A Fine Mess (Over the Top) (22 page)

My shame diminishes, shadows slipping from my shoulders, and happy tears threaten to fall. If I’d told them sooner, I might not have let my relationship with Kevin drag on so long. I could have mourned Jim’s loss in a healthier way. But like my nana always said, every step in life, good or bad, takes us where we need to go. And Dr. Renford was right, too. The more open I am about my issues, the stronger I get. If only the same were true with Sawyer; talking about him is like walking through quicksand.

I used to like bars. I loved the sharp smell of alcohol and press of bodies. The action. Tonight, I’d rather stick my face through a blender than meet my friends for a drink. Remixed jazz tunes pump through the speakers, the volume nearing Space Shuttle–launch decibels. Some dude slings his Rolex-clad wrist over a woman’s shoulder and knocks me as they walk by. The table at my right breaks into raucous laughter, the shrieking sound close to snapping my eardrums. I’m one step away from channeling my grandfather and shouting for someone to turn the volume the fuck down.

This is what happens when you live in exile.

As of late, my TV and liquor cabinet have been my best friends, my life the past two months an extended episode of
Survivor
. I’ve been moored, stripped of my necessities, left to bake in the sun. And I’m not the MacGyver type.

Lily and I often played the Desert Island Game: if you had to choose one item for eternity, what would it be? I had lists of stuff I’d take with me, from my comics to my car to my samurai sword. The essentials of life. Talk about wrong. There’s only one thing I need for survival, and I broke her. Hurt her. Lied to her. Told her I’d used her. Pushed her so far away she’s never coming back, making my isolated island life a reality.

I stride toward the bar, needing oblivion at the bottom of a glass of Scotch. People are crammed together, women in dresses and heels getting their flirt on, perfume and cologne mingling like a pheromone orgy. I find a break in the bodies and sidle up to the bar. The bartender eyes me as she pours a martini, her gaze dipping over my dress shirt, landing on the open buttons at the top. Unlike the people in the conservative but sexy attire around me, this vixen has her goods on show. Breasts pushed up in a strapless bustier. Brown waves piled on her head. Skintight leather pants.

Her tip jar is overflowing.

Before Lily, I’d have returned her fuck-me eyes, our night of skin and sweat unfolding in my mind. Before Lily, I would have owned this place. After Lily, I’m a fucking mess.

I order a double Scotch as a hand slaps me on the back. “It’s alive,” Kolton says.

I turn, and the pizza I ate earlier nearly rises to the surface.

“Sawyer,” Shay says in greeting, and glares at me like she’s Cyclops, one second from bursting my head with her eyes.

The past two months, I’ve lain low. I’ve worked, forced food down my throat, and clocked enough miles in my car and on my bike to make it to the moon and back, the whole while consumed with Lily, missing her voice, her laugh, her body. I’ve also avoided my friends. Kolton and Nico have each shown up a few times, beers in hand, ready to play therapist. I’d put on a hockey game and ignore them. They know about Finn and Meryl and have pushed me, asking if that’s why I broke up with Lily. My answer is always the same: “She deserves better than me. And if you tell her about Finn or let anything slip to Shay, I’ll skin you.”

I don’t breathe a word about my mother, whose calls I’ve avoided like the plague.

If Lily gets a whiff of the why behind my actions, there’s a chance she’ll push her way back into my life. Tell me I’m different from my family. That she knows me and trusts me. I’m too weak to resist her. If she so much as calls, I’ll fall to her feet and beg forgiveness. I’ll ignore my gut and bind her to me with titanium superglue. Then, when she’s happy, when we’re on cloud fucking nine, I’ll douse her world in acid. I’m a West. That’s what we do.

Our family crest should have a flaming heart, the caption below:
Let it burn.

I nod to Shay and say, “Nice to see you,” even though it’s not. She talks to Lily. She knows how she’s doing. If I ask, she could confirm or deny my fears that what I did set her back. Lacerated her heart. She’s a fortune-teller, and I don’t want to know.

Yesterday, a sample came in of a jacket I designed. I hung it on a rack and stared at it, imagining the white buckle cinched around Lily’s slim waist, the fur-trimmed hood pulled over her blond hair. Something was missing from the design, though, and I couldn’t talk to her about it. Couldn’t puzzle out the ideas. Couldn’t use her as a sounding board. I stormed out of the office and drove for hours, my creative energy stunted without her in my life.

Avoiding Shay’s all-seeing hazel eyes, I face Kolton. “Nico here yet?”

