Page 28 of Dirty Ginger

“Want to talk about it?”

Her gaze held his. “I think the question is, do you want to talk about it?”

A sharp iciness hit his gut at the firmness in her stare. Toward the end of their relationship, he’d been closed off and shut down whenever she wanted to talk about things going on in is life. He’d never make that mistake again. “There is no question that I won’t answer,” he told her. “But I reserve the right on when I choose to answer it.”

She considered, resting her hands on the pommel of the saddle. “Okay, that’s fair.”

He inclined his head. “What’s the question, then?”

“When did you become like this?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Like what exactly?”

“At peace.”

He knew the line he walked. He couldn’t throw too much at her. “Some of the changes are simply growing up and maturing, I think. But the biggest changes in my life happened a month after you left for school.”

“What happened?”

“Everything changed after you left.” Beckett made the slight correction to Autumn, as Danika pinned her ears, curling up her nose as the mare got too close. With the horses settled, he blew out a long breath and allowed himself to go back to the darkest time of his life.

Beckett squeezed his skull, hoping to ease the hard throbs in his head. His mouth was bone dry. His stomach queasy. He forced himself to open one eye, realizing he wasn’t at home. He was lying on Hayes’ couch in his living room. He peeled open another eye, and when the room stopped spinning, he also realized he wasn’t alone.

Hayes sat on the recliner in the corner, fury written into every hard line on his face. “Beckett,” he said.

“Mornin’,” Beckett groaned. He sat up, noticing the glass of water with two pain killers waiting for him on the coffee table. He tossed back the meds, and his stomach nearly rejected the blessing.

“Everyone has a rock bottom,” Hayes said the moment Beckett set down the glass. “This is yours. You’ve hit it. There is nowhere else to go but six feet under.” He hesitated, and then his voice softened. “You have become the one thing you swore you’d never become.” Beckett steeled himself, but he still wasn’t ready for the blow, “You’ve become your father. You’ve got no joy in your life, no happiness, not a damn thing.”

Beckett forced himself to hold Hayes’ gaze, even though everything inside of him felt weak and broken and he wanted to curl up into himself.

When Beckett stayed silent, not having words to explain, Hayes continued. “Do you have any recollection of what happened last night?”

Beckett fought through his hazy memories. “I remember going to the bar.”

“You don’t remember the fight?”

A quick look down revealed scraps on Beckett’s knuckles, and now aware of it, the corner of his lip felt sore. It occurred to him then that the pain in his head wasn’t only from a hangover. “A fight? Shit, no, I don’t remember that.”

Hayes exhaled a long breath, shaking his head slowly, his lips pressed into a thin line. “Everyone has told me to stay quiet. To let you figure this out. But I can’t keep doing that. Not anymore. Why are you destroying yourself?”

Beckett stared into his best friend’s eyes, saw the warm affection there. The only affection he had left in his life. He barely managed, “You know why.”

“Because you lost Amelia?”

Beckett let silence be his answer.

Hayes growled, “That’s a fucking cop out, you know that.”

The fury in Hayes’ voice snapped Beckett’s gaze up, and his friend glared fiercely. “You haven’t lost shit. You let her walk right out of your life because you’re too damn afraid to face the shit in your past and to deal with your father. So, now, you’re drowning yourself in booze and giving up. Tell me why.”

Beckett forced his voice through his pained throat. “She deserves better than me.”

“Then be better. Do better.” Hayes tapped the side of his head. “Get this better, so when she comes home, you’re who she deserves.”

“So, that’s exactly what I did,” Beckett said, accepting the coldness in his chest at the memory instead of pushing it away. But pride was in there too that he could talk about this now and he’d done the work to heal very broken parts of his soul.

She watched him with big eyes. “You bettered yourself for when I came home after school?”

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