Fire Inside (Chaos #2)(94)

“Good,” he whispered back and God, that whisper, full of pride and relief.

It killed.

I straightened my shoulders. “Hop—”

“Now we gotta talk,” he declared.

I shook my head. “That isn’t happening.”

“Lanie, I gave you some time. Now we gotta sort this shit out.”

Oh. He didn’t show last night because he was giving me time.

That was nice.

And supremely unfortunate because it was too late.

“There’s nothing to sort. It’s over,” I announced.

“Babe,” he leaned toward me, “it isn’t.”

“Hopper,” I leaned toward him, “it is.”

He leaned back and studied me.

Then he said, “What we got, you know, it’s worth gettin’ past this.”

“I know what we have and it isn’t worth that work,” I retorted and his body twitched.

“Come again?”

I threw out a hand. “I know how this goes, Hopper. I’ve been here before. I fall for a guy and he makes stuff about me he doesn’t like clear, and I knock myself out to stop doing that stuff, and I’m not me anymore.”

“You fell for me?”

I clamped my mouth shut.

Hop’s face got soft and he took another step toward me. “We’ll let that go for now and start with the other. What is it you think I don’t like about you?”

“The drama,” I answered.

He grinned. “Babe, I like the drama.”

“You throw it in my face all the time when we’re fighting.”

“And lady, I f**kin’ love it when we fight because I love how we make up and don’t bullshit me, you love it too.”

He wasn’t wrong about that.

“Anyway, I never said I didn’t like it,” he went on.

“You’re always bringing it up.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t like it.”

“Well, I’ll give you some insight. Insight, I’ll note, that you already know with your speech about stuff soaking into women, burning a wound that will never heal. If you mention something, it’s going to be on my mind and since I…” I tried to find the right word that didn’t expose too much, “cared about you, I’d work myself into a tizzy trying to tone it down. Willing to do anything to make sure I don’t drive you away, drive you to do what my dad does to my mom.”

“I’m not your dad,” he returned instantly.

“That doesn’t matter, either, Hopper. It’s just who I am, how I work, what I do,” I shared.

“What your dad does to your mom is not on your mom. It’s on your dad. He’s a dick, he does that to his family and a bigger dick, he does it for decades,” Hop continued like I didn’t speak.

“That’s true. But that’s not the point.”

“Yeah, it f**kin’ is. You think you gotta tone down you so you won’t drive your man to another woman’s pu**y. That shit’s whacked, Lanie.”

“Well, it’s how I’ve been conditioned to think.”

“Then stop thinking it.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Then let me help you work that shit out.”

“God!” I cried, throwing up both my hands. I’d tried, I’d really tried to tamp down the drama but he wouldn’t shut up! “Hopper, we don’t work!”

“Lanie, that’s total f**kin’ bullshit and you know it.”

“How, if you look back from start to finish, is any of the mess that was us a good thing? Fighting. Drama. Me pushing you away, you pushing back. You cutting me out then thinking you can just say you f**ked up and all would be okay. It’s lunacy.”

“That’s a goddamned relationship, Lanie.”

“Well it hurts,” I hissed. “And I didn’t spend seven f**king years guarding myself from that pain only to have it shoved down my throat!” I ended on a shout.

“Jesus, lady, are you seriously gonna stand there and tell me you don’t remember all the good we had, and there was a lot of good in there, Lanie, good so good it was the best and it totally f**kin’ outweighed the bad in time and importance, and you’re gonna throw us away just because you’re shit scared?”

“Yes, I’m seriously going to stand here and tell you just that, Hop,” I shot back.

“So you’re okay, in taking that away from you, taking it away from me.”

My breath pressed out of my lungs on a wheeze and I stared.

Hop continued.

“On the road groupie pu**y. Biker pu**y. Fuckin’ Mitzi. I’ve had a lot and some of the women in there, they were good. Fine women. Sweet women. Excellent lays. But never, not in forty f**kin’ years of life, have I had a woman who I felt about like I feel about you. You tell me you care about me and yet, we both f**k up and hurt each other, you won’t make the effort it takes to forgive and get back on track? In doing that, taking away the only shot I’ve ever had in forty f**kin’ years of being genuinely happy?”

I didn’t say anything because I hadn’t thought of it like that and thinking of it like that made the pain I’d been feeling for nearly two weeks unbearable.