Return of the Bad Boy (10 page)

“Yeah,” he mutters. “That’s the problem with this place. This place gets its hooks in you, and you’re stuck.”

My father had said something like that. It was one of the reasons he let me go to Boston, instead of keeping me close by. As much as he loved to helicopter over me, he also wanted me to do what he’d never had a chance to do.

“What you gotta do is not wait. Don’ think you got all the time in the world cause one day you wake up an’ you’re an old man, like me. Get out while the getting’s good, and don’t let nothin’ turn your head.”

I start to nod, but then I look over and spy Dax’s face in the rearview mirror. His mouth is a straight line.

When we get back to the house, I see that Dax is right—the boys left not a single strand of spaghetti for us, but what they did leave was all the dirty dishes. I start to clean them off while Dax gets his father settled in his bedroom. When he comes downstairs again, I crank off the faucet and say, “Do you want me to order you a pizza?”

I turn to see him staring hard at the ceiling, his hands behind his head, deep in thought.

“Are you okay?” I ask him.

He shakes his head. “Don’t know. The whole thing with you . . . being here. Making dinner. It’s not that we don’t appreciate it, it’s just that . . .” He lets out a deep sigh. “I think we’re getting carried away.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “What?”

He leans against the kitchen counter, besides all the dishes I just cleaned for his family. “You’re leaving in a few days. Right?”

I nod, not sure where this is going. “Yes, but I’m only a few hours away, and--“

“You’re a
world
away, Katie. You knew this had a time limit. When I said I didn’t want to sneak around, I meant that as adults we shouldn’t have to anymore. But you know who I am. You knew it going in. Don’t shit me by telling me you thought this meant something more than what I can give you.”

I suck in a breath. I’m not sure, because I’ve never been through this before. And yet I have. His eyes are dark, cold and aloof, the way they were when I told him I was going to Boston. But this time, it sounds awfully like
he’s
trying to say goodbye. “What is this? Kick me to the curb before I can do it to you again?”

“You were going to, weren’t you?”

“No, I—“ I stop. “I can come back every weekend. We can make this work.”

He scoffs. “When? While you’re going to law school? You’re fucking going to come back every weekend to hang out with your dumb mechanic boyfriend while you’re getting your law degree?”

“Yes. I mean, no,” I plead. “You’re not dumb. I never thought that. I . . . what about . . .”

What about the past few days? I sound pathetic. I know what sex is to Dax Harding, and in his book, it sure doesn’t spell forever.

I fight back tears stinging the corners of my eyes, do my best to keep my voice from cracking. “So, are you breaking up with me?”

His face is stone, his words are steel. Those green eyes leak no emotion. “We were never together.”

I blink, trying to pinpoint where everything suddenly went to shit. The past few hours flash through my mind—making dinner, him being happy to see me, the ride in his truck where he couldn’t keep his hands off me and told me
I’m going to make you come again and again tonight—
It’s not an hour later, and he’s a different person. Rigid, posture tight. He’s not the Dax I was falling for again. He’s that one that I left, all those years ago.

“So this was only about sex?” I ask.

He nods. “I’ll drive you home.”

“No,” I manage, doing my best to keep my body from trembling. “Don’t bother.”

He stands there for a minute, considering it. Then he pushes open the screen door and stalks out into the dark backyard.

I calmly put down the dishtowel and gather my things. I pause on the front stoop, my finger hovering over my mother’s name in my cell phone. I’m an adult. I’m not supposed to want to call her for every little tragedy.

But damn, how I want to. Closing my eyes, I think of what I’d said to her.
He treats me so good.

Pocketing my phone, I head down the driveway in a daze. I don’t stop when I reach the end of it. I just keep walking. I need to put as much distance between Dax and me as possible. Even Boston seems too close.

And miracle of all miracles, somehow I manage to make it all the way home before I burst into tears.

I
spend
the next two days doing exactly what I should’ve done this week, if I’d known what was good for me: helping my parents get the house ready to go on the market and being the busy little worker bee for Mr. Fowler. Even though I’m not in the office, I’m a workhorse. I answer emails, volunteer to help the other interns, conduct an entire board meeting from three states away, and offer to bring breakfast for Monday when I return. I set up a rental car so that come hell or high water, I will be back in Boston by Monday, by the time my “vacation” ends. I drown myself in busywork so I don’t have to think about Dax.

