Like she’s practiced this.