Page 40 of Without You, Scotch and Sammy 2

“We have pediatricians here. We have courthouses. We have everything you need, and anything we don’t, the city’s only an hour away. You can find everything else there.”

“Yeah, I know. I live in the city.”

Sam’s chest fills to bursting point as he stops and glares at me. “You live in the city an hour away from here?”

I nod my head.

“Since when?”

“Since a couple weeks after I last saw you.”

He breathes heavily through his teeth, his jaw clenches and grinds, and his hands flex. “You’ve been living an hour away this whole time?”

I nod again.

Sam turns and slams an open cupboard door. “I fucking hate you, Samantha. I hate you with every cell in my body and I wish I never met you.”

His words cut me to the quick. But Lily’s squeaking in the distance reminds me why I’m doing this. I look away from him before the moisture in my eyes turn to full tears and fall.

“You never marked the city on your map.”

I shrug. If I speak, my voice will crack.

“I’m not leaving this town, Samantha. I’m not leaving my apartment. My life went on without you, and you missed it all. My sister is married and has a kid now, and my brother is newly engaged. You are nothing but a traitorous thieving bitch with no care for anyone’s feelings but your own. I have a spare room here. Use it. Don’t. I don’t fucking care, but don’t speak to me unless you absolutely have to. I’ll see you at our appointments, but other than that, I hope not to see you at all. Set your watch, because in two months from now, I wanna see your back for the last time, and I won’t be crying over your shitty goodbyes again.”

He snatches the list of dates from beneath my elbow, then scrunching it up and shoving it in his pocket, he storms from the kitchen and slams the door loudly behind him.

That’s three for three now. Three times we’ve met and talked in the last twenty-four hours. And three times Sam has yelled at me and stormed out.

It doesn’t hurt any less each time it happens.

If anything, it hurts more.

– Scotch –

Tastes Like Metal

“How’d it go?”

I stop just inside the roller doors of Ang’s workshop and look down as he rolls out from beneath a ten-year-old muscle car. “Shitty.”

“You yelled at her again.”

“Yup. Accidentally called her a bitch too.”

He wipes his hands on a rag and continues to lay on the roller board on the ground. “I know. I heard you. I was ready to come up and show you what happens when a guy disrespects a lady like that.”

I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m sorry.”

“You know better.”

“Yeah… I know.”

“You planning to make a habit of morning drinking then shouting at the ladies? Because I can’t get on board with that. Thirty years of friendship, bud. It’d be a shame for that to have all been a waste.”

He’s not bluffing. And he’s not wrong. “No. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“Don’t speak, Scotch. Do.”

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