First Love (Complicated Love Book 1) (5 page)

God, that sounds wonderful. Man up and tell him how you really feel. “You know what?  No, I don’t want you to come out here. The whole purpose for me coming out here was to get away from you and figure out how to deal with my broken heart. Not let you back in instantly.” Oh shit. Did I say that out loud?

  “Why did you need to get away from me?  I haven’t seen you since I kissed you goodbye yesterday morning,” Brian says.

“I don’t want to go into that right now. What I want to do is go to bed and pray that I don’t wake up hungover.”

“Donna, I need to know why you ran. Did you come to the office yesterday?”

“Brian, I can’t talk about this right now. I have my reasons. Please don’t force me to talk now.”  I’m being a brat by not answering him, but I don’t want to talk about it yet.

“Fine, but I’m not thrilled you won’t even tell me if you showed up at my office yesterday.”

Deep breath. “We really need to talk about what happened yesterday, but it’ll be on my terms, not yours. You’re the asshole who couldn’t be honest with me. Frank told me you’ve been meaning to talk to me about something, but apparently, I’m not worthy enough to know what it is yet.”  Why did I have to go and say that?  Drunk. No filter. “Plus, I need some time to relax and hang with Shawna. If you’re with me, I won’t be relaxing or spending much time with her. I won’t have any time to process where I see myself going from here.”

“Please, let me come drive home with you. You can still hang out with Shawna. You can ignore me all you want while we’re at her house, but once we start the drive home, you’ll be all mine.”

I can’t really argue with him. I don’t want to make that drive home alone, and I really do need to get some questions answered. “I can’t stop you from doing what you want to do. I’m not agreeing with you, but I know you’ll come whether I want you to or not.”

“Thank you, baby, for letting me come get you. And yes, we need to talk about yesterday and what happened, but I have a feeling its part of the reason I need to talk to you. I don’t want to do this over the phone though. I want you to be able to look in my eyes when I answer your questions. I want you to have no doubt I’m telling the truth. So please sleep well, and I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“Goodnight, Brian. See you soon. I love you.”

Shit. Why’d I say that? Oh well, I do love him—even if he did cheat. You can’t stop loving someone overnight.

“Good night, my beauty. Sweet dreams. Love you.”

I hang the phone up, climb into bed, and pass out.

G
od, why did I let myself drink so much last night without eating? It feels as if there’s a jackhammer going off in my head. The sunlight shining through the windows is killing my eyes.

Why does the bed have to face the window? And why are the curtains wide open?

I know not to get drunk, and I didn’t even get the escape I needed because I broke down and called Brian last night. I remember pieces of the conversation.

“Oh shit,” I cry when I realize he’ll be here today.

Knowing him, he was on the first flight out. I’m thinking no later than ten, which is only thirty minutes from now. I need to hurry up and get dressed so I can warn Shawna and Frank that he’s coming.

After hopping out of bed, I race over to my bag, grab the first pair of pants and shirt I see, and throw them on. Hopefully, they match. I can’t believe I acted so casual with him on the phone. I made it seem like I wasn’t even pissed off at him. Alcohol doesn’t have the angry affect with me. It makes me lovey-dovey. He has no idea what a shit storm he’s walking in on today. He’s probably been wondering why I left. He probably thought it had to do with our moms, but then, last night, I basically called him a lying asshole. How could I have let myself talk to him without even yelling at him? He deserved my anger last night, and then I agreed to him flying down here to freaking drive me home. How stupid can I be? I’m turning into one of those women who lets their man walk all over them.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I have to talk with Shawna and let her know I made a colossal mistake and I need to get away. I’m not ready to face Brian yet.

“Hey, guys,” I say, walking into the kitchen and holding my throbbing head. I plop down next to Shawna at the breakfast bar. It’s so bright in here; those floor-to-ceiling windows sure do let a lot of light in.

“Good morning, sleepy head. How do you feel?” Frank walks over from the stove and sets water and sets an ibuprofen in front of me.

“Thank you!  If you weren’t Shawna’s man, I’d kiss you for giving me these,” I blurt, grateful I didn’t even have to ask for them.

“You’re welcome,” Frank says as his face turns pink and he backs away from me.

“I feel like shit. I ended up calling Brian last night. He’s going to be here sometime this morning, but I don’t know when.” I don’t even get another word out before the doorbell rings. I glare at Shawna and Frank. “Let me guess. You already knew he was coming, and you weren’t even going to wake me to let me know.” I don’t know why I’m upset she didn’t wake me, but I feel she should have.

“Hey, you’re the one who invited him, not me, so don’t go getting all bitchy on me.”

See, this is why I love Shawna. And why we’ve become such good friends. We aren’t afraid to call each other on our shit, and neither one of us lets the other one get away with acting like a total bitch for no reason.

“Fine. But you can answer the door since I don’t want to see him. If I had been the least bit sober last night, I would’ve given him an earful about what a piece of shit he is instead of telling him to come on down. Though I don’t think I told him to come. If memory serves me correctly, I told him I didn’t want him to come. Why’d you let me get drunk and leave me unsupervised with a phone?”

“Tell it like it really is,” Brian says behind me.

Slowly turning around, I see Brian and Frank standing in the kitchen doorway. Shit. When did Frank go answer the door?  I really am out of it this morning.

“Well, hello there, Brian. I’m going to go get myself together, as I wasn’t expecting you quite so early. Well, at all, actually, but my stupid-ass drunk mouth brought you here.”

