“Obviously she went back,” I prompted when he stopped to take another tug off his.
He stopped hunching over the bar, straightened and turned to me.
“Yeah. She went back,” he confirmed.
“So that’s good,” I noted stupidly.
“Heard her talkin’ to Grams.”
Uh-oh again.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“To this day, I thought it was stupid shit. He wasn’t steppin’ out on her, gamblin’, drinkin’, takin’ his hand to her, hidin’ money from her. And since they died, I always had this pit, this poison pit in my gut ’cause we were at Grams’s for three weeks. She lost three weeks of Dad just two years before they both bit it and, fuck, the reason why was so goddamned stupid.”
“Okay,” I said when he stopped again.
“What it was, I get now, was woman shit. As stupid as it was to me, it was not to her. It drove her from him. It meant somethin’ to her. Enough to put all that good they had in jeopardy. So it actually wasn’t stupid. It was serious as shit.”
I wrapped my hand around his thigh and gave it a squeeze, guessing, “And you were reminded of that when you saw Rosalie and it was so obvious that she, uh… wasn’t good about what went down with you two, and you’re thinking you misjudged the situation?”
“Yeah,” he bit off. “She looked exactly like she looked a month ago when I broke it off. No healing. Nothin’. Same pain. Same hurt. She hadn’t moved on at all so, yeah, Tab, I misjudged the situation.”
“That sucks, darlin’, but there’s nothing you can do about it now. She’ll move on. It just may take more time than you would imagine.”
“Yep,” he murmured, turned to his beer, sucked back the dregs then caught the bartender’s attention and jerked up his chin to order another. He looked back at me. “So, when you figure it out, and you’ll figure it out ’cause I know you haven’t yet and I’m about to lay it on you so you will, after that shit went down with Mom, after seein’ Rosalie, I got a bad feelin’ the pain is gonna stick with you and drive you away from me.”
How did we get here?
No, strike that, what on earth was he talking about?
“Shy, I don’t—”
“You blamed his ass and I shoulda come clean about it then. I didn’t. I’m comin’ clean about it now.”
I tipped my head to the side, confused.
“Blamed who about what?”
“That guy,” he stated.
“That guy? What guy?”
“Your dead guy.”
Something struck me then and it hit me like a sledgehammer.
He never called Jason by his name. He was never mean about him, never cast aspersions, was totally cool when I talked about him and when he guided me through my grief or wayward thoughts.
But he never, not once, said Jason’s name.
I felt my stomach knot.
“Shy, I’m not understanding where you’re leading me,” I said quietly.
“You said that you were back to you, I led you there, you weren’t you with him or before. You weren’t you for a long time. And you gave me credit for helpin’ bring you back to you without cottoning onto the fact I was the one who took you from you in the first place.”
I blinked and asked, “What?”
“That shit, Tab, that went down with us four years ago when I acted like a dick and did and said serious-as-fuck stupid shit that drove you away from me? You changed after that. I did that to you and I don’t want that shit to come back up, you to figure it out and—”
I got it then.
“I’m not leaving you, Shy,” I cut him off to say firmly, giving his thigh a firm squeeze.
“Shit festers, Tab, and—”
“Shut up,” I ordered and his head gave a slight jerk.
I ignored that and kept going.
“Shy, I was nineteen. I had no idea who I was. I still haven’t discovered all of me. You didn’t see it but between that time and when you came back in my life, I went through a whole load of phases. Music. Friends. Places I’d hang. Clothes I’d wear. I don’t know why I did it.” I grinned at him. “I do know it was fun.”
“Don’t bullshit me,” he returned. “That shit started when I came down on you unjustified.”
I felt my grin leave me and I leaned in in an effort to cushion the blow when I admitted, “Yeah.”
I watched a shadow drift over his face so I went on quickly.
“But Shy, darlin’, it would have happened anyway. Maybe differently but anyone at that age goes on a journey to discover who they are. You did and it took you to Chaos. I did and, in a roundabout way, it brought me back home and to you.”
The shadow lifted but only slightly before he said softly, “First, what I gotta live with is it took you away from me and led you to that guy. Yeah, babe, it led you back to me but I almost lost you and, in the meantime, you had to suffer losing everything. Second, and what’s on my mind right now, I do not want you goin’ back there for any reason and lettin’ what I did get under your skin.”
I shook my head and leaned so close, my breasts brushed his arm and I lifted a hand to rest on his chest. “Shy, that’s done. All of it. Jason’s gone and that’s not anyone’s fault. It’s just what life had in store for me. And we’re past that bad history we had. It is not gonna come back.”
“The shit Mom left Dad for he did to her in college. Over a fuckin’ decade before she left him for it.”
There it was.
“I’m not your mom, darlin’,” I told him carefully.
“Shit festers,” he repeated.
“They died,” I announced and that pain he thought he hid behind grins or casual conversations, shot through his eyes. Still, I pushed on, “They didn’t leave you, Shy. They died. I promised I wouldn’t leave you and, honestly, you strong-arm my landlord against my wishes and haul me around where you want me to be, and if there were reasons for me to be pissed, for us to butt heads, somewhere along the line in the last month, with our personalities, they would have come up. But I get that’s you. You get whatever it is is me and we both know what we have. We also know how it feels not to have it, so we don’t let that shit get in between.”
His brows went up. “You don’t like it when I haul your ass around?”
“At first, it freaked me.” I grinned again. “Now, I think it’s kinda hot.”
He studied me a moment before his eyes cleared and his lips twitched.
I let my smile fade and pressed my hand into his chest.
“I’m not leaving you, Shy. You’re not gonna lose me, because to do that I’d lose you, and that isn’t going to happen.”
He held my eyes two beats, I saw his turn warm and intent then he whispered, “You’re the fuckin’ shit, Tabby.”
“I know,” I told him airily on another smile. “My man tells me that all the time.”
His eyes dropped to my mouth and his lips ordered, “Kiss me, baby.”
There it was. All was good.
I leaned forward and did what he told me.
He tasted of beer with a hint of tequila.