Fourth Down (32 page)

What happened after that is foggy.
Several days of a whiskey induced haze and several years of
picturing light blonde hair and bright blue eyes with every girl I
fucked. Time hadn’t made her betrayal any easier; I had just
learned to hide it better. But knowing that she was here, less than
a mile away, I could feel my carefully constructed control slipping
away.

Everything I had worked so hard to put
behind me had just been brought to the forefront. When I woke up
this morning, I had no idea she was so close. Now that I knew
Lindsay was here, in the house next door to my dad’s house, how was
I going to be able to function? It was like my world had been
turned upside down, and I had no idea what the fuck to do. Jesus
Christ, why is she here?

Knowing I had been gone way too long,
considering the amount of work waiting for me back at the shop, I
decided to grow a pair and pushed myself off the ground.

When I stalked back into the shop and
tossed my dad’s checkbook onto his desk, he raised an eyebrow, but
didn’t say anything. Josh didn’t have the same courtesy or common
sense.

“What the fuck crawled up your ass?”
Josh asked from across the room where he was touching up the paint
on an ancient sailboat.

“Did you know she was coming, Dad?” I
asked, ignoring Josh completely.

My dad leaned back in his chair and
linked his hands behind his head. The frown on his face told me
what I wanted to know, but I waited for him to answer. “Lana just
told me last night, son. Apparently this was kind of a sudden
decision.”

I nodded and turned to pace the open
area of the warehouse where we repaired and customized all types of
boats. Josh caught on that something was up, and he dropped his
gear and came over to us. “What are you talking about? Who’s
here?”

Her name had not been spoken in my
presence in five years. My dad and my friends knew better than
that. But Josh had asked, and I braced myself for the onslaught of
emotions that pummeled me when my dad said, “Lindsay. She’s here to
visit Lana…for a while.” Hearing her name spoken aloud was like
being run over by a bus.

Josh swore under his breath as I
clenched my fists by my side. My dad noticed and said, “Calm down,
Grady. We don’t need any more damage done to this place.” He was
referencing my tantrum when Lindsay broke up with me, but it
reminded me of something else.

“Yeah, about that. Sorry about your
wall at home, Dad.” His frown returned but I cut him off before he
could respond. “What do you mean ‘a while’? How long is she here
for?”

My dad shifted uncomfortably and
leaned forward to rest his forearms on the desk. “I don’t know
exactly. From what Lana said it’s an open ended visit. Apparently
Lindsay’s been going through a rough patch and needed to get out of
the city.”

A red haze of fury clouded back over
my vision. “A ROUGH PATCH?” I roared, causing my dad to flinch.
“She’s going through a rough patch? And she comes back here to get
over it? Why the fuck can’t she go to a beach somewhere? Somewhere
on the opposite side of the fucking world from here? Goddamn it!”
My fist slammed through the wall dividing the work space from my
office.

I heard Josh say something to my dad,
but I could barely hear above the blood rushing in my ears. My
blood pressure had to be through the roof. Only her. She was the
only person who could ignite such raw emotion in me.

“Come on, man. Let’s head over to the
pub and have a drink…or ten,” Josh said pulling me with him out the
door, leaving my dad shaking his head at the hole in the
wall.

Ten drinks was more accurate. Or maybe
more, I lost count. Our buddy, Ford, was the bartender at the pub
we frequented. Josh gave Ford the short story of what was going on,
and even though Ford wasn’t around for my epic meltdown after
Lindsay left, he knew enough to keep the shots coming.

Somehow I wound up back in my bed
before the sun had set and woke up the next morning with a hell of
a hangover. I hadn’t been that drunk in a very long time. Lying in
bed trying not to puke I looked out the window of the master
bedroom at the awesome lake view and let myself think about it.
Just for now, and then I would shut it down and get on with my
life.

My house had become my sanctuary. The
place where I could go to get away. Sometimes I found comfort in
the memories that lived here, but today it was too fucking hard to
be here. When I planned this house, it was with her in mind. On her
last night in town I had brought her here and showed her where we
would make breakfast together, where we would lounge on the couch
on a rainy Sunday, where we would sit on the porch and watch our
kids play in the grass, where we would watch the sun set over the
lake.

She was gone, but I had built the
house anyway. I don’t know why. It just seemed like there wasn’t
any other option. Even if she was gone, her presence was still
here. Scrubbing my hands over my face, I forced myself out of bed
and into the shower.

Determined not to let her get to me
like this, I threw myself into work for the rest of the week. Some
hotshot Hollywood actor had commissioned me to customize his new
speedboat, and he would be in town in less than two weeks to see
the progress. Working on the tight deadline, coupled with Josh and
Ford keeping a steady supply of alcohol in my system after work,
kept me from dwelling too much on Lindsay’s presence for the rest
of the week.