He flicks his head toward an area with white leather couches angled in groups. “He’s saving seats. Figured with his size, no one would mess with him.”

My drink is placed beside me. As I turn to put my money down, the bar vixen leans forward. “This one’s on the house.”

There’s that pizza again, crawling up my throat. Her tits are too big, her hair too dark, and her voice too raspy. I slap down bills and force a smile. “Thanks, but I’d rather pay.”

She shrugs and spins away, another man sure to jump at the offer.

I try to walk past Shay, but she steps in front of me. “How are you,
Sawyer
?” She punctuates my name with condescension.

Shit. Awful. A minute from dying.
“Fine. You?”

“Good. It’s been a while. Actually, it’s been since you ripped out my friend’s heart.”

I almost double forward, like she sucker-punched me in the gut. This was the news I didn’t want to know, the truth I’d blocked out. I should ask Nico to right hook me across the face. In the ribs. Anything to redirect the pain. “How’s the new job?” I ask, hoping she’ll take the hint and leave me alone.

Her reply: “You look like shit. Kolton said you’ve barely been out.”

I mouth,
What the fuck
at my friend, and he shrugs. “She grilled me on the way over. I can’t keep covering for you.”

Shay follows with, “You don’t look like a guy who broke up with a girl because he wanted to return to his single life. From the sounds of things, this is your first venture out in public, and your apartment smells like a frat party gone wrong. So why the hell were you such an asshole? I can’t imagine the reason was worth hurting Lily.”

When Lily said she was quitting Moondog, I winced, the heavy blow landing square in my chest. Not only did I let her down, but I broke my promise to her mother. I swore our relationship wouldn’t affect her job, and that’s exactly what happened. Then came the knockout punch—Lily’s final
I wish I’d never met you
. The nail in my coffin. Still, I thought she’d fare better than me.

I suck back a swallow of Scotch. “Nothing to tell, I’m afraid. Just laying low these days.”

And stroking my dick like I’m thirteen again. I often wake up hard, dreams of Lily slipping through my mind. I picture her below me, each pump of my shaft bittersweet, my release temporary.

Shay rolls her eyes at my lie, the habit too close to Lily’s. Done with this conversation, I try to push past them, but she puts her hand on my chest. “You do
not
get off that easy. You hurt Lily. Badly. And I just watched you turn down the hottie behind the bar. So if you lied to Lily about wanting to date other women, I need an explanation.”

Flail me. Stretch me on the rack. Anything but force me to look Lily’s friend in the face and acknowledge the devastation I caused. But Shay’s not giving me an inch. Resigned to my fate, I say, “I lied to her because I love her. My family’s more fucked up than I realized. I don’t want to get into it, and I hate myself a little more every day for what I did, but there’s no going back. She’s better off without me, so let’s leave it at that.”

Shay’s scowl softens into a frown. “I like you, Sawyer. You’re a good friend to Kolton and a great uncle to Jackson, but if this is how you treat people you love, then I’m glad things are over between you two.”

She steps to the side and I nod, sick to my stomach as I make my way to Nico’s sanctuary. I fall onto the cushion opposite him.

His tight white T-shirt has girls practically tripping as they walk by, his inked arms like catnip for women. “You look like shit,” he says.

“Jesus. First Shay, now you.”

“Doing any better?”

I should’ve known this night wouldn’t be just drinks to get me into the land of the living. The questions won’t end here. No point denying the obvious. “That would be a solid no.”

Drink in hand, I lean my elbows on my knees. He mimics my pose. “We should’ve forced you out a while ago. We’re so used to you being the one to lift us up, it’s like we don’t know what we’re doing.”

“I’ll be fine. It’s just been a rough couple months.”

He scrubs a hand over his buzzed head. “Tell me this, is the whole breakup because of what happened with Finn?”

“Yes and no.”

“If you want me to cuff you and take you into the station for questioning, just say the word.”

Chuckling, I drop my head forward. As entertaining as that would be, the bar seems like a safer option. I look up. “Yes, seeing Meryl like that, broken from what Finn did, hit hard. It freaked me out, to say the least.”

“Are they speaking?”

“He’s staying at my mother’s, but they’re seeing a marriage counselor. I’ll be shocked if it helps. A lot of bad shit went down.”

Two years of bad shit. When I finally spoke to Finn, he broke down, and my plan to dislocate his jaw evaporated with his tears. I’ve only seen my brother cry a handful of times, including when his girls were born, and it always affects me. We talked for hours, him unleashing his guilt, explaining how he and Meryl grew apart, and how he met a woman through work and one thing led to another and he made some pretty fucking stupid choices. I still wanted to hit him. Hard. Instead I railed. I ripped into him, furious he could do this to his daughters. His family. Meryl. His excuses dried up.

