Hate (29 page)

“Well, you’re about a decibel shy of making your own scene, Elbow,” he pointed out, using my nickname as an extra incentive to make me have a full blown meltdown.

Apparently, he liked the crazy.

I forced myself to change my tone of voice to that of someone with composure and class. It was tough.

“I’m not about to make a scene,” I argued, this time demurely.

At that, he threw back his head and laughed openly. Rich and deep and all the way from the bottom of his toned belly. It wrinkled his eyes at the corners and puffed up his cheeks fully. His mouth was slightly open, the curve of his lips going as far as the stretch of his skin would allow. His throat bobbed and the tan skin flexed as his veins moved in and out.

It was the kind of laugh that made you fall in love with someone.

And it was even worse if you’d already fallen.

“You’re beautiful,” Blane whispered, and my eyes shot directly from the table to his.

Gram chose that moment to get over the novelty of her diapers. “Thank you, dear.”

Blane just smiled again, the slight shake of his head barely visible.

“So, Blane, what do you do for a living?” Gram asked, obvious to any and all tension hanging precariously between us.

He turned to face her, but not without giving me a wink first. It was bold and in my face and the opposite of subtle. I didn’t understand how he could be so fucking at ease sitting here at this table after the night we’d spent together. After what I’d said to him the next morning.

Jesus. I had to fight to keep from hanging my head in shame right there at the table. I’d been awful. And still, he was here, taking my batty, old grandmother out to dinner. Listening to her talk about her incontinence and smiling.

What kind of alternate universe was this?

“I’m a Federal Air Marshall, ma’am. But I’m actually taking a decent vacation right now. I had some time stored up and earned some more in a recent incident.” He glanced to me, keeping his descriptions very PC for my grandmother’s benefit. “I plan to spend a lot of time here.”

Looking back to me, he finished, “With both of you.”

Ah, crap.

“Blane,” I started to argue, but Gram talked over me.

“That’s wonderful! I can’t tell you how nice it’ll be to have someone worthwhile around.”

“Gram!”

“Right,” she said, barely acknowledging me. “Besides my granddaughter.”

“I think your granddaughter is one of the most worthwhile people I know,” Blane told her.

I almost blushed at the compliment.

That was, until he used it to trap me.

“That’s why I was hoping to get her to agree to go out on a date with me. Maybe you can help me convince her?”

He fought dirty. The bastard.

“Well, you can start by talking to her instead of me. That’s the best advice I can give. Us women, we like to be talked to directly,” she schooled him, completely surprising me by being on my side.

I couldn’t hold it in. I laughed.

“Right,” he said with a smile, turning to face me. “What do you say, Whit? Go on a real date with me?”

“What’s a
real
date?” I questioned, giving him a hard time. “What’s that even mean?”

“I think he means without the old woman as a chaperone, dear,” Gram translated helpfully. “He needed to talk directly to you, but you need to turn down the frigidity.”

Now Blane was laughing at me, short staccato bursts of mirth-filled air. The old bird sure knew how to throw everyone under the bus.

I gritted my teeth against saying something biting. All that would do was prove her point.

“It does mean that it would be just the two of us. And it means that it would be romantic. Not just two old friends hanging out, shooting the shit.” He paused, looked at my grandmother, and then attempted to apologize for his language. “Excuse me, ma’am.”

He shouldn’t have bothered.

“What’d you do? Fart?”

Ah, man. Smartly, we both ignored her.

Instead, Blane kept explaining his definition of date. “There might even be flowers involved, or if you’re really lucky, chocolate.”

“I know what a date is. I’ve been on one before.”

“One?” he asked, the corner of his mouth curving up.

“More than one. Jesus.”

“You dated Jesus?” Gram interjected. “I must be older than I thought.”

Again, I ignored her.

“Convince me,” I declared, like some kind of idiot. The man I was in love with was asking me on date, I had basically no other options, and I was still making him jump through hoops.

Somebody shock me. Strap me to a chair, hook up the electrodes, and throw the damn switch.

“Convince me, right now. Tell me why I should go on a date with you. Tell me something good and mean it. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll consider it.”

“Alright,” he agreed, taking a sip of his water before finishing. “How about I’m in love with you?”

Unable to speak with my chin on the table, I sat silent.

“Good enough for you?”

The cruelty of his statement ate all the way into my bones. So much so that I couldn’t even respond.

Instead, I pushed back from the table in a rush, making a mad dash for the bathroom, leaving him and my grandmother sitting there speechless.

MY HANDS WERE SHAKING, AND the evidence of a cold sweat trickled grossly down my back.

I saw a woman looking back at me in the mirror, but she didn’t look like the me I knew.

She looked scared. Broken. Unbelievably unconfident.

She reminded me of the girl I saw the night I’d dyed my hair.

I’d worked years to build a persona so opposite those things that the sight of it staring back at me refused to sink in. I couldn’t accept it, I couldn’t understand it, and I struggled to figure out where it was coming from.

A challenge. I’d given one to Blane, and he’d done me one better by saying the one thing I never thought he’d say.

The one thing I couldn’t categorize as true.

I wasn’t unrealistic. I knew he wouldn’t be doomed to love a ghost for his entire life, that he’d move on from Franny one day, find some beautiful, smart woman to fill all the voids in his life.

But from where I was sitting, that woman wasn’t me.

We’d been through so much together, that even putting it into words seemed unjust.

We’d woven our way in and out of friendship, and beyond that, in and out of each others’ lives. He’d gone a fucking decade without me. Why should I believe that he needed me now?

The door busted open, Gram’s sharp voice cutting into the now open room like a razor. “Thanks, but now you’re not needed. See ya.”

