The Fix (The Carolina Connections, #1)(53)
At his words, my back went so straight I could have taught an etiquette class. “You what?! Are you joking?”
“No. I’m just not cut out for this.”
I could almost hear the countdown to my brain’s imminent explosion. “Not cut out for what? Being an adult?” The calm I’d regained was a thing of history. I leapt off the couch and pointed right in his face. I couldn’t have stopped myself if I’d tried—the urge to rant at him had been bottled up for so long.
“You lived in Mom and Dad’s house for two years and never got a job—never paid a dime. You let them buy you a Jeep, for Christ’s sake—it may be a shitty one but you still let them pay for it. They were so afraid you were going to fall apart and so disappointed for you that they would have done anything—and you let them!
“You acted like a spoiled child whose favorite toy had been taken away and you let them wait on you hand and foot. It only took eight weeks to recover from your injury—an injury that was a direct result of your own goddamned carelessness, by the way—but you milked the hell out of it and acted like a whiny baby. You took advantage of them and refused to grow the fuck up and take responsibility.”
My blood was on fire and I couldn’t seem to stop. “So life didn’t turn out how you wanted it to—join the fucking club. Do you think I lay in my bed as a child dreaming of my future life as a single mom pinching pennies and working a boring-ass job to make ends meet?” I swiped my hair out of my face and kept going. “And don’t you even think about throwing the help I got from Mom and Dad in my face. I know I was damn lucky to have them and I appreciated the hell out of it. Never did I take it for granted, and I pulled my weight as best I could. I got dealt a bad hand and took it on the chin, unlike you. I picked myself up and moved on because that’s what it is to be an adult.”
I was so worked up by this point I felt like I needed a corner man to wipe my face down.
But Gavin, who had been swiping my finger aside repeatedly, was up and facing off with me. He had come to fight too. “You got dealt a bad hand?! Ha! You decided to spread your legs for some douchebag with a guitar and suffered the consequences. I chose to get on that motorcycle and you chose to be a slut, so don’t paint me with a different brush, Laney. We both fucked up. The only difference is that my fuck-up killed the only dream I’ve ever had in my entire life! Yours just changed the timing of what your life had in store for you anyway.”
He laughed without a trace of humor. “You got an awesome kid out of your fuck-up, and if I asked you on your worst day if you’d change one thing about how your cards fell you would always say no because a yes would mean you wouldn’t have Rocco. You ask me the same thing and I’d answer yes every single time. I would give anything to change that night and get my career back. There is no fallback or plan B. There’s nothing.” He stepped into me and his voice dropped.
“So you go ahead and be all superior and call me an idiot like I know you love to do, but you will never understand what it’s like to be me and lose the one dream you ever had. You’ve got Rocco, you’ve got your new house, you’ve got your perfect boyfriend, and you’ve even got the fuckwad California kid to fund your life. Wow, I feel so sorry for you!” He sneered and backed away, grabbing his bag again.
Then he turned and headed for the door. “Now, if it’s all right with you I think I’ll go get drunk with Brett. Because, unlike my sister who’s supposed to have my back, he has never failed me. Tell Rocco I’ll catch him tomorrow and tell Nate whatever the hell you want to.”
I hurried to catch up and stepped right in his way. “You don’t get to drop the mic and stomp out of here.” I poked him in the chest. “You talk about your dead dreams and, yeah, it sucks ass that you didn’t get to play pro ball, but you could do anything else in the world! You didn’t even bother to finish college. Mom and Dad were standing there, money in hand, offering to help you finish. You could have picked anything, but getting drunk with Brett was what you chose—it’s what you always choose!”
He tried to push me aside but I wasn’t done. “And as for my dreams? I never even had a chance to figure out what they were—I didn’t get the time to. I was going to get a four-year degree and a chance to figure out my future on my own time. Instead I’m stuck in a cubicle for the rest of my life doing a job Brett could probably do hungover.”
Gavin rounded on me and shoved his finger in my face. “You’re so full of shit. You curse me for taking advantage of Mom and Dad and then you tell me I should have taken their money for college? Which is it? And if you hate your job so damn much, why don’t you just quit?!” he hissed in my face and pushed me aside to reach the door.
“God, you’re such a child! You don’t get it at all!” I yelled at him.
He flipped me off, proving my point, and slammed the door behind him, making me feel so agitated that I wanted to scream and throw things. Why couldn’t he see that he had the world at his feet if he’d just open his eyes and consider the possibilities waiting out there for him? Son of a bitch!
I checked on Rocco to make sure we hadn’t woken him up, but thankfully he was fast asleep, upside down on his bed. I felt utterly crappy and there was no way I’d be able to sleep, so I called Fiona, praying that she was still up. I got her voicemail. Well, reality TV it was, then.