Hard Beat(85)

“He’s got that about right. Good thing I got up a few hours ago and pulled some jeans on.” She laughs low and rich, a sound from my childhood that brings back so many memories of backyard forts and riding bikes until the streetlights came on.

“So talk to me. Tell me where your head’s at, what’s going on… I’m here to listen and shut my mouth.”

I snort. “That’s pretty comical. You? Quiet?”

“Shh, I can listen with the best of them – just don’t spill that secret to Colton. So, anything new?”

I shove up off the couch, toss my beer bottle in the trash, and get an unsatisfactory clink as it hits the others inside before I look out the kitchen window to the neighborhood beyond. “Anything new? Well, Wendy had her baby while I was gone, cute little boy named Timothy,” I say, referring to my next-door neighbor. “And what else? It seems that William down the street bought some black eyesore of an SUV that he won’t park in his damn driveway, so it sits on the curb over there blocking the view some. And then there’s Mike on the other side who —”

“Tanner,” she says in warning to let me know that she’s not amused by my sarcasm whatsoever.

“I don’t want to talk about Beaux,” I say with a firm look even though she’s all I want to talk about because I can’t get her out of my f*cking head despite having been back home for almost two weeks.

“Your place looks nice. You look good.”

I grunt in response because I know she’s lying since I look like shit and she’s already said as much. “Not much else to do besides clean a place no one lives in and take long runs on the beach to fill time because… well because I can, seeing that I’m not in a war zone with land mines and such.” There’s a bite to my words that I didn’t intend but don’t apologize for. She gets it, I know she does, but that doesn’t mean that she deserves this treatment or that I even deserve the effort she’s putting forward to try to connect with me.

I walk toward the patio door to the backyard that Rylee opened, see the ocean, feel the sun in the sky, but I’m completely indifferent to it. My phone alerts a text from where it’s pressed into the cracks in the sofa cushions, and I choose to ignore it, knowing it’s yet another from Rafe or my parents. I don’t want to speak with anyone right now since my hand’s being forced as it is with Ry here.

“All I’ve done is think about her, about us. Run back through our conversations and the time we spent together over and over in my head to try to search for the clues I missed… but there’s nothing concrete I can pinpoint. I mean sure there’re things she kept private, certain things she didn’t address, but isn’t that how all relationships go?” With her behind me, it’s easier to talk for some reason.

“Yeah. It takes time to open the closet of skeletons… but married, Tanner? Tanner, that’s not a skeleton in a closet. That’s a ring on your finger. That’s the person you look forward to seeing every morning even when they annoy you or you’re fighting. It’s your other half. Marriage is made —”

“Marriage is made in Heaven,” I say, giving her one of my favorite Clint Eastwood quotes, “but so are thunder and lightning.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks, and I can hear the annoyance in her newlywed voice.

I walk outside and take a seat in a lounge chair where I know she’ll follow me. “It means that we grew up with Mom and Dad’s marriage as an example. You have Colton. Not all marriages are like yours. What if there’s something wrong in hers? What if she’s trapped and can’t get out of it? What if he’s abusive and —”

“That’s a long stretch, Tanner. It sounds like you’re just trying to justify her actions.” She takes the chair across from me, her face toward the ocean, but her words are sharp. “Love makes you more of who you are, not less… and right now, her lies? Are definitely not making you more.”

I let her words sink in, tell myself I’m reaching for something to hold on to when I just need to let go and free-fall into the pain. Take the rough landing and broken heart in one fell swoop so that I can heal all at once instead of piece by piece where hope ties each one together with the thinnest of strings.

“You know, Ry,” I finally say, “I can handle being dumped for someone else. I’m a big boy who can handle rejection just fine… It’s this schizophrenic feeling that’s driving me crazy.” I run a hand through my hair and sigh. “How come I am so f*cked up over this? How can I feel so strongly for someone after just a few months together? I mean one minute I miss her like crazy and feel like such a loser because I can’t let this go… and then the next minute I hate her guts and never want to see her again even if I had the chance to.”

She leans her head back against the chair and laughs before turning to meet my eyes, a knowing smile on her lips. “Because it’s love.”

“Do you care to elaborate since you think this is so funny?” I snip, not amused at all.

“It’s real love,” she says with a shrug that makes me uncomfortable instantly even though I could have assumed she’d say as much. But saying it aloud and feeling it in my own miserable silence are two different things. Once it’s out in the universe, you can’t take that shit back. “Real love messes you up no matter how long you’ve been with someone. Believe me. I’ve been there with Colton. We butted heads from day one, but there was something there I couldn’t deny no matter how hard I tried. Sometimes no matter how hard you fight it, it’s just there.” And of course my back immediately goes up that my brother-in-law made my little sister feel this way at some point. But at least I have comfort in knowing they obviously worked things out. “I can see you longing to work the Prince Charming angle, Tanner, but you can’t. Bad marriage or not, it’s her situation to deal with. You can’t go charging in on a white horse to save the day.”