“Can’t say I still want to ride with you, Billy.”
“Stop it, dammit.”
Renie glared at him.
“Just stop it. This is hard enough without you adding to it.” He had Micah ready to go, and motioned for her to follow him.
“I slept with a hell of a lot of women, Renie. None of them meant a damn thing to me. And maybe that makes me a horrible person, but there isn’t anything I can do to go back and change it. So that isn’t something we’re gonna talk about.”
She continued to glare at him.
“What we do need to talk about is you, and me, and my daughter. That’s what we need to be talking about, not all this other shit.”
“The other shit matters to me, Billy.”
“Okay, what part of it? Let’s do this. What else do you want to ask Renie?”
“How many times?”
“How many times what?”
“How many times did you have sex with Roxanne?”
“A couple times maybe.”
“How long were you seeing her?”
“Are you not hearing anything I’m saying? I wasn’t seeing her. I fucked her. Maybe twice, but I don’t remember. I’m running out of patience with this conversation.”
“Tough shit. You want me to meet your daughter, there are questions I want answers to first.”
His head felt as though it was splitting in two. All her life Renie had been the most exasperating woman he’d ever known. Even as a little girl she was like this. Half of him wanted to wring her neck, the other half loved her more than life itself. It had always been this way, even before he realized what he felt for her was love, the all-encompassing forever kind of love.
He sighed. “What else do you want to know?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Wait a minute. You said there were questions you wanted me to answer before you meet Willow. What are they? Let’s do this, Renie. I’m not goin’ home without you.”
“What?”
That wasn’t what he meant to say. He didn’t know where it came from, but now that he’d said it, he couldn’t take it back. He could tell her the truth though.
“I didn’t mean it that way. I meant I’m not goin’ home until you and I have come to an understanding. I’m not goin’ home without knowing you’re a part of my life again. Is that better?”
“I’m not going home with you, Billy. You better get that through your head right now. That isn’t happening.”
“Okay, I got it. Now back to what we were talking about. What are the other questions?”
“I don’t remember. Drop it, Billy.”
“This is it, girl. I’ll do this once. You want answers, get ’em now.”
A few minutes went by before she said anything, but Billy could tell there was something she was stewing about. It would only be a matter of time before she’d spit it out.
“How could you not know, Billy?”
He’d wondered that himself more times than he could count. He shook his head. “I wish I had an answer. I don’t. I don’t know how I didn’t.”