“Can I have a mimosa?” Erin asks, and he looks at me, and I just shake my head again as he walks away. “You don’t drink?”
I grab a roll that is still steaming. “No.”
“Is it okay if I drink it?” she asks, her tone soft. “It’s fine either way.”
I pick up the spoon and scoop up some eggs. “When I turned eighteen, I basically almost hit rock bottom. I was getting shitfaced every single night.” I take a bite of food and look at her, and she looks at me with a sadness in her eyes. Not pity but sadness. “Anyway, I blacked out more times than I cared, so when I went to Jeff, I went cold turkey, and now I don’t drink. Not that I have a problem but because I choose not to.”
She leans over, her hand grabbing my hand next to my plate. “That is a really mature thing to do,” she says. “You should be proud.”
I shake my head and move my hand away from hers. “Yeah, it’s not that big of a deal. I just replaced one addiction with another. Women are my vice now.” She sits up now. “And for the next sixty days, I’m obviously in sex rehab, and you are my counselor.” She doesn’t say anything; she just stares at me.
“Why do you do that?” she asks me and doesn’t wait for me to answer. “You open up just a touch and then you turn into an asshole two seconds later?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” I say, but I know exactly what she’s talking about. I did it, knowing I did it. Opening up to people is not my strong suit. Besides, I’ve been burned in the past, so the less I say, the less people can use to hurt me. “I was having a conversation with you.”
“No, you were opening up about a piece of you, and then you decided that ‘wait, I was too normal, so let me pull out my asshole persona.’” She throws her hands in the air, and the guy comes back with her mimosa. “Actually, I’m sorry, I changed my mind. Can you get me a water please with a wedge of lemon?” She waits for him to walk away, and she grabs some food. When the guy walks back with water, she smiles at him. “Can I have some fruit please?”
“Most certainly. I’ll cut some up now. Would you like some yogurt and granola with that?” He smiles at her.
“That sounds wonderful.” She is being so fucking fake. “Carter, would you like some also?” I just glare at her and then she turns back to the guy and says. “That would be all.” When she turns to me, her smile is gone and her eyes are glaring. “See, that’s you. Nice one minute and then shitty the next.”
“I’m not that bad,” I say, then she glares even harder, and her eyes narrow to slits. “Fine, okay, I just don’t open up to people as easily as you do.”
“I’m not asking to write your memoir. I’m asking you to be real with me and not an asshole. What the hell are you afraid of?”
“Nothing,” I say right away. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Whatever,” she tells me and stops talking when a plate of fresh berries is delivered with a bowl of yogurt and granola on the side.
“You just told me to fuck off,” I tell her, grabbing a bite of the waffle, and her eyes coming to me.
“Excuse me?” she says.
“Saying whatever is basically saying fuck off,” I tell her. “It’s like when someone texts you and you put K instead of okay.”
“Are we even talking about the same thing?” she asks me, eating some yogurt.
“We are saying whatever is as rude as when people abbreviate a word in a text,” I tell her, and she rolls her eyes. “That is also rude.”
“What? Rolling my eyes?” She laughs, and whatever I was feeling or however the conversation was going, it just feels better with her laughter. I feel better. “My father used to joke that my eyes would get stuck inside the sockets if I rolled them back any farther.”
I laugh at her, and right here, at this moment, I feel just a touch free, just a touch myself. No one is watching to take a picture or holding a notebook. It’s just the two of us, and for the first time in a really, really long time, it feels good.
Chapter Ten
Erin
After I called him out, I saw his guard lower just a touch, and when I say a touch, I mean a sliver. But I kept the conversation light, and I never asked him any personal questions. When the plane finally touched down, I got up and picked up my backpack, saying goodbye to the flight attendant. I walked out of the plane and waited for Carter to follow me. A black Range Rover was waiting for us. The airport official took our bags and put them in the back of his SUV while we buckled up inside.