He leaves, and I start to feel bad. I don’t really feel bad for him. He was being an asshole, but I feel bad for talking to one of Leila’s friends—one who actually listened and followed through when she asked him to keep an eye on me tonight to make sure I was going to be okay.
Maybe I should have gone with her, maybe not. Whatever the case, Leila Tyler turned my life upside down in the best and worst possible way.
Now she’s gone.
Now she’s gone, and I’m calling Wrigley to see if she’d feel up to hanging out, maybe getting a drink.
It’s not that I have plans to get back with her; she’s simply the only person I can talk to right now. Before I slept with his secretary, I used to be able to talk to my friend, Derek, but he’s a little pissed at me right now.
I’m sure as hell not going to get Mike back up here.
“Hello?”
“She’s gone,” I start, but I can’t say anything else.
I take the phone away from my ear and drop it on the table.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Of Chlorine and Anger
Dane
It’s been a week now, and I haven’t heard anything from Leila.
Mike hasn’t stopped by again, but I’m not quite so upset about that.
I tried calling Leila a few times, but the phone always went straight to voicemail, and what I have to say isn’t something a recording can contain.
I’ve been talking to Wilks, trying to gauge his readiness in taking the kitchen entirely on his own, without any further input from me, but he’s nervous. I know it’s something he’s going to have to overcome, but even standing back, watching him, it’s clear he’s not quite ready.
I’m not sure that I am, either.
Right now, I’m at home with an old friend. Well, in truth, the only friend I have left.
“So, are we fucking tonight, or what?” Wrigley asks.
“That’s really not why I called you,” I tell her.
“I know,” she says, “but I bet it would cheer you up.”
“I bet it wouldn’t,” I answer, taking a shot of vodka.
“Pour me another?” she asks as I’m still breathing through mine.
I pour her another shot and start to wonder what the hell she’s doing here.
I know why I called her: I’m lonely, heartbroken, and I have absolutely no one else to talk to about it. Unless she actually thinks I’m going to relent and we’re going to end up in the sack, however, I have no idea why she came over.
“You know what you’ve got to do,” she says, and takes her shot.
“What’s that?” I ask. “Fuck my pain away?”
“Woo!” she says, slamming the now empty shot glass onto the table. “No,” she says, wiping her mouth, “well, it couldn’t hurt. What I mean, though, is that you’ve got to figure out a way to be all right with never seeing her again. How would you go about that?”
“If I had the answer to that question, I wouldn’t have a problem,” I tell her. “It’s not just some switch I can turn on and off at will.”
“It’s simpler than that,” she says.