I could see a man’s upper body leaned into the door back first, clearly holding it open for the wheelchair-bound maniac, but he beat feet as soon as she said the word.

And then it was the two of us. In a room with no windows or other obvious escape routes.

“Crap,” I muttered aloud, drawing a teeny tiny smile from Gram’s peach-glossed lips.

“Yep. Spill it. You ran out of there like a gosh darn marathoner, and me and those extra fifteen pounds you’re carrying both know that’s not the case.”

Self-consciously, I tugged on my body-hugging shirt. I guess I should be glad she didn’t say twenty.

“Oh stop. Men like a little cushion. Less likely to get stabbed by one of your bones when they’re—”

“Okay! Now you can stop.”

“—holding your hand. Man, you’re a dirty one, aren’t you?”

My eyes rolled naturally.

“Some advice, NeeNee,” she started, using her annoying nickname as a way to exert dominance, “When a man tells you he loves you, you say it back. At the very least, you throw out a thank you. But you never, ever, ever, run away like he just killed your kitten or, I don’t know, something really horrible like ate the last pickle.”

“Gram, you don’t even realize—”

“I realize more than you think.”

I’m sure that was actually true.

“But I’m so wrapped up in this. There’s way more to this story than a simple I love you, I love you back conversation. When he said that out there, it felt like a fucking bomb. I literally thought my chest might explode, so you’ll excuse me if I came in here to do it where the tile walls are easier to wipe down.”

“Hmm,” she pondered, her hands clasped gently together in her lap. Pointing to the ceiling, she declared, “This is what we’re going to do.”

“This oughta be good,” I breathed on an exhale. She didn’t falter. Whether it was because of lack of hearing or apathy, I had no idea.

“We’re going back out there, and you’re going to agree to go on a date. If nothing else, he’s one extremely good looking fellow, and if you don’t scoop him up, I will. I know a few more things than you in the experience department, but I’m thinking your look is more his taste.”

“Gram—”

“You’ll ignore the declaration of love. He seems bright, and if your running in here didn’t do the trick, ignoring the subject will. But you’re going on that date. I don’t like the idea of you being alone forever, and with the way it’s been going, this seems like your only shot.”

“Wow. Straight through the heart.”

“Oh please. You like it blunt. If I tiptoed around this you’d be ignoring everything I said. Which is unacceptable. Now, putting it to you this way, I know you’ll listen.”

“You’re alone,” I shot back, feeling a little stupid for bickering with a ninety year old woman.

Really mature on my part.

“I’m alone because I’m old, and my husband is dead. That man out there is very much alive. God willing you’ll get a solid sixty years out of him before he kicks the bucket.”

“Not everyone lives until they’re old,” I argued, knowing it was all too true.

Gram didn’t blink. “Not everyone dies young.”

She spun on a wheel, opening the door with ease, and shot out of the room. Obviously she forced some poor fool to help her before just for the kicks because she managed just fine on the way back out.

I followed her out, not stopping to look at myself in the mirror even one time or splash water on my face. I knew if I did, I’d falter, and I’d put off reality for long enough.

When I got back to the table, they were both there waiting and greeted me with overly big smiles.

Gram’s was scary, but Blane’s seemed genuine. Which really, was even more frightening.

“Sorry,” I murmured softly, not sure what I was taking responsibility for—running to the bathroom or ignoring the subject all together now that I was back.

Either way, Blane didn’t seem to mind, his blue eyes assessing but unsheltered.

He didn’t try to hide himself from me, and he didn’t look like he was in the middle of a level five fuck up.

He looked like himself. He looked like the guy who shoved a book in my face in seventh grade. Only way more clean cut. His hair almost seemed to swoop in the front, just long enough to style, but far too short to hang in his face. His eyes shined bright like always, the lines of his face more mature and hidden under a subtle layer of facial hair.

And his posture was fraught with maturity and experience. His body moved like he’d been through it all, and from what I knew, he had.

The man across from me, warmth and realness in his every movement, had been through the loss of an unborn child, the death of a parent, and the far too early demise of a lover. He’d been to war and back, and he put his life on the line fighting the people who killed his father day after day.

He cried when warranted and laughed even more, and all of that in one man, looking at me the way he was looking at me, was almost too much.

My hands shook, and I just barely managed to keep the tremors from shooting straight up my arms.

So I did it before I couldn’t. “I’ll go on a date with you.”

“What’s that?” he asked, his neck cocked forward as though he hadn’t been able to hear me.

“I’ll go on a date with you,” I repeated, louder this time.

He cocked his head again, squinting his eyes and leaning in.

“I’m sorry, what?”

Angry, nervous, and shaken, I yelled, “Yes! Yes, I’ll go on a date with you!”

He leaned back in one swift movement, so fast that he almost rocked forward again, and smiled. “Excellent! I really love your excitement.” He looked to the woman beside us—the same one to whom Gram had given her adult diaper tutorial. “She’s just glad I finally agreed to go out with her.”

Outraged, I leaned forward and pointed to myself. “You finally agreed to go out with me?! Are you delusional?”

“Come on, baby. Everybody heard you.”

“You’re an asshole.”

He smiled huge, the apples of his cheeks kissing the corners of his eyes. “You told me one day some lucky girl was gonna call me an asshole a lot. I’m really hoping it’s gonna be you.”

He turned casually to Gram, and raised his thick but groomed, dark brows. “Looks like I’m off to a good start.”

For once, I had no come back. The memory of the night we’d met Franny was so vivid in my mind. I had told him that. In fact, we’d been arguing in much the same manner as we had been two minutes ago. I’d had no idea that night, when I told him he’d find a girl to insult him for the rest of his life, that I’d want to be that girl so badly.