Badd Motherf*cker: Badd Brothers (27 page)

“Actually,
I
paid for that, remember? That was the deal: you paid for the venue and catering, and I paid for the honeymoon. The airfare was included in the package.” He waved a hand. “And I did. I mean, she’s there now, but I hopped a flight here. I had to find you. I couldn’t leave things like that.”

“How did you find me, anyway?”

“Wasn’t hard to narrow down which flight you stowed away on, and once I had the tail number, it was a simple matter of getting the pilot’s number and asking a few questions. Wasn’t hard.”

“Whatever, I don’t really care. So you left Tawny in Hawaii to come here and…what? Nothing about this makes sense.” I picked up my scotch and took a drink to fortify my nerves. “Like, I really,
really
don’t get it. Four years.
Four
years
, Michael.
You
proposed to
me
, and it wasn’t like I was dropping hints about it. I wasn’t even sure I was ready to get engaged, but you—you went to so much trouble making it romantic, and everyone in the restaurant was watching, and I…I didn’t feel like I had a choice but to say yes.”

Michel indicated my drink. “Can I get one of those?”

I shook my head. “No, you can’t.” I rolled my hand. “Explain, Michael.”
 

He took a deep breath, let it out. “It’s hard to explain. I did care for you. I do, I mean.”

“Bullshit, but continue.”

“I did, I swear. Like you said, we spent four years together. It just…I don’t know. I wasn’t happy.” He wiped his face with both hands. “I thought if I asked you to marry me, it’d make us happier. I kind of felt like you were never happy with me either, and I hoped getting married would solve whatever the problem was, and that—that wasn’t something I’ve ever been able to figure out, why you weren’t happy.”

“But you went through with the wedding anyway. Up until I caught you with your dick in Tawny, at least. And that begs the question…if I hadn’t caught you, would you have married me? Would you have taken me to Hawaii and fucked me with Tawny still all over you?”
 

“I don’t know—god, I don’t know!”
 

“Stop saying you don’t know, you fucking bastard!” I shouted. “You
do
know, you’re just too much of a pussy to say what you really mean.”

“Fine! I never loved you!” he shouted back. “I
wanted
to love you, I
tried
to love you, but I never did. And you were…you were always…I don’t know how to say it. It felt like you were playing a role. Like you were trying to be someone else, or…like you were trying to fit into the persona of someone you weren’t. Like an ill-fitting mask, perhaps. Sex with you was…never
bad
, per se, but…not enough. When I met you, you were this wild person with all these crazy stories, and the first few times we slept together you were…
fierce
, I guess. But then you changed. You got…
boring
. And I didn’t know how to get you back to who you were, who you used to be. I thought, if we got engaged, you’d open up. You’d…that we’d—that something would change, I guess.”
 

“
I
got boring?!” I shrieked, outraged. “It was always the same old thing with you. You never showed the slightest interest in anything but the same thing every time! And I was trying to be what
you
wanted, to fit into
your
life, to fit into the box
you
put me in!”

“How the
fuck
did I ever put you into a box? I never
once
told you what to wear or how to act or that I wanted you to change.
You
did that on your own. I thought you’d…outgrown your wild ways, maybe. Like you’d settled down.” He was standing up, now, visibly upset, more animated than I’d ever seen him about anything; he rarely swore, too, maintaining that cursing was the sign of a weak mind. “I always felt like I was missing out, like by getting the watered-down Dru Connolly I was missing out on the fun version you used to be. But I
never
put you in that box.”

I staggered backward, hands shaking.

Holy fuck—he was right
.
 

My eyes watered with tears I didn’t dare shed. I turned away, set the rocks glass down on the back counter of the bar, struggling to get myself under control. I gripped the edge of the counter and leaned against it as if it alone was keeping me upright. And maybe, in that moment, it was.
 

I’d changed myself for him…but he hadn’t wanted me to change. He’d wanted the person he’d met, and I’d put myself into a pigeonhole in some kind of effort to make myself into what I’d thought he wanted in his life.

Oh, the irony.

“Dru?” Michael’s voice was soft, concerned.

