Deal Makers (Dealing with Love 3) - Page 83
I smirk, despite my best effort not to. “You’re such an ass.” My expression sobers as I sit up straight. “You weren’t there, B. You didn’t see the look on his face. He practically begged me not to leave and I did it anyway. Christ, I’m a bitch.”
He rubs the back of his neck. “Well, in my experience, there’s not much that anal can’t fix.”
I shove him. “Oh my God, you fucking perv. Leave it to you to throw butt stuff into this conversation.”
He laughs. “Takes one to know one, Charlotte. Don’t pretend you wouldn’t do the same.”
I nod in agreement. “Touché.”
Brody clears his throat. “Look, maybe you need a grand gesture or something. Like, you know how at the end of Grease, Sandy turns into a hot biker chick to show Danny she’s willing to go way out of her comfort zone for him? I’m not saying you need to break out in song, but you get the point.”
“Dude, you just lost a shit ton of man points with that reference.”
His shoulders lift. “Meh, call it taking one for the team. Rainey’s 80’s movie obsession is rubbing off on me.”
“I like your way of thinking though. I just have to figure out what could work.”
Brody knocks my foot with his. “If you run into any trouble, let me know. I’ll talk to him.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think he’s exactly jumping at the chance to speak with you either.”
“Well, then it’s a good thing I know how to be a pain in the ass, right?”
/> Now it’s my turn to laugh. “You are pretty fucking good at that.”
He puffs his chest out and grins. “I’m the fucking best.”
CHAPTER FIFTY
DREW
“I can’t figure out what the fuck happened. We started the day perfectly happy but by the end of it, we split up.”
Devyn gives me a sad smile. “Drew, this whole situation sucks. But I do see where she’s coming from.”
“What the hell, Dev?”
I just recapped my last encounter with Charlee. I’ve been on duty for the last two days, and they’ve been a busy couple of days, so I haven’t had much time to process it. Now that I’m home, it’s all I can fucking think about. I debated drowning myself in whiskey but I called my sister instead, hoping to get some female perspective. Because my sister is fucking awesome, she dropped everything and showed up at my place thirty minutes later.
She holds her hand up. “I’m not saying she did the right thing, but I really do believe she thinks she did.”
I take a sip from my water bottle. “How can tapping out be the right answer?”
“It’s not. But she wouldn’t do this if she thought she had any other choice. Charlee’s not that type of girl.”
“Why can’t she just trust me? Ride it out with me?”
“She may not realize it, but she’s scared, Drew. She’s afraid you’ll wind up resenting her if Brody doesn’t come around. It’s a defense mechanism—she’s trying to soften the blow to her heart, thinking that it will hurt less now than after she’s had more time with you.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I grumble.
She sighs. “It’s sort of the same reason I didn’t try harder to contact Riley when I found out that I was pregnant. I imagined the worse-case scenario—that he wouldn’t want to be involved in Nathan’s life. In retrospect, I know that would’ve never happened, but at the time, I couldn’t bear the thought of watching him walk away again. It hurt bad enough the first time. I didn’t think I would survive a second.”
I point my finger at her. “I’m still pissed at you for not telling me the truth about that.”
When my sister called to inform me that she was pregnant, she said the baby’s father took off, wanting nothing to do with them. My protective instincts instantly kicked in so I insisted she move up from Portland to live with me. I wasn’t going to leave her hanging because some douchebag couldn’t man up. Almost five years later, she admitted that Riley had no idea she was pregnant when they parted ways.
Devyn shrugs. “It was safer to pretend that I didn’t need him.”
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