Page 13 of By His Rule

“What? King and Kian won’t care about what that prick has done to you. They’ll?—”

“That’s the problem, Tate. They’ll give me a free pass because I’m your friend. I don’t want free passes. I want to work for everything I achieve.”

“Lori, you have worked for everything you’ve achieved. You never should have started your career at that place. You deserve so much more.”

Unable to listen to her reasoning anymore, I reach for the bottle of vodka that’s taunting me from the coffee table and twist the top off.

“That’s not going to help,” Tate chastises.

“You’re just bitter because you can’t have any,” I shoot back before lifting the bottle to my lips and swallowing a huge mouthful.

It burns all the way down, making me hungry for more.

“Have you eaten?”

“Jeez, T. When did you become my mother?” I mutter. “No, wait. My mother doesn’t care that much.”

Tatum sighs. I don’t look back at her. I don’t need to. I can feel the sympathy oozing out of her.

Silence stretches out for a few minutes. I hate the reprieve just as much as I love it.

“What are you going to do?” she asks softly, finally breaking the silence.

I shrug one shoulder as I swallow another shot of vodka for good measure. “I’ll start job searching tomorrow.”

“Or you could just send your resume in for this job.”

“Tate, you need to stop.”

“I’ll never stop supporting you and helping you make the right decision.”

“Callahan isn’t the right decision,” I argue as I push to my feet and place the empty bottle back on the coffee table.

The room around me spins as the glinting lights from the city beneath us twinkle in the dark.

“You should go home to your husband,” I say, unable to keep the bitterness from my tone.

If I wasn’t aware that Tate knows me well enough not to take my attitude to heart, then I’d feel bad about it. But Tate is closer to me than anyone, and she understands that this is just my way of dealing with everything.

“He knows where I am. It’ll do him good to be waiting around for me to return home.”

Usually, I’d agree and encourage her to be bad and drive him wild. But I don’t have it in me tonight.

I don’t have anything in me right now. All I want to do is curl up in bed in the dark and pray this was all a bad dream.

“I’m okay, Tate,” I say, sounding anything but convincing as I come to a stop beside the front door. “Go and spend the night enjoying your man. One of us might as well.”

I look up just in time to see that expression on her face that I hate.

“Everything will work out, Lor,” she promises as she moves toward me with her hand on her growing bump.

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I know. It always does, right?” What I really mean is that it does for the likes of Tatum and the people she’s usually surrounded by. For people like me, however, it seems that nothing ever works out. We just constantly keep getting knocked down, dragging ourselves back up again, each time a little more broken and beaten than before.

“Will you do something for me?” she asks once she’s standing before me, ready to leave.

“Anything,” I say before I get a chance to realize my mistake.

She smiles, only confirming my suspicion.

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