A brunette in a tight red dress approaches Nico, and he waves her off. “Sorry. Guys’ night out.”

She winks, undeterred. “I have friends.”

“Tempting, but not tonight,” he says. She sashays off with a pout, and he focuses on me. “Where’s the no in this equation? If Finn isn’t the only reason, what else happened?”

“Stuff with my mother. She laid some heavy shit on me from when I was young. Things I wasn’t prepared for.”

“Such as?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Too fucking bad.”

“If you’re playing the good cop/bad cop routine, it’s time for good cop to make his appearance.” He stares at me, no smile in sight. “Fine. You remember when my father left? How angry I was at him?” He nods, and I pause. Nico will be the second person I share this story with, the trauma of my youth. Maybe it’ll make everything hurt less, like how Lily felt better after her therapist appointment. I picture Nico wearing glasses and a tweed vest, pipe in hand, but it doesn’t lessen the tension in my neck. Heavy bass pumps through the speakers, and I raise my voice. “The reason I was so pissed was because I came home when I was eight and found my mother passed out with an empty bottle of pills in her hand.”

“Jesus.”

“Exactly. Finn never knew. He still doesn’t. No one did but me. The long and the short of it is, she led me to believe she tried to kill herself because my father cheated on her. Turns out
she
cheated on
him
, and she overdosed out of guilt. He repaid her by spreading his sperm around the city, and they fed me lies for twenty-two years. Every single member of my family is a disaster waiting to happen, including me. So this”—I gesture to the dark circles under my eyes, the stubble on my jaw—“is better than seeing her like Meryl. Or in a hospital. In time, we’ll get over each other.”

He nods, never breaking eye contact. “That’s heavy. I probably would’ve lost it, too. But I’ll tell you the same thing I did before you went to Belize. If I thought and acted like you, I’d be peddling weed instead of busting dealers. Most of my family’s broken the law at one time or another, and I could’ve walked that path, but I didn’t. It’s a choice. If you choose to be with Lily, you won’t fuck it up. And whatever your mother did, I’m sure she had her reasons for lying.”

Like protecting herself. I’ve replayed her anguished words on repeat, a skipping record that chases me down. As a kid, I made my hate for my father clear, rudeness and insults my modus operandi. The behavior sealed my fate. Terrified I’d shut her out of my life the way I did him, my mother fed me lies, spoonfuls of arsenic. I don’t know why he went along with it, but asking means facing them and their deception, something I’d rather delay.

I’m about to reply to Nico when Shay and Kolton show up with a fresh round of drinks. “Why so serious?” Shay asks, impersonating the Joker.

I tip my head to Nico, making sure he’s on the same page. “Just talking shop,” I say. “Nico’s giving me the lowdown about an arrest he made this week.”

He stares at me a beat, then grins. “Two idiots driving under the influence took a joyride…naked.”

Shay cackles. “No way.”

Nico leans back and crosses his massive arms. “Yep. A man and a woman in their fifties, and they were eating pizza.”

She plops down beside him. “Did they have burns on their body? Like, hot-pizza-sauce burns? Imagine explaining that.”

Kolton sits beside me. “Not surprising, really. Most bad ideas start with someone saying, ‘Hold my beer and watch this.’” He nudges me and grins, no doubt remembering the time I stuck the end of my bike pump in my mouth and pumped my stomach full of air. The nurse at the hospital thought I was mentally ill.

I join the conversation, Shay tolerating my presence with an occasional dark look thrown my way, all of us prodding Nico to share the most embarrassing incidents he’s seen. Vancouver is home to some whacked-out folks. The stories distract me for a time. Fleeting moments of levity. But Nico’s advice rings in my ears, the exact words I’d hoped to hear from Meryl. That I won’t screw up, won’t impinge on Lily’s progress. For a second my pulse revs. If there were a chance he was right, and I could fix what I’ve done and get her back and prove my worth, I’d end this bullshit. Fight for her. But Nico doesn’t know about Lily’s issues, the risks involved.

A few drinks later, I thank my friends for dragging my ass out, and I cab home. I fall asleep like I do most nights these days, alcohol thinning my memories, hazy pictures of Lily flipping through my mind. Her hair. Her lips. The feel of her tucked to my side. I dream a thousand dreams of blond.