Slow Burn (39 page)

I keep staring at the table as Viv slides two glasses in front of us. She starts to pour, and Colton tells her thanks but takes the bottle and pours them himself so that we have privacy.

He slides the bag of ice over to me, but I just look at it. I deserve the pain in my hand. Haddie has cancer. Her hurt’s going to be a whole lot worse. I wish a simple bag of ice could fix it for her.

“… you telling her that means you’re only doing it because she’s sick. Not because you really feel that way.”

I wince at the word
sick
and then blow out a breath, knowing he’s right … that the last thing she needs is me drunk and blubbering all over her. But, Christ, all I want to do right now is see her, touch her, talk to her.

He pushes the glass in my hand and wraps my fingers around it when I don’t respond. But if I don’t drink, then I sober up faster, and get to see her that much sooner.

“I already told her.” The words come out in a whisper as I stare at the Macallan in my glass. I don’t even realize I’ve said the words until Colton sputters beside me.

“Fuck me, dude. I think we’re going to need another bottle of this shit.” He taps his glass against mine. “Bottoms up.”

I’m on autopilot as I swallow the Scotch. It’s a shame to
waste it on me right now. I don’t appreciate the taste or how damn smooth it is because all I keep thinking about is Haddie.

The neck of the bottle clinks as Colton refills our glasses. “Breathe, brother,” he tells me, my fingers gripping the glass so hard, I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter in my hand.

“What am I … how am …” I blow out a breath in frustration because I can’t process the thoughts whipping through my mind fast enough.

“Ry’s with her. She seems to be dealing, you know. She’s a tough chick, Daniels.”

“Yeah, but fuck …” I can’t even speak in complete sentences. I toss back the second pour of the Macallan. This time the burn’s a little less, and the warmth’s a little more.

“I know, Becks.” It’s all he can really say, and I appreciate the fact he’s not bullshitting me, telling me she’s going to be okay, telling me I’m a stupid fucker for going and falling for her.

My eyes burn just as much as my throat right now. So many questions I want—no need—to ask her, and the one in the forefront is like a ghost that keeps slipping through my fingers. The alcohol dims my logic enough to figure out what the hell my subconscious is trying to tell me, but my mind isn’t grasping it.

“She kicked Dante out last week.”

Well, fuck. That works. I can’t think straight enough to figure it out. The question is just out of reach.

“She’s not with him?”

“Nah … kicked him out. He either was just fucking with you because he’s jealous or he really tried to get in her pants and she gave him the boot … and if that’s the case, I should have added a fist to his face too.”

Relief rushes through me. And then confusion followed by anger again. She’s all alone? What the fuck? Shit’s being thrown at me so fast right now, I’m having a hard time coming to terms with any of it.

And then it hits me like a goddamn bulldozer.
She knew
. She fucking knew that night. She was pushing me away, trying to protect me, choosing for me. Just like I told her not to.

Well, fuck that.

I shove up out of the booth again. My vision goes black, and the whole room pulls me into its tumultuous tornado of darkness and stars.

“Woah. Easy. Easy.”

I hear Colton’s voice. Feel his hands on me, but I can’t focus. The seat’s beneath my knees again, and my stomach lurches into my throat momentarily until I can swallow the bile and the gallon of alcohol back down.

“I need to see her,” I plead with him. Because even though I’m so shit-faced I can’t stand, my stubborn stupidity keeps hitting me in the face over and over. How could I not have seen right through her and what she said to me? How could I have been such an idiot?

“I know you do but not till the morning. You’re sleeping with me tonight,” he chuckles, trying to lighten the mood.

“When hell freezes over.” I mutter, but just maybe it has because, holy shit, Haddie really is sick.

“I think it already has, dude.”

I snap my head up as fast as I can without making the earth tumble and fall around me again. “What?”

He clinks his glass against mine and throws back the swallow of amber liquid. “You love her? What the fuck is up with that? I got you were dipping your wick, but now you want a permanent place to burn your candle?” He shakes his head and laughs before resting it back on the booth behind him.

