“Hi, James!” she said and stood up.
“Hey, baby.” He leaned down and gave her a kiss on the lips, pulling her against him.
Message received loud and clear. I turned away.
“Hey, Matt,” James said. “I thought our dinner was Saturday night…”
“It is.” I stood up. “I just stopped by to say hi.”
James gave me a weird look and pulled Penny closer.
I clenched my jaw. As much as I was tempted to, I wasn’t going to ruin his life. Not like he’d ruined mine.
“Since you’re already here, you’re more than welcome to stay for dinner,” James said. “I’m sure Ellen made enough.”
“I already ate,” I gestured toward the plate of leftovers. “And I actually have plans tonight.” I didn’t. But I didn’t want to sit here as the odd third wheel. Or like I was one of their kids.
Penny looked up at James. “Did you know that Matt volunteers as the head coach for the football team at your old school?”
“Yeah.”
“What? How did everyone know this but me?” She turned back to me. “When’s your next game? Maybe we can come? I’ve never even seen your high school. It’ll be so much fun.”
“Tomorrow night,” I said.
James ran his fingers through his hair. A nervous tic. “I have a lot of papers to grade tomorrow.”
“That’s okay,” Penny said. “I’ve been meaning to get together with the girls anyway. I’ll ask them to go with me. I bet Bee and Daphne would love to see Empire High.”
She was right - I was sure Mason and Rob’s wives would love to see where we used to go to high school. And honestly, that sounded better than having the guys there. None of my friends had stepped foot back in that school after graduation besides me. I think they were terrified of the ghosts of their past. And they’d all moved on. I was the only one who kept going back. I was the one who was stuck there.
“This is going to be so much fun,” Penny said. She was smiling for real again. And I was happy it was because of me.
“Great. I’ll see you tomorrow, Penny.” I winked at her.
James frowned at me.
But Penny’s smile grew. And that was all I cared about.
She waved goodbye and I left before James could pull me to the side and tell me to fuck off. It wasn’t like Penny and I were going on a date. I’d be on the field the whole time and she’d be with our friends. There’d be zero funny business going on.
No, I didn’t kiss Penny. But I still felt a million times better than I had after practice. Penny was the breath of fresh air I needed.
When I was in the hall my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw the name flash across my screen. Mr. Pruitt. My blood ran cold. Why the hell wouldn’t he leave me alone? I clicked out of the text without reading it. I knew exactly what it would say. He sent me the same text every few months for years. Telling me we needed to talk. That it was important.
But nothing that came out of that man’s mouth was important to me.
My heart started beating the same way it had when I thought I’d seen Brooklyn walking around the streets of the city. None of my ghosts were leaving me alone tonight.
I needed another drink. And to talk to someone who actually understood. Someone who hadn’t frozen me out. I fired off a text and headed to the closest bar.
Chapter 4
Thursday
“Hey man,” Tanner said and slid into the stool next to mine. “What’s up?”
I could always count on Tanner. No matter what he had going on, if I said I needed to talk he’d show up within 10 minutes. Honestly, I didn’t know how he managed it with the ridiculous traffic in this city. It was like he could teleport or something.
I didn’t respond. I just downed my glass and slammed it on the bar top.
Tanner grimaced. “That bad, huh?”
I nodded. My parents had forced me to go to therapy after Brooklyn died. And I did that whole thing for years. But it didn’t help. I just needed someone I trusted to talk to. Back and forth. Not someone staring at me taking notes. My best friends growing up didn’t want to talk about Brooklyn. Or anything high school. I got it. I was pretty sure they felt as guilty as me. But they’d all moved on. And I…couldn’t. Tanner was my only friend who seemed to care to listen. And he’d become my therapist of sorts. He never seemed to mind me talking about the past. He liked talking about his too.
I slid my phone over to Tanner.
He looked down at the text from Mr. Pruitt. “Again? What a dick. It’s like every time you start to move on, he pulls you back into this shit.”
It was kind of Tanner to say, because we both knew I was never even close to moving on.
“Maybe you should just answer him and get it over with,” Tanner said as he ordered us another round.
“I have nothing to say to him.”
“I know. But he clearly has something to say to you.” He handed me my phone back.
I looked down at the text. I could practically hear Mr. Pruitt’s voice: “Matthew Caldwell, it’s Richard Pruitt. We need to talk. It’s urgent. Please stop by tomorrow at 7 pm. The staff is expecting you.” He even put his address.
Pretentious prick. Why would he just assume I was free tomorrow at 7? I wasn’t. And I knew his freaking address. His apartment was ingrained in my head, no matter how hard I tried to forget. The last place I ever saw Brooklyn. Her crying in the foyer. I’d left her alone with that monster. My stomach turned.
Tanner leaned over to see some of the previous messages. “Today’s message is different than the others. Apparently now it’s urgent.”
“Everything with Mr. Pruitt is urgent.”
Tanner laughed. “Why do you still call him Mr. Pruitt?”
Tanner was weird about titles. It was respectful to call someone Mr. or Mrs. that was older than you. Especially someone that I grew up around. I’d never heard Tanner call anyone Mr. or Mrs. even if they were 50 years older than him. “I just always have,” I said. I hadn’t spoken to Mr. Pruitt since the funeral. He’d let me take a few of Brooklyn’s things. And that was it. He was going to be my father-in-law. And now I wanted nothing to do with him. Because as much as I blamed myself for what happened to Brooklyn? He was the real reason she was dead. And even though Brooklyn was his daughter, I was the only one that seemed to care that she was gone. Mr. Pruitt could go to hell.
“Want me to set his car on fire or something?” Tanner asked without a hint of humor in his voice.
I laughed even though he definitely seemed serious. Car fires sounded a lot more like something Mr. Pruitt would do. And I didn’t want to stoop to his level. “Maybe some other time.”
Tanner shrugged. “Just let me know. In the meantime, maybe you should change your number again.”
I’d changed my number five times. The messages still came. Mr. Pruitt was officially stalking me. “I’ll just ignore it.”
“You can’t ignore it if you get this shaken every time he texts you,” said Tanner. “Living life in fear is no way to live.”
“I’m not living my life in fear. And I’m not shaken.”