I wavered, for a moment. I remembered when I’d first met him, how much fun we’d had together, how easy things had seemed. He’d been a little average, sure, and he’d never made my pulse thunder or my legs shake, but he’d been stable, easy to be around, decent in bed, and most of all…
normal
. I’d been so sick of feeling out of place and alone that I’d settled for someone I’d never loved, and in the process I’d changed myself, forced myself into being some kind of pathetic attempt at “normal”, when I’d never be that; I
couldn’t
be. I could never be in love with someone like Michael Morrison. And I should never have tried.

My eyes lifted, and I saw the mirror behind the bottles of Patrón and Sauza and Johnny and Jack and Beefeater, saw the name of the bar emblazoned in frosted letters across the top of the mirror: Badd’s Bar and Grill. I saw the table where Sebastian had done such delightful, dirty things to me, and the door where he’d done other things…and then my eyes lifted to the ceiling, just beyond which were seven incredible men, one of whom could rock my world to the core without even trying. And when he tried? Holy hell.
 

I knew I could never go back to Michael. I didn’t
want
to, first and foremost, for myself. Not because of Sebastian or any other reason than that I just didn’t want that life or that version of myself. I wanted
this
me. The one who took a chance on a different life with a stranger in a bar in Ketchikan, Alaska. The one who wasn’t afraid to kick some ass, fuck like the tigress I was, and never apologize for any of my sharp edges. Hell, maybe I’d get some tattoos. Take those edges and sharpen them, flaunt them for everyone to see.

 
I stood up, straightening my back. I turned around, took a deep breath, and let it out, feeling peace wash through me. “You’re right, you know. I did change myself. That wasn’t you, that was all me. And I guess I owe you an apology. It turned our whole relationship into something it wasn’t, into something it could never be. So, for that, I’m sorry.”
 

“Dru, wait, just listen—”

“I’m not done, Michael. Yes, you were right about that. I turned myself into a boring version of me, went to college and got a degree I didn’t really want, took a boring job I hated, lived in a city I’ve never felt at home in, spent four years trying to convince myself I loved a man I couldn’t ever really love and never had.”
 

I jabbed a finger at him, let everything spill out. “But that doesn’t excuse what you did! If you weren’t happy, you should have broken up with me! If the sex was boring, you should have—I don’t know, tried to spice it up! Tried something different! Tied me up or put it in my ass or something. Anything! But you never did. So what if it wasn’t enough?
I
wasn’t enough for you? Fine, okay, whatever. Maybe we were both at fault, or maybe I’m the only one at fault for pretending to be something I wasn’t, but you should’ve broken up with me if that were the case, not
proposed
! And just because I wasn’t enough, just because I wasn’t what you wanted, that doesn’t mean you get a free pass to start fucking around!”

“I know, I just—”

“NO! There’s no
you just
.” I slammed a fist on the table. “Tell me
why
! Why her, why then?”

He deflated further, if that was even possible. “Tawny and me…we’d known each other before you and I met. We’d had a thing in college, just a brief fling, but—”

“Wait,
college
? Can she even read?”

His expression soured. “Don’t be a bitch, Dru.”

I seethed. “
What
did you just call me?”
 

He held up his hands. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.”

“Damn right it was.”

“Point is, yes, she went to college.”

“And how do we get from you having a fling with her in college to you fucking her on our wedding day?”

He shifted, getting uncomfortable now. “I—she and I, we…”

“Spit it out, Michael.”

A sigh. “That time you went backpacking with your dad?”

I gaped at him. “
Really
? We were gone
three
days! Not even!”

“Everybody came over for some drinks, and Tawny was the last one to leave, and we’d both had a little too much…” He shrugged. “And one thing led to another.”
 

“That was two years ago.” I was barely holding myself together, seconds from ripping him apart. “Two years ago. So all this time…?” I trailed off, waiting for him to fill in the rest.

And he did. “All this time, yes.”

“I never even guessed.”
 

“We were careful.”

I struggled to keep some composure. “When? Where? How often?”

He sighed. “Does it matter?”

“YES IT MATTERS!” I screamed.
 