I can’t help the laugh that falls from my lips, grateful for his random humor right now. “Candle?”

“Mm-hmm.” He’s buzzed enough now that he doesn’t continue the train of thought. Instead we fall back in silence, our eyes closed, heads fuzzy, and glasses empty. “Got quarter of a bottle left. We finish it off, get Sammy to drive
us back to my place,” he says, referring to his bodyguard and sometime driver. “We’ll sleep it off, you’ll get a clearer head, and then you go see her tomorrow and fight like fuck to prove you want to be a part of her life. Sick or not sick.”

I choke back the emotion clogging my throat, stunned by my best friend’s ability to know this is what I need to hear when he’s never been good with emotions or relationships.

And from just hearing the word
sick
out loud in reference to Haddie.

“Yeah.” The word is barely a sound as it passes past my lips.

“She’s gonna beat this, Daniels.”

Images of Lexi flash through my head from the pictures I’ve seen in Haddie’s house—the only way I’ll never know her. And I can’t help but acknowledge the fear creeping in that that could be all I’ll have left one day of Haddie.

I’m immediately pissed at myself for even thinking it. Furious that for one moment I thought she’s not going to fight the fight so she can walk the walk afterward. But fuck if I’m not scared, even with liquid courage flowing through my veins like it’s my own blood.

“She has to be.”

I
left Rylee with just a note saying,
“I need to think,”
after she spent the night with me like old times. Too many bottles of wine, too many trips down memory lane, and so many laughs our ribs ached and cheeks hurt.

And it felt good that Ry was just Ry with me. Not looking out of the corner of her eye to stare at me with that pitying look I hate or to make sure that I wasn’t going to keel over and die.

Hence the reason I’ve kept my diagnosis from everyone.

I’m good with my decision—glad I’ve decided to keep it on the down low to just Rylee and my parents—but hell if my heart’s not hurting right now.

I was doing good. At least I thought I was. I was so busy thinking about surgery next week that I was pushing away all thoughts of Becks. And his parting words to me.

Those words were earth shifting to me, but I’d also noticed his attempts seemed to fade with each day. Hell yes, I’d back off after the rejection time and again if I were him, but at the same time I needed it there. His annoying texts, continuous phone calls, drive-bys past the house when he didn’t know I was home because I’d parked in the garage. It all reassured me. So the fact that the attempts
had faded after day five had proved to me that his words were bullshit.

If he didn’t keep trying after five days, he sure as hell wasn’t going to stick around for months of chemotherapy and radiation. The proof’s in the pudding.

It wasn’t until last night that I realized subconsciously I was testing him. Waiting him out. Making him prove the love he had professed to me.

I thought he’d given up, that his words were bullshit, until I got the text last night and the voice mail. And then it just blew my carefully constructed false front to smithereens. I sit in my car remembering it, resting my forehead on my hands overlapped on the steering wheel.

Maybe it was the mass quantities of wine. Maybe it was having Ry sleeping in her old bedroom again. Maybe it was the emotional overload of everything about to happen. Whatever it was, when I read the text, a small thrill went through me, tearing through my resolve, which was already hanging on by a thread.

Huh. Thread. Strings. Can’t get the hell away from ties when it comes to Beckett Daniels.

All the text said was:
I’m calling you in two minutes. You don’t have to pick up. But please listen to the voice mail. B.

Something was different to me with his text this time. I’m not sure if it was because of me or because of something in his tone, but it had my fingers itching to answer when my phone started ringing a minute later. Instead I fisted my hands and waited it out until the minute the phone alerted there was a new message.

When I heard his voice, my heart squeezed with ache and loss. “Had … I don’t know if you’re just deleting my messages or actually hearing them, but I want you to hear this one. I want you to listen to my voice, hear the determination in it…. Nothing’s changed. You’re worth the goddamn fight.
Gloves are on
. I’ll go every damn round with you to prove it. All you’ve got to do is step back in the ring
with me. You’ve already knocked me out, but I’m still fighting. Take the chance. Bell’s about to ring.”

