Crazy Girl(57)

The dim lighting also meant he couldn’t see me glare at him, but once again, he kept moving, not even giving his shitty statement a second thought. Hopping up on the hood of my car, he shimmied back, making himself comfortable.

“What are you doing?” My tone indicated every bit of my annoyance. I was tired and wanted to go home. Plus, as hard as I tried, Brigham’s words about men being players was still poking at me. I needed to go home and hide in my room so I could dissect it to death.

Digging in his bag, he mumbled, “Looking for…ah-ha,” he announced proudly. “There it is.” Pulling out a pint of Jack Daniels, he twisted the top off, the seal cracking indicating it was a new bottle. “Let’s have a little night cap, shall we?”

I looked around, noting there were only a few cars left in the lot, but I wasn’t sure if they had any kind of security cameras that might see us. “Brigham, this isn’t a good idea.”

“Hannah,” he groaned. “Sit down beside me and take a few sips. Be chill.”

Inhaling deeply, I looked away as I battled myself. I wanted to go home and hide. That’s what I wanted more than anything. I’d stayed for the game, even though I hadn’t wanted to. If I’d gone home and skipped the game, then he’d know he was right and that the characters were based off of real people. Still, I wasn’t sure hanging out with Brigham in a dark parking lot was the best idea for several reasons. But I also knew I was committed to fighting my own hindrances. If I went home, I’d be up all night, overthinking and worrying about things I really didn’t have any control over. Though I was used to it, and it was my go-to, I didn’t want to be that way anymore.

Awkwardly, I scooted up on the hood and took the bottle Brigham was holding out for me. I had no worry of finding myself in the same way last time I was drunk in a parking lot. Taking a long swig, I closed my eyes as the burn slid down, pooling warmth in my belly. Brigham took the bottle and leaned back on my windshield, resting one arm behind his head. Over my shoulder, I glanced back at him as he stared up at the sky.

“Did you bring the whiskey tonight knowing you’d share it with me?”

“Yep,” he answered simply.

“Really?”

He snorted. “Hannah. I saw you at the wedding, your drink dribbling down your face as you leered at the dance floor, and I knew there was no chance I’d ever sleep with you.”

I closed my eyes, humiliated as I remembered spilling my drink down myself. “Don’t remind me,” I groaned.

“Then that first night at our first game, one of the first things I told you was I had no desire to sleep with you, remember? We’re friends. And I like to take care of my hot-mess friends.”

I chuckled. He said the worst things sometimes. “I don’t know if I should feel lucky, or offended.”

Bringing his eyes to focus on me, the soft yellow lighting from the parking lot cascading over his face just right added a sharpness to the cuts of his face, showcasing his best feature—his eyes. He looked like a model; a man you’d see on some dark and sultry cologne ad. “You remind me of someone.”

“I do?”

“Someone that needed me, and I let them down.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I don’t need you, Brigham.”

“Yeah, you do,” he argued softly before taking a swig then handing me the bottle. “You just don’t know it yet.”

I stared at him for a long moment, my eyes narrowed. Was he nuts or something? He couldn’t possibly be drunk already. “Who do I remind you of?”

Sitting up, he pushed my hand holding the bottle toward me, encouraging me to sip. “That’s a story for another night. Tonight, we drink.”

We slowed the drinking, took smaller sips, and lay on the hood of my car for hours that night, and Brigham shared a variety of stories with me that had my emotions all over the place. He told me about his travels and adventures. He spoke a lot about women…mostly bragging about the ladies he had conquered. He spoke about his family and his daughter. The thing that was so fascinating about him was how he tallied right and wrong in his life. He prided himself on being a good father and a hard worker, yet he proudly boasted about how he played women. He considered himself a Christian. Some things he told me made me smile, made me envy him. Others, those broke my heart. But I didn’t comment, and I didn’t judge. I realized in a way Brigham was using me. I was his confessional. For some reason, he had chosen me to purge his tales of life upon. He and I were nothing alike. Not really. But I let him speak freely because I knew what it was like to carry around so much. I did it every day. And talking to others about it was hard because they didn’t understand. I told myself that maybe, subconsciously, Brigham saw that in me and he felt safe.

On the drive home, I thought about what he’d said in the coffee shop, not just thought about it—turned it over and over in my head. I battled internally, one foot fully planted in the Brigham-Knows-All Camp, and my other planted with He’s Wrong Town. He didn’t know Wren and couldn’t have concluded so much about the character Alex from what he’d read. I reminded myself Brigham was also a proud playboy, with eccentric tastes when it came to women. This was most likely a projection on his part. But even with my stellar reasoning skills, I couldn’t deny he’d gotten to me. My thoughts rolled over to the story Duke had shared with me—monkey fisting he’d called it. Duke was a colorful storyteller, and the tale had stuck with me in the back of my mind, burrowing down and getting comfy until I pulled it back out and tried to apply it somewhere.