“The salon where she works.” He was eyeing me as if I was a time bomb liable to go off at any second—which, admittedly, I was. “The tanning booths. Pretty much every day.”

“I never smelled her on you. You never called her, never texted her.”

He sighed again. “I’d go see her in the morning, on the way to the gym. We’d meet at her salon, and then I’d go work out, take a shower, and go to work.” A wave of his hand. “She never called me, and I always deleted our text threads before I got home.”
 

“So you’ve been seeing Tawny on the side for
two
years?” I nearly crumpled. “Two years. You’ve ben cheating on me for
two years
?”
 

“Yes.”

I wobbled, and the room spun. Hearing it said outright took the earth off its axis. I collapsed onto my butt on the floor behind the bar. “And…the proposal, the wedding, everything…you’d have gone through with it, but kept seeing her on the side?”

“I don’t know. It was sort of obvious that you were clueless, so I just went with it. Figured I’d just…I don’t know what. Figure it out later, I guess. If things between us got better, I’d dump Tawny, but if not, she’d be there for me.”

“And she was fine with this arrangement? Knowing she was the side chick?”

“It feels a little more complicated than that to me, honestly,” Michael said. “She…
gets
me. I always…I’ve always sort of felt like…like you…” He hesitated again. “Like you were the side chick.”

“That’s…” I shook my head, palms to my forehead, heart pounding, gut clenching. “That’s fucking batshit crazy, Michael. I’m the side chick, but you asked me to marry you and arranged a wedding…”

I stood up, then, because I was at the end of my ability to handle anything more. And that’s when I saw it.

A thin, plain gold band on the ring finger of his left hand.

“You…wait, wait, wait…you—” I was about to vomit. “You
married
her?”

He stood up, pushed the bar chair in. “Yes.”

“Saturday? After I left?”

He nodded. “Yeah. My family was there, the pastor was there, the rings were there, and I’d never signed or sent in our marriage license…and I knew how I felt about her, so I figured why not? Your dad and his cop buddies went after you, and that was the entirety of your side, so…it just worked. She was fine with it.”

I had trouble formulating words for several seconds. “This is crazy.” I blinked, tried to get my head to accept what he was saying. “Your family…they were fine with it?”

He chuckled, a little awkwardly. “They were kind of confused, at first. But there was an open bar at the reception, so…” He trailed off, as if that explained it.
 

“You gave her
my
ring? The ring you proposed to me with? The wedding bands we picked out together? The pastor
I
interviewed, the catering company
I
hired, the venue
I
picked out…”

“It was all there and set up and paid for, so why not? No sense letting it go to waste.”
 

I shook my head. “This whole thing is making my head hurt. I don’t…it doesn’t make any sense.” I finally made myself meet his gaze. He seemed untroubled. “Why are you here, then?”

He shrugged and held both hands palms up. “I just…hated how you found out. You deserved more than that.”

I choked. “I deserved—” I couldn’t even finish repeating his words. “You’re crazy. I don’t even know how you’re capable of craziness of this caliber. You’re acting like this whole thing is perfectly normal.”

“I know it’s not. It’s unusual, sure, but…it works for me.”

“And what about me?”

He shrugged, and I was going to break his shoulders if he shrugged one more damn time. “You’re a strong girl, I knew you’d be fine.”

I circled around from behind the bar, opened the door to show him the street. “You need to leave.”
 

He nodded. And that was it. A nod. A single bob of his head, and he was out the door, as if he’d said what he came to say.
 

“Michael?” I said, and he stopped just on the other side of the door. “Just one more thing.”

He eyed me cautiously. “You’re going to punch me, aren’t you?”

I smashed my fist into his nose. “How’d you know?”

He staggered backward, blood sluicing down his chin. “Lucky guess.”

He walked away, then, and I was finally alone.

And wondering how the hell I’d spent four years with the man and never knew he was capable of…whatever bizarre kind of craziness that was. Like…really? He married her? Instead of me? Who does that? I mean, if we’d broken up, or it had been a few months, or even weeks…but he literally just brought Tawny out and was like,
I’m marrying her instead of that other bitch.