Crashed (Driven, #3)(103)

“No f*cking Rylee, but yeah.” I shrug. “She was decent.”

“Decent?” he barks out. “I swear to God, the woman had no f*cking gag reflex.”

“Maybe that’s ’cause you’re not big enough to reach the back of her throat.” I quirk my eyebrows as I finish another beer. He wants to come to my house and f*ck with my head, I sure as shit am going to f*ck with his.

“Fuck off, Wood.”

His bottle cap hits me in the chest as I sit back and smirk. “I’ve had much better offers, my friend, but thanks anyway.” My head’s spinning trying to figure out where the hell he’s going with this line of thinking, but f*ck if I can figure it out.

“I ran into her the other day.” His calm cadence makes me to turn my head and look at him.

“And …?”

“Shocked the shit out of me is what she did.”

“Why’s that?” I pretend to be interested but he’s losing me. I glance up at the bedroom window behind me where the light’s still off, and even though I’m way beyond the road to drunk, I like knowing Ry’s up there. I try to focus back on Becks but why the f*ck do I care about the easy piece we both had way back f*cking when with a head so screwed up it rivaled mine?

“I barely recognized her. Still gorgeous as f*ck. Filled out in all the right places now.”

Yeah, yeah, get to your f*cking point, Beckett.

“And she had three kids in tow.”

“Look, dude, I know there’s some kind of six degrees of Kevin Bacon f*cking happening here right now, but I’m not f*cking following you so just spit out your goddamn point.” Then it hits me. Oh shit! “They’re not your kids are they, Becks?”

“Jesus Christ, Donavan, you’re f*cking drunker than I thought.” He chokes out a cough before raising his hand in the air and pointing to himself. “King of double bag before you stab, right here!”

“And who taught you that, douche bag?”

“Apparently not you since you obviously didn’t practice what you f*cking preach.”

His unexpected words cause a twinge in my gut that I f*cking hate. The same f*cking twinge I get every time I think of Rylee lying there on the goddamn floor all by herself, for who knows how long, and every time I think of the small piece of me dying inside of her. I gulp down the beer, pushing the thoughts from my f*cking head and force myself to breathe.

“Where the f*ck are you going with this, Daniels, because I’m drunk, have no f*cking patience, and kind of think you’re trying to push my buttons to get me to react to whatever f*cking point you’re taking your sweet ass time getting to. So just f*cking get to it.”

“Remember that one night we all got plastered at Jimmy’s bonfire?”

“Beckett!” I growl at him because my tolerance ran out like five f*cking minutes ago.

“Chill out, shut the f*ck up, and listen.” I snap my head over to look at him because I’m in no f*cking mood. “We were wasted and she started talking about the shit that had happened to her—bad shit—you remember?” I give him a measured nod, still not following the f*cking road map he’s lost himself on, but recall the story of abuse in all forms. A conversation I took no part in. “And she said she never wanted kids, that life’s too f*cked up and she didn’t want them to go through the shit she did. And now she has three kids, is married, and seems genuinely happy.”

“The f*cking point?” I growl at him

“Quit being so goddamn stubborn, Donavan, and connect the f*cking dots, will you?”

“I’m not a f*cking constellation. Your dots aren’t drawing a picture so help me the f*ck out.”

“You look like the Little Dipper to me.” He smirks.

I pick up the pillow next to me and chuck it at him. “Fuck off! Big Dipper’s more like it.” I take a long tug on my beer. Fuck, it’s empty. They’re disappearing faster than I can count them. Usually I’d just crash right here, but f*ck Ry’s up there. No way I’m sleeping without her next to me. I sigh, Becks’ words running circles in my head, hinting at his point but never really landing on the f*cking bull’s-eye. “Seriously, Becks, what are you trying to tell me here? Just spit it out.”

“Things f*cking change, dude! Life changes. Priorities change. Pre-f*cking-conceived notions change. You have to adjust and change with them or your ass gets left behind.” He shoves up out of his chair and walks to the railing and looks out into the blackness beyond. When he turns back around, he is dead serious. “We’ve been best friends for what? Almost twenty years. I love ya, man. I never interfere with the shit you’ve got going on … which woman’s warming the sheets, but f*ckin’ A, Wood …”

I’m not liking where this conversation is going. Deflection is my only thought. “I thought you told me I needed to f*ck a B instead,” I say, trying to add some humor to this serious conversation, and f*ck all if I can follow how we went from Hoover Tomlin to Becks sticking his goddamn nose where it doesn’t f*cking belong.

He laughs—has the balls to f*cking mock me—before walking over to me and shaking his head at me. “You don’t get it, do you? Fuck the A or the B, you have the whole goddamn alphabet upstairs and she’s asleep in your f*cking bed right now, but the only letter that can f*ck this up is U!” he shouts at me.