Trouble (Dogwood Lane #3)(82)

“Thanks for calling me this morning and telling me you aren’t coming in,” he says. “That was a super fun conversation with Meredith.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You are sorry. A sorry son of a bitch, and I mean that in every way.”

I spin around to see Matt pissed. In all the years I’ve ever known him, basically my entire life, I’ve seen him at this level of angry only a couple of times. Matt just goes with the flow. He doesn’t get worked up about things.

He’s worked up now.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I ask.

“What the fuck is wrong with me?” He laughs, but there’s nothing funny about it. “It’s what’s wrong with you, Etling.”

“Oh, great.” I fall back on the couch and hope that a black hole exchanged places with it while I was gone and I’ll just fall into the abyss. I land on the cushions. “Let’s hear it.”

He paces the room. “You consistently shoot yourself in the foot. You refuse to see your potential. You think somehow it’s okay to walk away from people that actually might like your stupid, dumb ass.”

“This isn’t the pep talk I was hoping you’d come with.”

I think steam comes out of his ears.

“Why did you think I’d come with a pep talk in the first place, considering you never even called me?” He squeezes his fists together. “And this isn’t even about work. This is about your willingness to get me up in the middle of the night to ask me to help you get your truck unstuck from a giant pit of mud you had no business fucking with at two in the morning, but you can’t call me because you just fucked up the best thing that ever happened to you.”

His words hurt. They sting as they make their intended target. But what hurts worse is the disappointment in Matt’s face.

“I had to hear it from Jake,” Matt growls. “I had to hear what went down yesterday from fucking Jake.” He almost spits the words.

“Jake doesn’t even know—”

“Nah, he said you and Avery went off to discuss it on your own, and that when she came out, she was crying and just left. And that you didn’t go after her.” He shakes his head. “So I bet I can figure out what happened.”

I can barely swallow. Hell, I can barely breathe. To hear it put like that, so cleanly, so without the reasons behind it, sounds so harsh.

“Even Jake can’t figure you out, man,” Matt says. “When you didn’t show up today, he was like, ‘You better go check on your boy because he’s all the way fucked up.’”

“Well, I am, all right?” I say, getting to my feet. “I am fucked up. It’s not like you didn’t know that.”

“I didn’t. I never once in my life thought you were this stupid.”

“I can’t do it, Matt. I can’t . . .” I shake my head. There are too many thoughts and pieces of conversations and emotions swirling in my brain to make sense of any of it. “I’m trying to be who I am, but I can’t be who she wants me to be.”

“She wants you to be you.”

“I am being me.”

He stills, squaring his shoulders to mine. I’ve never actually fought Matt, but if I did, I think it would be a hell of a fight. He’s farmer-boy strong and has that gene where he’s a teddy bear until he’s a grizzly. I’m not sure what he’d be today. I don’t want to risk it, because I feel pretty damn weak.

“You’re going to fail at the best thing that you’ve ever tried, and it’s because you quit.” Matt’s tone is low, his eyes boring into mine. “How pussified is that, Penn?”

“I didn’t quit,” I say as calmly as I can. “She quit me.”

My voice breaks on the last word, and I hiccup it back. I don’t cry, and I won’t cry now. Not in front of Matt. Not unless I’m in the shower and can pretend it’s the hot water or that I got soap in my eye.

“She quit you because you won’t really try. Why would she keep fucking with you? Why would she waste her time falling in love with you when you have the biggest damn wall right in front of you that you keep building higher and higher to keep her out? She’s not an idiot. You are.”

“She wasn’t falling in love with me.”

He grins. “She probably was.”

I wipe my face with the back of my hand, my jaw dropping so I can breathe. My heart beats so fast I think I might pass out.

She was falling in love with me? Why would she do that? Girls like her fall in love with guys like Matt. Or Jake. Or Dane.

Not me.

“You’re going to have to wake up and see what’s happening here,” Matt says. He’s lost the sharpness to his tone, and I’m thankful for that. “You’re a good guy. You’re just afraid you’re gonna ruin everything because your parents drilled that into you. And while we’re broaching that topic, let’s point out that their problems had nothing to do with you either.”

There must be smoke in the air after all, because the corners of my eyes fill with fluid.

“I know you think that loving someone makes you vulnerable. And you’re right, it does. And I’ll tell you another secret—you will fuck up with Avery or whoever you fall in love with someday because you fuck up everything. We all do.”