Wow, that came out sounding colder than I’d meant it to, but he needs to know I’m not happy with him.

“Good morning, beautiful. My guess is you feel like shit. You’re always short with me when you’re hungover. Go take a nice hot shower, and I’ll be here when you get out. We’ve got all day.”

I don’t respond to his snide comment about me being short with him. I turn and stomp away, calling out, “I do feel like shit, and it isn’t for the reason you think. I’d take this hangover any day of the week over having my heart ripped out and fed through a shredder like you did with it.”

After saying that, I rush into the bathroom and lock myself in. The last thing I need is Brian or Shawna coming in. I need time to think and get ready for what will hopefully be an eye-opening weekend.

T
he combination of the hot shower and the ibuprofen helped my hangover, but neither could help with my broken heart. Now that I can finally function, I join my friends and Brian in the kitchen.

“Look who finally decided to join us,” Shawna jokes.

Oh, I hate when they draw attention to me, but at least no one’s thinking about the tension between me and Brian.

“Oh, take a flying leap,” I say, knowing that will piss her off because friend-fighting with her takes my mind off Brian.

“Oh, you did not just tell me to go F off. Those are fighting words,” she says back to me.

“Actually, I didn’t say the F-word. Though you know I love to say it as often as possible in different ways because you hate when I say fuck, fuck, fuck. Coming up with different ways keeps you on your toes.” I laugh now that I’ve made her just as embarrassed.

“Donna, stop picking on poor Shawna,” Brian chides.

“But she knows I don’t like having attention focused on me ever, and that’s what she did,” I say, sounding like a child.

“You two are worse than kids. Why don’t we all play nicely,” Frank suggests.

He hasn’t seen Shawna and me together before, so our friend-fighting is a first for him. He better get used to it, though, because I plan on being around a lot more. I don’t like being away from her for as long as I have been.

“Fine, I’ll behave.” I stick my tongue out at Shawna, eliciting a laugh from both Brian and Frank.

“Oh, grow up, Donna,” Shawna says, smirking. “So, what are the plans for today?”

I look over at Brian because I’m not sure what his plans are. We need to talk, but is Shawna’s house the right place for this conversation? Should we leave? Or can I spend the day with Shawna while he goes off with Frank and then meet up with him later? I’m not sure waiting a couple of hours is going to hurt anything, but I don’t know if I can be around him that long without saying something.

“Shawna, could you excuse us for a moment? I want to talk to Donna. Alone.” Brian leads me out of the kitchen and pulls me down the hallway. As soon as he has me in the bedroom, he closes the door and pins me to it.

He kisses me as though it’s the last time he’ll be able to, and I want to stop him, but it feels so right. I’ve missed him. Finally, I push him away. I can tell it bothers him that I stopped the kiss, but I’m hurt by what I saw yesterday.

“I can’t do this with you right now. I can’t even stand the sight of you. I should go bleach out my mouth. Even looking at you makes me question everything.” 

“What are you talking about?  I haven’t done anything wrong. I left you yesterday morning like I do every morning. I didn’t even talk to you all day. How could I have done something wrong?”

“Oh, so, you’re going to play dumb?  That’s so typical of you. And any man, for that matter.”

“I’m not playing dumb! What did I supposedly do?” Brian screams at me.

The playing-dumb comment was a low blow because his dad used to say that to him all the time, but I’m so mad and hurt that I can’t help yelling back at him. “Don’t you fucking patronize me, you asshole!” I really need to calm down.

Turning away so I don’t have to look at him will hopefully help a little. Saying these hurtful things is what I wanted to avoid because I’ll only end up regretting them, but it’s hard to not keep spewing all this shit at him.

Turning back around, I can see the pain on his face. How can he act like he’s hurting? He’s the one who fucked another woman.

“We really should talk,” I say. “I need answers before we act like everything’s okay. I realize that isn’t what you want to hear right now, but it’s the way it needs to be. You can’t come here and stake your claim on me. Right now, I’m not yours. You lost the right to call me yours when you fucked that slut of a secretary you have!” 

Oh shit. Did I really scream at him?  That was not the way I was planning on bringing that up.

“Why the hell would you say I fucked Janice? I haven’t touched any woman but you and you know that.”

He’s pissed now. Well, good, because I’m fucking livid.

“Did you know I was at your office yesterday afternoon? I’m guessing you did because I remember you asking me a couple of times last night. I’m sure Fred told you he saw me going up to your office, and he probably even noticed me storming out. Why would I be running out after coming up to your office to see you?  Hmmmm. . .do you think it could be because you couldn’t keep your fucking dick in your pants?” 

I’m so pissed that I can’t even see straight. A wet spot on my cheek is the only thing letting me know I’m crying. I didn’t want to do this here, but I’m glad I got all of that off my chest.

He starts pacing around the room. Is he going to defend himself, or is he going to come clean and tell me he’s madly in love with Janice and he’s going to leave me for her?

“I don’t know if I should leave and let you believe the shit you just spewed at me or if I should set you straight. I don’t believe, after all these years, you’d think so little of me.” 

“What would you like me to believe? That I was seeing things? That I was imagining a man pumping furiously into a woman who was moaning and yelling, ‘Harder, Brian. Right there. Don’t stop’? Tell me what you’d think and do if you came to my work and heard and saw something similar?” I know he’d believe I was cheating on him.