I think I listened to it over and over, tears sliding down my face as I wanted to pick up the phone and call him back but was so scared to do it, to invite him in. My gloves are on for a different type of fight, so how can I have the strength to go at it with him too?

I fought my subconscious telling me that I didn’t have to put the gloves on if I just opened the door and let him in. Then I wondered if the slight slur in his speech meant he was just bullshitting me and was drunk and lonely. And after that, I sat in bed contemplating whether he knew … if Colton had told him.

Sleep came in short bouts because every dream was filled with him, or about him, so that I’d wake up longing to hear his voice again, feel his touch, see his smile. I was so exhausted and restless by six that I got up, left Ry a note, and came here to be close to the one person who understands this more than anyone.

It’s so peaceful here, so beautiful, and a tad cold, so I lean back in my seat, which I’ve reclined, and close my eyes for a moment, allowing the serenity of being near her to pull me under.

The noise of the trash truck in the distance pulls me from sleep. I startle awake when I come to, immediately realizing where I am and that the sun is higher in the sky. Next I move my seat back upright, take a sip of water from the bottle in my console, and check my phone, which I’d set to silent as it rested in the console.

I note the missed calls from Rylee and a few from Becks and squeeze my eyes shut, throwing my phone onto the passenger seat. I have to talk to her first. Sort my shit out so that I can figure out where to go from here. That sudden fluttery feeling returns to my chest as I climb out of the car and start walking across the green grass dotted with stone markers.

Guilt mixed with sadness weighs heavy with each step. I haven’t been here since my diagnosis. My head’s been screwed-up enough that I feel guilty that I haven’t been here to tell Lexi that I let her down. That I have cancer now too.

I don’t want her to worry. I know it’s silly because this is just a place when technically her spirit is all around me, so I know she already knows, but at the same time, I feel guilt nonetheless.

I smile softly when I reach her spot beneath the large oak tree, the branches giving her special spot shade and prolonging the life of flowers here from the harsh California sun. “Hey, sis,” I tell her as I lower myself to the ground, running my finger over the engraving of her name, before leaning my back against the tombstone like I used to sit for hours those first few months after she died.

I swear I hear her voice, can feel her when I’m here. And I know it’s all in my head, but I don’t care. It’s all I have left, and so it’s enough for me. At least I tell myself it is.

I talk to her for a bit, filling her in on miscellaneous things, telling her little things about Maddie that a mom would want to know, stalling telling her about the diagnosis. I inform her that the Scandalous event went flawlessly, and our company has officially secured its first huge client. Ridiculous really that when the admission of my diagnosis is finally off my chest and no lightning bolt strikes me dead, I sigh in relief.

I explain to her through my tears that I’m going to keep it from Maddie as long as possible. Protect her from the memories and the devastation. I tell her how Mom and Dad are handling it, the charm on mom’s necklace getting constant use as it’s worked back and forth on the chain.

And then I fall silent again, wanting to tell her the rest, but I know the minute it’s out of my mouth I’m going to realize just how stupid I’ve been. Testing him, pushing him away, making decisions for him that he should get to make for himself.

I rearrange the flowers in their urns, buying time, and even that sounds ludicrous because it’s not like she’s going anywhere. A cool breeze floats across the cemetery, and I settle cross-legged facing her marker, hands picking at the grass and separating the blades mindlessly.

“I met someone, Lex,” I finally say in a whisper. “You might have even heard me mention him before. His name is Becks.” I laugh, knowing she would because it’s so cliché to fall for the best man. “Yeah, the one with the nice ass from the Las Vegas trip.” I explain to her about the wedding night and the constant push and pull between us since then. About his confession that he loves me and my lie to protect him.

“I can’t ask him to go through this with me, Lex.” The tears start again as I think of how brutal this will be, going at it alone. It’s not what I really want, but I know it’s for the best in the end. “He’s thirty-two. He should be out at clubs and meeting hot women and living his life, not stuck with a woman with scars instead of tits. Having to hold me up so I can puke because I’m so weak and sick from the chemo. He deserves a woman who has the time to take care of him, not a bald, bloated, boobless woman who is so tired from being sick, she doesn’t want to go out.”