Rich Soldier (The Dirty Thirty Pledge 2)

“Holy shit,” I hear Dad’s voice. “Are you all right?”

It breaks the spell, and I scramble off of Wallace so I’m standing. Surveying the wreckage behind me, I get why. The pallet cracked in half, and I didn’t even see the worst part of it. The stack nearest us would have at least crushed Wallace. Shit. “I think so,” I say, looking up at the temp on the forklift, who’s still staring at everything with a gaping mouth. “Bryan?”

He steps around the corner more fully. “This guy has his license, right?”

“I do, I swear,” the temp says from behind me. “I’ve never had this happen before.”

Dad looks at the wreckage. “Yeah, looks like it was just a bad pallet, not user error.”

“We have to make very, very sure of that,” I say to him quietly.

“We will.” He turns to the rest of the workers. “All right guys, no injuries, so let’s get this cleaned up.”

I pass him the clipboard. “We need more people, we’ve booked more than we can handle.”

Nodding, he wanders closer to the pile of broken bricks. “I’ll take a look at it.”

Wallace has gotten to his feet, brushing off dust from his clothes. “Thanks,” he says. “You know, I never thought you’d save me from something collapsing on me. Based on last time.” He means it as a joke, but it’s not funny. Not now.

“Well you shouldn’t have even been here in the first place, Wallace. If you hadn’t been standing there, I wouldn’t have had to save you, would I?” And I wouldn’t have gotten to feel your body against mine or have that lapse that made me want to kiss you. Anger rises up in me. Enough is enough. It doesn’t matter how my body reacts, there’s too much history between us. “What are you doing here?”

“Like I said before I was so rudely interrupted by the bricks, I came to talk to you.”

“And what do you think that you and I have to talk about?” I say, letting my anger snap out at him. “We were together. You left without saying a word. I thought I made it pretty clear that I didn’t want to talk to you the last time.”

He doesn’t change his expression, but I can tell that it’s strained now. “I was hoping that you’d give me the chance to explain. Maybe over coffee.”

“Over coffee?”

He shrugs. “Or lunch, dinner, even just a walk.”

I shake my head. How can he even think this would be okay? After he broke my heart and left me with nothing? He doesn’t deserve my time or my energy. “No.”

Wallace takes a breath and blows it out. “Is there anything I can say to change your mind, Tia? I’m not the same person that I was, and all I want is a chance to make things right.”

“If you wanted that, why didn’t you try when you came back?”

He presses his lips together. “Like you said, you made yourself pretty clear. I thought I’d give you some time.”

Anger flares through my system and I have to extend my fingers to keep them from curling into fists. He thought he’d give me time. Like my reactions are irrational and time will make me see the error of my ways. I don’t care that I was thinking of him kindly just a few minutes ago, there’s a reason we haven’t spoken in so long. There’s too much anger that rises when I remember what happened. That pain that’s still with me. And I can’t do it. “No, Wallace. I do not want to talk to you about that. And as you can see,” I say, gesturing to the pile of bricks, “I’m pretty busy today. You found your way in, and you can see yourself out.”

I walk away from him and I don’t look back. Who the hell does he think he is? Showing up after all these years offering an explanation that was needed a decade ago? You can’t just act like you know what’s best for everyone when you don’t know shit. Would hearing how he would justify breaking it off with no warning and no goodbye satisfy years of curiosity? Probably. But it wouldn’t be satisfying. There’s nothing big enough to fill the gap and the pain that he left. And you don’t just get a free pass because you suddenly decide that now is the time to make amends.

There’s a tiny spark in my mind that reminds me how close I was to kissing him, and that I was just wondering today if he was going to invite me to his birthday party, but I shove it down. It’s nothing. Just the natural wonderings and thoughts you have when you think about someone you haven’t thought about in a long time. Because I haven’t. Thought about him. Not in a long time.