Not that it helps very well. Or even at all.

When I’m in bed, I don’t sleep. I writhe around in physical pain, tangling myself in the sheets. All I do is replay my last conversation with Dax over and over again in my mind.
You know who I am,
he’d said. But I
didn’t
know that side that he showed everyone. I only knew the person he was when he was with me.

But it doesn’t matter, does it? I’m the moron who let him fool me twice.

On Saturday after dinner, I finish packing up my room. Now it’s down to nothing but bare furniture, a mattress, and fuzzy pink carpeting. I guess I’m not feeling very sentimental about my life in Friesville because there’s only one small box of things I want to keep; the rest I throw in the trash. When my parents are gone, there will be nothing in this town left for me. I’m counting the moments until I can get in my rental car and blow town for good. I’ve lined up a car transport that will deliver my VW to Boston so I don’t have to come back to town. Expensive, but worth it.

My mother raps on the door as I’m finishing tossing things into a garbage bag. She has a little crinkle in her brow and is inspecting the ceiling as if she’s hearing distant thunder. “Oh, this is sad,” she says, wiping a tear from her eye.

I nod. I’m numb. Maybe I’ve cried myself out, but I can’t even bring myself to care that in another few days, my childhood home won’t be mine anymore. I
want
to leave. I can’t fucking wait.

She massages my shoulder. “Don’t worry. It’ll be all right. Dax coming to take you back tomorrow?”

I shake my head. How do I explain to her two seconds after I told her Dax and I were together, it all fell apart? I’ve become convinced that sweet, different side he showed me was nothing but a lie to get me to fall for him again. He wanted to nail the “one that got away”, and he did, game over. “I’m getting a rental.”

She cocks her head to the side in question. I wait for the “Why?” Instead she strides to the now curtain-less window and tilts the blinds. “Speaking of your car . . . “ she says, motioning through the window. “Looks like he got it running again.”

I scramble off my mattress, nearly falling on my face trying to haul myself across the room. It’s darkening outside, but it’s easy to make out my bug in the driveway. The door opens and Dax coolly steps out, and runs a hand through his unruly dark hair, still wearing his body-defining grease-stained t-shirt.

Then he looks right at my window and sees me gawking at him. I cringe and back away, turning all shades of red. I peer down at the same boxers and tank I’ve been wearing since Thursday. They have a stain from last night’s Chinese food on the front. I haven’t even showered in two days. I am the picture of beauty.

FML.

I know that I’m never going to see him again. That’s the plan. Even so, this is not the last image I want Dax Harding to have of me.

“Mom! Tell him I’m not here. Tell him I went out,” I plead, wishing I hadn’t thrown away my old comforter because I’d really like to suffocate myself with it right now.

She gives me a tsk. “Don’t be silly. He already saw you through the window,” she says, pushing a strand of flyaway hair behind my ear. “Did you two have a fight or something?”

“No. I . . . I was wrong. I guess we’re not together. It’s complicated.”

“Oh, baby,” she says, smoothing my hair. “Well, it’s probably for the best. You two do live very different lives. Long distance relationships are hard.”

Maybe I could believe that was what Dax was worried about, if he had even called this a relationship. No, he said we were never together. Clearly, he doesn’t do relationships of any sort, long-distance or not.

Dammit. I told myself I wouldn’t think about it again, but of course suddenly I am, so deeply that when the doorbell finally rings I jump sky high.

“Fine, I’ll get it,” I say, daring myself to open the door without brushing my hair or my teeth.
Let him see you looking like scum. That’ll show him you really don’t care.

Right. Not happening. I quickly stop in the bathroom, smoothing my hair up into a ponytail and squirting a bit of Crest into my mouth. I know he won’t apologize, so I’ll play it cool. I will take the keys, write him a check, and send him on his merry way.

I take a few deep breaths when I reach the door, to steel myself.
I will be tough. I will be iron
, I chant to myself.

“Hey,” he says when I answer. My resolve crumbles immediately. He has his baseball cap backwards and his hands dug deep in his pockets, like a little boy. I melt like a popsicle on the hottest day of summer.

I look past him, at the car, because those eyes will do their thing and make me even more his than I already am. “You fixed it,” I say, trying to keep my voice hard.

