Page 68 of Tulips and Lost Time

“I’m going back to school in the morning. Please don’t come looking for me again.”

19

LUC

OUCH

“Jesus.” Kane rubs his palms over his cheeks, much the same way Kari did all those years ago. “Fucking brutal, man.”

“Ya think?” Shaking my head, I look down at Billy and scoff. “Kinda hope to never experience a discussion like that ever again.”

“Why’d she come back to town, though?” He sits forward at the table, resting his elbows on top and linking his tatted fingers together. “Like, I get that she saw you the night before. And that probably spooked her. But she told you point blank you don’t get to ask about her relationship. She said you don’t get to ask about her life. So she wasn’t there to explain Biff.”

“She was, actually.” I sit back in my chair and revisit some of the darkest days of my life.

Darkest… until now.

“It took a lot of years for the truth to come out, but Kari admitted she was coming home to explain that he was just a friend.”

“A friend?” he snorts. “Yeah, no. Blake was not a friend. He was a ten-inch dick she liked to spend time with. But then she got caught.”

“No.” Chuckling—because it’s not like I didn’t believe the girls at first, too—I play with Billy’s peach hair and wrinkle my nose. “Setting what you think you know aside, it eventually came out that Kari and Blake were friends. Buddies in class. They became kinda close, but they were never intimate.”

“Dude! The girls call him Ten!”

“And if you asked Jess today, she’d laugh and tell you how they called him that because it was funny. These are the same girls who snuck a butt plug into Jess’ bag and let you assume it was hers. The same girls who snuck around the club and scoped out the one blind spot that existed, so they could dance and drink and flirt without their brothers supervising them. Blake got that nickname because he’s tall. But none of them, especially not Kari, knows what size cock he has. And last I heard, he and his boyfriend, Clint, are quite happy together.”

“You lie.” Kane narrows his eyes. “You’re more gullible than a puppy if you believe that.”

“Kari and I went to his wedding two years ago, but okay. You believe whichever version you want. You asked why Kari rushed home to see me, and I’m telling you: she wanted to explain Blake.”

“But she didn’t! She told you to mind your business.”

“She’s stubborn. And she’d seen me stumble home from a one-night stand. Her plans went out the window the second I screwed up. We fought that night, and so, instead of explaining, she tossed lighter fluid and a match on anything we had left. Because of what I did.”

“Years?” He tilts his head to the side to study me. “Took her years to fess up?”

I exhale a long, tired sigh and look down as Billy finally begins to fuss. Her little body wriggles, her chapped lips wrinkle. She’s not quite awake yet, but she will be. Soon. “She went back inside the house after our argument and kept her word on not telling Britt she knew. All four of them returned to school the next morning. And I…” I groan. “I didn’t see Kari again for another three years.”

“Another three!” His black eyes, and the permanent lines etched into his cheeks below, lift in surprise. “Three years! Lenaghan. That’s six, gone. For no good reason at all.”

“Six,” I agree. “Gone. And though the first three were spent alone and sad and working, the latter three were not quite the same.”

“You slutted it up,” he guesses. “Which was the reputation I heard around town. Before you eventually settled down with Kari, word was you were nothing but a filthy whore.”

I bring Billy up to rest her cheek on my chest and let her legs dangle. She’s working through a gas bubble that gravity might help. “As far as I knew, Kari was heading back to Ten. I thought I’d lost her, so I…” I grit my teeth and pat Billy’s backside. “I spiraled a little bit. I’m not proud of it. But I’m man enough to admit my mistakes.”

“Brave of you,” he smirks. Then pushing up from his place at the table, he steps around and extends his hands for the baby. “She’s about to drop a giant deuce, and then she’ll want a bottle.”

“So you’re volunteering to clean her diaper?”

“I want more babies, Luca.” He takes Billy and holds her close. “I want a dozen more the way I used to want to make bad decisions.”

“So…”

“Jess doesn’t want a dozen more. I figure changing a massive, smelly shit might bring me back to earth on the baby front.” He chuckles and turns away, swaying and almost dancing with my daughter across the kitchen. “So Kari was sneak-dating a gay man who may, or may not, have had a giant dick, and you were sorry for sleeping with Britt, so in apology, you went out and slept with every other single female in the state.” He glances back with a grin. “That’s where we’re up to in the story?”

“Seems that way.” I don’t get up. I don’t think my legs could carry me if I tried. But I meet his eyes before he disappears around the corner and out of sight. “I fucked everything up to a point of no return. I broke Kari’s heart… again. I drunk-slept with my friend’s little sister, and I sure as shit never told him about it. In fact, I considered myself a saint for not sharing that information, since Britt didn’t want anyone to know, Kari didn’t want anyone to know, and Scotch was still dealing with the wife who left his heart shattered on the side of the road thing. I was the martyr for shutting my mouth.”

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