Muffin Top

Well, it was too late for her. Her fury was on a roll now. Like an avalanche, there was nothing that was going to stop it. All she wanted to do was to make him hurt as much as she did right now.

“Don’t worry, Junior. You’re not turning into your dad. You’re so fucking scared of taking a real risk that you’re spending your life surrounded by people but without making a commitment to anyone. It’s fascinating, really. You’re so petrified of being alone, but you can’t commit, either. But you’ve got them all fooled, don’t you? Everybody loves Frankie Hartigan, it’s just important not to fall in love with him.”

He flinched as if she’d just delivered a solid punch before straightening to his full height and narrowing his eyes as he glared at her. “You sure didn’t seem to be complaining when you were coming all over my dick.”

“Don’t turn this around on me,” she said, jamming a finger into his chest. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Sure it’s not. You’re just walking around with all of your emotional baggage waiting for me to fuck you over like your mom did your dad,” he said, his voice harsh and low. “You said you were suspicious of actual love, but it’s not that. You’re scared shitless.”

The truth of his words slammed into her, stealing her breath, but not for long. “Oh, that’s rich coming from someone who barely said five words to me before a week and a half ago,” she said, knowing she sounded like some haughty bitch who got paid to make grown men feel like children, but not giving two shits. “You don’t even know me.”

“That’s shit,” he snarled back, his control obviously ripped to shreds. “I know you better than you think because you’re just like me.”

She narrowed her eyes and gutted him with a glare. “You know what? There are a million men out there who have mansplained everything from my weight to my food choices to my audacity to wear clothes that show off all eleventy billion of my curves, but I’ve never had one who mansplained my own emotions.”

“Maybe it’s past time someone did,” he said, his volume spiking, “because you’ve been lying to yourself about them for long enough that you believe your own bullshit.”

That was crap. She practiced brutal self-honesty—about her size, her personality, her skills, her weaknesses, her ambitions, her accomplishments. Everything. She would never lie to herself about something so important. She wouldn’t.

Oh really?

She shoved that quiet voice in her head back down and faced the man she’d been stupid enough to fall in love with. See? Brutal self-honesty.

“Fuck you, Frankie Hartigan.” Her voice broke on his name, her eyes filling with tears.

…

And that’s what broke him. Not the words. Not the things she must have been thinking about him all along. Not the pain tearing him up inside. What got to him was that he’d made her cry. He’d hurt the one woman he should have protected with everything he had.

He’d failed her.

He’d failed them.

Desperate to roll back from the edge they were rushing over, he reached out again, but she avoided his touch. “Lucy.”

“Just stop.” She held up a hand, warning him off as she took a step back so she was outside of arm’s reach. Then she took a deep breath, letting it out in one slow exhale that seemed to bring her back from the height of her anger. “This wasn’t going to work out back here in Waterbury. Everything that happened in Antioch was that false connection that happens sometimes on vacation when you are with people under unusual circumstances and you forge a bond off of that. It doesn’t last. It’s not real. I knew it. Deep down, I’m sure you knew it, too. There is too much history for you and skewed expectations for me. I don’t have the energy for it when we both know it’s not going to work out.”

Jagged edges, that’s all he was on the inside, and there was nothing left that he could say. She’d made up her mind. She’d made it up before they’d even left Antioch, and he’d been too fucking thickheaded to realize it. He’d thought they could be different together. So, he stood there and watched Lucy walk away because there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

He had no clue how long he’d stood there, staring at the door leading out to the beer garden, before his sister Fallon came storming over.

“What in the hell was that all about?” she asked, her voice low and angry. “What did you do?”

He looked at his sister and tried to find the words to explain how he’d epically fucked up—just like their dad had. All this time he’d kept his emotional distance from the women in his life, and it hadn’t made a difference in how things worked out. History was forever repeating itself, with the sins of the fathers passing down to their sons.