He nods, pulls open the screen door, and motions me to follow him outside. “Yeah. The engine’s so fucking sweet it puts all other cars to shame. Your brakes were shit, too, so I got new pads. . .” He keeps going on and on. I walk behind him, into the fading daylight, as he leads me around it, showing it off. There’s no doubt—the car is beautiful now. Not good as new, but better than I’ve seen it looking in years. Did he . . . give it a new paint job? What the hell . . . are those new hubcaps? He keeps talking about a mile a minute, about all the improvements he made. Half of the things he says go right past me. Most of it goes right past me.

Because all I want him to do is stop talking about the fucking car and hold me.

“It’s nice, but I can’t pay you for all this,” I break in, while he’s going on about how he changed all the fluids. “I don’t have the money.”

He pulls the key out of his pocket and lays it on my palm. “No charge.”

I take the key and step away. This is his penance. It’s his way of apologizing for screwing me over. But I’m not going to tell him it’s all right, because it’s not.

“Thanks,” I mumble, turning to go back inside. This is it. This is the end.

How can it be the end when every pore in my body is still screaming out for him?

“Wait,” he says.

Thank God.

I whirl around. “Yes.”

“I shouldn’t have done that to you, Katydid. I tried not to. But you’re so damn sweet, and sexy, and . . . I tried to control myself. I really did.” He squeezes his eyes closed for a second. “It’s no excuse. It never would’ve worked between us.”

The excuse only makes me angrier. For me, this was real. Maybe it was even love. But for him, it was his inability to control his stupid libido?

Pathetic.

“I’m so sorry for your lack of control. Maybe you should see a doctor for it.” It takes every ounce of strength I have to shrug with indifference, like him walking away won’t be the most painful thing that’s ever happened to me. “And, sure. If you keep saying it’ll never work, that’s one way to make sure nothing ever works,” I say. “Goodbye, Dax.”

I stomp toward the porch and thankfully, he’s on my heels. He puts his warm hand on my bare arm and whirls me around. “Come on, Katydid. You really think someone like me could ever . . .”

I laugh bitterly. “What does it matter what I think? It’s what you want. You always got on me for doing what my parents expected me to. But you’re so much worse, trying to do what everyone expects
you
to, keeping up this image as a bad boy who doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”

He holds up his hands. “Now, that’s not right. I—“

“It’s true. And really, at this point I think you’re right. All you’re good for is screwing girl after girl. You said it yourself. That’s who you are and you’re not about to change. And I know why. It’s because you’ve always been scared of change.”

He lets the words sink in, and for a split second, I think that maybe I’ve gotten to him. Maybe I’ve wounded him, just a little bit. But then he rubs the back of his neck and looks at the ground. “Yeah. Huh. That’s what I said.” He lets out a heavy breath and looks back at my VW. “But I’m not all bad, am I, Katydid? Fixed your car.”

He gives me this little boy grin that makes it impossible to hate him. But I fucking do hate him. I hate him for being such a man and for not being enough of a man. “How will you get home?”

“I could do with the walk,” he says. “It’ll give me time to think. You leaving for the city tomorrow?”

I nod, wondering if he’ll have room in that brain of his to even think of me while I’m gone. Or if he’ll forget so easily, like last time.

“Guess this is goodbye, then, huh?”

I don’t want it to be. I need him to grab me and tell me to stay. I think back of when I left for college, and how he told me to go. How I kept wishing he’d show up at my dorm and say he made a mistake. It didn’t happen then, and it won’t happen now.

Yes, this is really goodbye.

Suddenly, he steps forward and pulls me against his strong body. His hands tighten around my arms just the way I’d wanted to grab for him—desperately, with no intention of ever letting go. His heart is beating in my ear and he’s warm and pleasant and safe and all those things that Boston is not. It’s more than that, though—it’s a sensation I’ve only had a handful of times in my life, of being one hundred percent comfortable and happy and home.

With him. I’ve only had it with him.

He doesn’t say anything though. He just holds me there. I have to remind myself that he was the one who threw me away. The seconds tick by, making this home feel so temporary, and futile.

I feel my every nerve weakening inside me. If I stay here any longer, I will be powerless to stop him from hurting me, over and over again.

And I can’t do this anymore.

Standing on my tip-toes, I kiss him on the cheek, and push him away. I don’t look in his eyes. That would be my undoing.

I mumble a goodbye and rush into the house before he can see my eyes fill with tears. Turns out, I’m not all cried out, after all.