One Last Time (Loveless Brothers 5)

There’s a diamond ring on her left ring finger, but I don’t understand. I look at it, puzzled, trying to fit the pieces together but I can’t. She’s wearing a ring and it’s got a diamond and it’s on that finger and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why.

Then at last, it clicks.

“What the fuck?” I ask.

She just clenches her hand into a fist.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I go on. I can’t look at her, only at that goddamn ring. God, it’s big, and it catches the light, scatters it. Fucking sparkles. I feel like I’m falling into it. “Tell me that’s some cubing zamboni fake jewelry bullshit.”

Delilah scoffs.

“Of course not,” she says.

“You got engaged?”

She doesn’t answer, just rolls her eyes. Looks away.

“How could you get engaged?” I ask, and now I’m leaning across the table. Too loud. Don’t care.

“It’s a very simple process, honestly,” she says. The words feel like a blade.

“You said,” I start. Stop. “Seven, no eight months ago you said you loved me,” I go on, and I might be shouting. “You said you were in love with me and we talked about how we’d be together and what we’d do after I graduated and —”

People are turning, staring.

“ — Now it’s now and you’re getting married to someone else?”

“I guess I was wrong,” she says, cheeks flaming under the freckles.

There’s a presence at my side, big, wide, and it says, “Excuse me, you need to —"

“You’re a monster,” I tell her, my volume all the way up.

“Because I met someone I loved enough to marry?” Hers is too.

“Because you wouldn’t know love if it punched you in the face!”

“All right, you need to leave,” the presence says. “Both of you.”

“Sorry,” says Levi’s voice. “I’m sorry, he’s with us.”

He grabs my arm, and I yank it away, finally look around: a pissed Levi, a tipsy Caleb, the bouncer like a stone wall.

“I can fucking walk,” I tell them, and start for the door. Behind me I hear the bouncer say Miss, and people are moving out of my way.

It’s cooler outside. The parking lot is half-full, the lights harsh, and Delilah spills out of the door behind me, already shouting.

“ — Because I didn’t love you enough doesn’t mean I can’t — “

“Who the fuck is he?”

“None of your goddamn business!”

We’ve gone from shouting to screaming, standing three feet apart.

“Just tell me,” I say. “Who. The fuck —"

The door opens and he comes out, looking like he’s just finished a nice steak dinner, not like he’s been ejected from a dive bar.

“What the hell is this?” he asks.

Polo shirt. Clean-shaven. Looks at me like I’m the pool boy.

“It’s fine, babe,” Delilah says. “It’s nothing.”

“You just got me kicked out of a bar,” he says, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “That’s not nothing.”

“Come on,” says Levi’s voice at my shoulder. “Let’s get you —"

“You’re heartless,” I tell her.

“Fuck off.”

“There’s no heart in there,” I say, pointing. Levi’s got my other arm, his hand locked around my bicep. “Just a rock where it’s supposed to be.”

The man in the polo shirt puffs himself, stands an inch taller.

“Hey now,” he says, and I turn back to Delilah.

“The world doesn’t start and end with you, Seth,” she says. Shouts. “I just didn’t love you.”

“Seth. We’re going,” Levi says, and now there’s another hand on my other arm, and I stumble backward under their power.

“You know what?” I shout. “When you decide you don’t love him either, give me a call because whether or not you love me, I sure know how to —”

She lunges forward and slaps me. Silence rings through the parking lot, nothing but background noise from the bar. Delilah looks astonished, still holding out the hand she used as a weapon like she’s not sure what happened.

“Are you serious?” I say. I can feel the spot where she hit me but it doesn’t even sting.

“We’re going,” Levi barks, and he actually raises his voice.

“No,” I say, and struggle against them. “Tell me, Delilah. You fucking tell me —"

“Because I never loved you!” she shouts. “Is that what you want?”

I stop struggling, and Levi and Caleb half-haul, half-carry me back to Levi’s pickup truck. They shove me into the back, perch me on a tiny jump seat, strap me in. I lean my head against the window and wonder if I’m going to throw up, and the last thing I see as Levi drives away is Delilah under the floodlights, her new man confused and impotent by her side.

“Fuck you,” I mutter.

Levi can’t take us back to our mom’s house while Caleb’s drunk and I’m trashed, so he takes us to the house he’s renting. It’s small, but it’s off in the woods, so he likes it. He doesn’t have a guest room so he pushes aside his coffee table and gives us sleeping bags.