Cocky Bastard
Page 54

Fuck you, Aubrey.
Fuck you.
I hate you.
I love you.
I hate you.
I love you.
Shit.
I still love you so much.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Back in Hermosa Beach the following Sunday, I still hadn’t heard from her. I refused to reach out first, especially knowing what I knew. If she didn’t care enough to at least call me to let me know what was going on, then I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of contacting her.
A flock of seagulls followed me as I walked along the beach near my loft. Kicking the sand, I wondered where my life would go from here, how I would spend my days without the focus on getting Aubrey back. More than anything, I wondered how I could possibly make myself forget her long enough to move on.
Picking a spot, I sat down and gazed out into the ocean. The water was rough. A brisk wind blew some sand into my eyes. A few surfers rode the choppy waves in the distance. A group of people were playing volleyball a few feet away. One of the girls ran over to me.
“Hey, we need another player. Want to join?”
Why the hell not? A distraction certainly couldn’t hurt. “Yeah. Alright.” Lifting my sluggish body off the ground, I joined a guy and a girl on one side of the net. Repeatedly serving the ball under arm, I kept my team in the lead for several games.
At one point, we took a break, and the only other guy player went to fetch some waters for us from the beach concession stand. When he returned, he was cracking up.
“Dude, you’re never gonna believe what I just saw.”
“What’s that, Mate?”
“There was a chick in line with a goat on a leash.”
I dropped the ball. “Say what?”
“A goddamn goat on a leash! This smoking hot chick, too. She wa—”
“Where?”
He pointed in the direction from which he came.
When I immediately took off, one of the girls yelled from behind me. “Hey, don’t leave! We’re starting another game.”
“Play without me,” I shouted without looking back.
My heart felt like it was beating unnaturally fast.
When I got to the concession stand, no one was in line. Looking around frantically, I wondered if it were possible that this were just a coincidence. A goat on a leash? No way. She was here.
Then, I saw her.
Aubrey.
My God.
She and Mutton were sitting alone on the sand. She was feeding him an ice cream cone as she looked out towards the water. The wind was blowing her hair around. She looked heart-stoppingly beautiful. Staring at her in disbelief, I stood there for the longest time without saying anything.
Somehow, he noticed me first. The “blind” goat suddenly bolted toward me, nearly knocking me down in the process.
Not knowing why the animal took off, Aubrey jumped up in a panic before she realized he was in my arms.
She stood up and brushed sand off of her pale yellow sundress. “Chance.”
“Princess. What are you doing here?”
“I’m parked at your house. You didn’t get my text?”
I took my phone out of my pocket and realized I had missed a text from her. It must have come in during the volleyball game. “No, but I see it now.”
Trying not to get overly excited, I reminded myself that she could very well have come here just to deliver the bad news in person. Despite my wanting to reach out and touch her, my body stiffened instead as a self-protective mechanism.
“Can we walk to your house? I don’t want to have this talk here.” She wasn’t smiling. Her expression was only confirming my worst fears.
A feeling of dread developed at the pit of my stomach. “Sure.”
The short walk to my place was quiet. When we arrived, Aubrey’s car was parked out front. We sat outside on the front steps to the loft. Mutton chewed on the grass next to us. She rubbed her palms together nervously.
“Go on, Aubrey. Just get it over with.”
She looked like she was about to cry, and her question caught me off guard. “Are you seeing someone?”
My tone was abrupt. “Am I seeing someone?”
“Just answer me.”
“No, Aubrey. I’ve done nothing but eat, sleep and breathe you for weeks.” My tone bordered on angry. “Why would you ask me that?”
“The other night, I returned to my house to get some things I forgot during the move. Philomena saw my car and came out to tell me that you had been there earlier in the day. So, I went to your motel that night. There was a car parked outside. When I peeked in the window, a girl was with you, and she was putting a shirt over her head. I think it was that bartender.”
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Are you kidding me?
Fuck.
“Princess, listen to me.” I placed my hand under her chin, directing her to look at me. “I promise you, I will never lie to you. Do you believe me?”
“Just tell me the truth.”
“That was Carla. She’s a friend. You’re right. She’s the bartender at the bar I frequented. She followed me back to my room because I drank too much that night. She took off her clothes and came on to me, but I stopped it. Nothing happened.”
“Really?”
“I swear on my Mum’s grave. Carla kissed me and started to undress me, but I told her I couldn’t do anything, nor did I want to.”
She let out a huge breath. “Oh my God. I’ve been losing sleep. I know I don’t even have a right to be upset after the way I’ve treated you.”
“My judgment was off that night. I was devastated after I found out you decided to go to Boston. It felt like my life was over.”
“Boston? I never decided to go to Boston.”
“What? But all of your stuff was gone.”
“Yes. I moved out…but not to go to Boston.”
“Philomena talked to Dick while you were packing. He told her you’d made up your mind to go with him.”
“No. That’s not true.”
“Fuck, Princess. That’s why I got so sloshed that night. I thought I’d lost you.”
“Richard was hopeful. Maybe that’s why he told Philomena I was moving with him. He kept thinking he could convince me, dangling the promise of a job and all. I hadn’t told him about you until the next day. I wanted to pack my stuff before things got ugly.”
“Wait. Are you telling me…”
“I never intended to go to Boston, Chance. My mind was basically made up a long time before that, but I was still scared to give in to you completely. The fear is always going to be there. I will always be afraid to lose you because of how much I love you. Spending that one day with you here, though, it felt so right. I’d never been more certain of anything in my life. I knew I had to go back and tie up my loose ends. I knew I had to end it with him.”
“You broke up with Dick?”
“Yes. It was a mess. I told him everything. He accused me of fucking you and your twin brother, Harry the landscaper.”
We both burst out into laughter, startling the goat who miraculously stayed conscious for once.
“If only I were two people and could double team you. Did you tell him I don’t really have a twin?”
“No. Once he accused me of being a slut, I didn’t care to clarify.”