Damn Wright (The Wrights 2)

Regroup. Chill. Patience.

“Sex isn’t the answer,” she said. “We’ve always been good at that. But I don’t trust you. I don’t trust you not to run when things get tough. And without that, we can’t try again.” She looked at him with all the same longing he felt in his heart. But instead of coming back to him, she shook her head. “Your offer is generous and thoughtful, but I just can’t spend this much time with you. It’s too hard.”

Then she turned and walked down the driveway toward her car.

10

Dylan pulled into Gypsy’s bar. The place didn’t open for another hour, so he parked beside the only other car in the lot, Gypsy’s Jeep.

The raw pain he’d seen on Emma’s face had leveled him as effectively as a grenade. He’d stayed at the house and worked another few hours, hoping she’d change her mind and come back. But she hadn’t. And the extra work he’d done was probably the reason shooting pains had crawled into his arms and legs. He was going to have to find a local acupuncturist.

He dropped his head and rested it against the steering wheel. His self-loathing had bubbled over and leaked into his bloodstream.

He usually stayed away from alcohol and drugs. He knew his genes, his job, and his chronic pain put him at a higher risk for addiction. But today, he needed a pain reliever in the worst way.

Inside the bar, Dylan found Gypsy stocking supplies, Cooper tucked into one of those front slings.

“Oh, thank God.” She came out from behind the bar. “This kid is going to kill my back. Can you take him for a while? He starts screaming every time I put him down.”

“I don’t know.” He slid onto a stool. “I seem to fuck up everything I touch lately.”

“That’s not true.” Gypsy unwrapped Cooper and offered him to Dylan. “You’ve been with Miranda and Jack every day, and Cooper adores you.”

“Is that right, Coop?”

Dylan took Cooper and laid the boy against his chest. He swore his blood pressure lowered ten points. He’d always thought he and Emma would have a couple of kids by now. And he saw a boy of his own in Cooper, maybe with Emma’s eyes. Maybe with a few of her freckles. Maybe with that sweet little nose and heart-melting smile.

Yeah. That heart-melting smile. Dylan hadn’t seen that in so long he almost couldn’t remember what it looked like.

“It seems weird to say this in a bar with a baby on my shoulder, but I need a drink.”

“We don’t think it’s weird at all, do we, Cooper?” She returned to her work. “What can I get you?”

“Cyanide?”

“On backorder. But I’ve got the next best thing—Everclear.”

“No way.”

“Way. What’s a kickass bar without Everclear? One twenty, one fifty-one or one ninety proof?”

“Since it’s not five o’clock, let’s go with one fifty-one.”

“How sensible of you. Want it straight, or can I make you one of my signature slammers?”

He cradled Cooper in the crook of his elbow and resting his own head in the other hand. “Get as creative as you like. Just don’t make me puke.”

Gypsy filled a highball glass with ice, dropped in a heavy shot of Everclear, added a spritz of lemon juice, and filled the glass with some kind of soda. “What’s got you so miserable?”

He couldn’t address that until he had alcohol in his system. He picked up the drink, surprised to taste root beer, but somehow, it all worked. The concoction had the burn of Everclear, the sweetness of soda, the tang of sassafras from the root beer, and lemon. “Damn, that’s nice.”

“Now,” Gypsy said. “What’s going on?”

He took a deep drink and let the alcohol burn down his throat. “I always knew pushing her away would hurt her, but I truly believed the long-term gain would be worth the short-term pain. Emma explained just how deeply her hurt goes and just how profoundly I fucked things up between us in excruciating detail. Evidently, to the point of no return.”

“Give yourself a break. You were twenty years old. You may have been way ahead of the curve, more self-sufficient and independent at twenty than most thirty-year-olds, but that doesn’t mean you had the same experience. Emma was your first relationship. There was no way you could have known how this would turn out years down the line.”

He rested his forehead in his palm. “That’s not easing any of her pain, and it sure as hell isn’t helping her trust me now.”